Holland

After getting back from our Disney/Paris trip with the boys Wednesday night, we spent the next day unpacking and packing again for our quick trip to Holland. I've always heard about the Holland tulips growing up and this is one of the things I had on my list to go see. When I found out my parents would be here during the spring, we decided it was a great time to go. I must admit, Matt and my dad weren't the "most excited" about seeing flowers, but I think they were both happily surprised and we all had a great time. I wish my grandmother could have seen this when she was still herself. She has alzheimer's and doesn't remember, but she always LOVED flowers.

We left Friday morning and drove to Leiden, Holland where we checked into our hotel. A Holiday Inn, none the less. It had a huge kids area, swimming pool, and double beds like we are used to seeing in America. The town of Leiden was really cute and it took us about 4 hours to get there. If I had it to do over, I might have tried to spend a little more time walking around it. It had cute little canals, a windmill, and a big shopping district. Not to mention, the people on bicycles were EVERYWHERE. We've never seen so many bicycle paths and people using them. Some are dressed up, some are in jeans... but they ALL seem to own one and use it a lot. When you find out that it cost us 70Euro (about $115!) to fill up 1/2 tank of gas there, you can see why they ride their bikes.

After checking into our hotel we headed to Noordjwick, Holland which is a little beach town near there. On the way we passed several fields with blooming flowers. It was beautiful seeing all the colors out in the wide open. We snapped a few pictures of the North Sea Beach, but it was cold so we didn't stay long or get near the water. The beach was very wide, similar to those beaches in CA. We ended up eating at a McDonald's after trying a local restaurant that had an open sign, but were only serving one item on the menu at the time. Good ole' McDonald's saves the day again. lol The rest of the evening was spent at the hotel swimming.

Saturday morning, we woke up and headed to Keukenhof in Lisse, Holland. This is the well known park that we hear about. It is open from late March to mid May every year and the flowers bloom at various times throughout that time. We spent the morning in the cold, but there was no rain so we were thankful. There was every kind of flower you could imagine in patterns, arrangements, greenhouses, outside, inside, you name it. Some of them were huge! The park also had a children's area, windmill, shopping and restaurants. With 3 kids and only flowers to look at, it can only last so long so after a few hours we headed out of the park.

By this time it was afternoon and we headed to Amsterdam for a quick look around before we drove home. My! What a surprise. I've never seen so many people, buildings, bicycles and train/electric cars all in the same place. Not even in New York. It was CRAZY driving down there but Matt did a great job as always. He was dodging everything under the sun while trying not to get hit by a street car in the mean time. To our delight there were canals everywhere, boat tours, shipyards, and LOTS of other things to see. I tried to snap a few pictures from the car, but we are definitely going back to take a closer look at that city. It was something else and the pictures really don't do it justice.

Here's a slide show of the trip. I still have a few pictures to share with mom and dad, but I'll wait a few days on those. Hope you enjoy the pics.

Oh, and the 5K is looming over my head. It's on Saturday!