Guus Bosman

The boys were both quite impressed. Sasha was holding Leo, and I was holding Adrian and Nora when he arrived in the main hall. Adrian was staring with wide open eyes. Later, in the smaller room, he was pointing several times and yelling: "kaas! kaas!" (He can't say "klaas" yet).

Nora was quite shy. When we left the car there were a few Piets and she wasn't too ready to engage with them. Later that changed and she happily accepted pepernoten. The boys only needed a few minutes to figure out that the Piets were giving away good stuff, and the Piets liked to give them candy so after about 8 handfuls we decided to slow that down.

Nora's gift remained unopened until we got home. Instead she opened her chocolate letter right away -- she was probably hungry because we skipped lunch. Leo received a Playmobil 123 helicopter, Adrian a garbage truck ("bah!"). The boys also liked to boxes with the chocolate letters. Shanthi helped them unpack their gifts.

This years there were fewer parents that we know; there haven't been many playdates recently. Overall attendance seemed a little lower than last year.

Traveling to the Embassy is always a little challenging -- Leo threw up in the car, like last time, and it was right in the middle of nap time. But we had an absolute blast.