Christmas 2010

On Christmas morning we woke up at 6AM....well..... actually the kids woke up at 5:00, but they were not allowed to get out of bed until 6:00......

The tree looked great....thanks to Sue and we were all so happy to see a pile of presents under our tree.

Kids were so excited !!

Christmas? You gotta love it!

Adventure Time !!

Last weekend I organized an 'Adventure Weekend' for Noah and 3 of his best friends and their dads. This was also a special goodbye trip for Santiago, one of the boys who is leaving to Bangkok with his family.
We left at 5:30 in the morning to avoid traffic to go to the Puncak area, which was still a 3.5 hr drive.
We went on an exciting rafting trip, the boys did the flying fox, we did some walking and of course the boys spend every minute of 'free time' playing soccer....because that's what they all live for!
Here are some pictures of a GREAT trip!

Thank You, Oma and Opa !!

One of Noah's coolest presents was sent to him from Holland. Oma found this awesome Ajax bed set with sheets and pillow cases of Noah's favorite team AJAX!!

More Birthday Stuff.....

It has become some kind of tradition in our family that we go out for dinner when it's somebody's birthday and the birthday person gets to choose where we go....
At the restaurant they get their presents. Noah wanted to go to Dim Sim...Chinese restaurant. You can see him showing his presents....

Noah turns 8 !!

On Sunday May 5 Noah invited 5 of his best friends to our house to celebrate his 8th birthday!
We had an early start....the boys met at 7 for breakfast...pancakes with sirup. After breakfast we wll went on a mini bus to go to Water Bom and cool water amusement park just outside Jakarta.

The boys...and Ayla...had a great time and NOah had the best birthday party!

Noah over the Moon!

Noah's JIS U8 team played in a tournament last weekend at a school outside Jakarta.

It was actually the first time that this team played together and guess what??

The team won the tournament!

First we won all our 3 group matches pretty convincingly....7-0, 4-1 and 5-0.

In the final we were up against our old foes STB...the team that knocked us out of the CUP last year. They have Fandi Ahmad's son in their team. Some people in Holland may remember Fandi...he played professionally for FC Groningen in the 80s for a few seasons. He was considered the best player from SE Asia. His son is the best 7 year old player I have ever seen. Really talented and way ahead of all his peers.
We managed to contain him pretty much though during the game....he only scored once against us. The final was a very close and tense match. We scored first, they tied it up 1-1 HT. IN the second Noah scored his first headed goal ever to put us in the lead 2-1, but they again managed to tie the match 2-2 FT. In the resulting penalty shootout we were the luckier team beating them 3-2.

Here are some photos of our proud boys with the trophy.

SInterklaas is back in Jakarta

Believe it or not but Sinterklaas arrived in Jakarta once againthis year. Amazing how he can visit this many places at the same time....

Here are some pictures of our children's 'best' friend.....


Nervously awaiting SInterklaas' arrival.....


Yes...he is coming!!




Noah was brave enough to shake Sinterklaas' hand this year!




Enjoying the show......

One season ends...the next one starts.....

Noah just ended his soccer season with JYS (community soccer) and team Netherlands.
Next month the next season will already start.... which is the Coca Cola league. This is a soccer league in Jakarta between schools. Last year no less than 52 schools were in it and over 2000 kids competed.

Ayla in Talentshow

Enjoy photos and video of Ayla's talentshow performance @ JIS last week.

Halloween 2010

Just like last year we celebrated Halloween at the American Club in Jakarta.
It's a really cool and well organized event with trick or treationg for the kids on the parking lot from nicely decorated car trunks.
Noah was a scary vampire and Ayla was a witch......