Celebrating 8 wonderful years of marriage in Amsterdam

We went to Amsterdam for our 8th anniversary (without the kids!) It was a great trip. We rented and apartment in the Jordaan district and spent 4 days getting to know this fabulous city. We took a canal boat tour, window shopped on the nine streets, ate lunch in Vondel Park, visited the Hermitage, Van Gogh and Anne Frank museums, had dinner at a great Thai restaurant, ate the worst sushi ever (we now call it the Charlie tuna roll dinner), walked through the Red Light District (pictures not included!), had a drink in Leidseplein, saw the tulips at Keukenhof gardens, and missed our flight home! "Did you know that in 1600 Amsterdam had a population of approximately 50,000. However, by 1650 the number of residents had swelled to near 250,000. A series of canals were built to handle the increased population making Amsterdam one of the worlds first planned cities."

The Dam Palace

An evening out at a Thai restaurant!

Outside the Hermitage.

Angela standing in front of her city apartment in Amsterdam

The Dutch could have conquered the world if is wasn't for the shoes

In front of the Anne Frank house.  It was an amazing experience to spend time in that house and see the original diary.

I could not stop taking pictures of the gables on top of the houses.  We heard from a guide that hundreds of years ago mail did not have a house number just your street and a picture of the gable on top of your house!

Behind us is the St. Nicholas cathedral. Despite four attempts we never made it inside. Oh well I guess there is always next time.

More gables!

When Lucas almost picked up a baby duck!!

The weather was nice in May and we had heard from friends there were baby ducks at Stadsparken! Two great reasons to meet friends at Stadsparken after dagis.  First we spent some time on the swings.

 Then Lucas and Annalise had a snack.

 (Have you noticed it is almost impossible to get a picture where both kids are looking at the camera- so frustrating!!)

 Here is Annalise and her friend S in their really cool cargo bike.  Annalise loves this thing!

 Here are all the cute baby ducks!  I was trying to get a good picture of them when Lucas ran up to them and ...

 almost picked one up!  I would have gotten a better picture of it if I had a few extra hands.  Instead of capturing the occasion with a picture I had to grab my little boy before he picked up a baby duck and/or  jumped right into the lake.

 Here are Annalise and S feeding the ducks!

 Love that girl and miss her smile! She moved back to the US a month ago with her family.  All four Runyons miss that family like crazy!

I think the funny thing was the baby ducks were not afraid of Lucas at all.  They were practically jumping into his hands!

Surprise, we live 10 minutes from the beach!

Angela- "So I just google mapped Lomma beach and it is only ten minutes away."

Ray- "Huh, let's go after work tomorrow."

So this conversation happened after we had lived in Sweden for seven months! Seven months and we had not been to the beach (and it is only 10 minutes away)!  I know this may seem crazy but it has been really cold, really really cold. And we don't have a car. And the whole settling in to another country thing has pretty much taken up most of our time.  So we decided to go to the beach the next day and it was great weather!

 Building a sand castle!

 Lucas loves to play in the sand and dig with a shovel.

 The castle is finished!

 "Can you believe we get to play on a white sandy beach and we aren't even on vacation?"

 Annalise found a seashell!

What a great day!