Home Sweet Home......

Happy to be home after a marvelous trip with our daughters and their husbands.  What a marvelous opportunity this was.  We returned home feeling totally loved and appreciated by them.  They were the highlight of our trip!

Our first stop was Amsterdam.  It is a fabulous city!

After finding our hotel, we met Katrina and Jess for a late lunch.  They had arrived the day before.  By this time, Abbie and Chad had arrived.  We all took naps and then set out to begin discovering the City.  We walked miles every day.   We walked by this cheese shop.

Samples were being offered, and of course we caved to temptation!

The houses in Holland are tall and narrow.  I admired this one with the beautiful shutters.

Many little alley ways.  Graffiti, is not unique to our country.  Graffiti artists are sharing their talents there as well.

We passed numerous tulip stands that first evening on our walk.

And passed by several canals.

I thought this was an interesting structure.

Bicycles are everywhere, and we soon learned to watch out for them.  The path here in this picture is for the bikes.  They all have baskets on for carrying things and horns to tell you to get out of their way.

The day after we arrived we took the train to Harlem where we visited the Corrie Ten Boom house.  This is a statue depicting the early settlers to that area.  The Corrie Ten Boom tour was very interesting as well as inspiring.  Corrie was very active in the resistance during the second world war.  Her story was inspiring.  If you are planning a trip to The Netherlands and want to see some of these sites, you should go on line and make reservations well in advance.

Another cheese shop in Harlem.

Yes, the bicycle is the favorite mode of transportation!  Here is a triple decker parking place.  The thought crossed my mind, how you would begin to find your bike once you parked it.  We saw very few over weight people.

The train station...… more bikes! 

"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are." - Marianne Williamson