Here we are in Belgium!  But before I start my post, firstly an apology to Annika and Maarten for mis-spelling their names, and thank you to Joran for correcting me!
I am a few days behind as we have been so busy.  When I left you last we had spent the afternoon at the Rijksmuseum and arrived back at Mijdrecht for dinner.  While we were waiting for everyone to arrive I showed Anneke photos of Mum's 70th birthday which led to me showing her old photos I'd scanned for Mum's album - it turned out we had photos she'd never seen, including ones of her Oma and Opa Werner which bought back lots of happy memories for her.  (I transferred them onto a disc for her before we left).
Nouschka had arranged catering and there was LOTS of delicious food, but what I enjoyed most about the evening was spending time with the family.  I had met Casper, Dennis and Nouschka back in 1986 and while it was fun to met my Dutch family, I don't think we really connected -  maybe because we were all young and focused on ourselves!  So perhaps its due to our (advanced) age, but this time, I really felt as if I was spending time with my brothers and sister - it felt very special.  We shared stories, ate, drank, laughed (Dennis has the same sense of humour as Michael so I found him very funny!) - it was just a wonderful night.  Dennis's son Joran and Casper's eldest daughter, the lovely Vivian, were also with us.  We so appreciated them all taking time from their busy lives to be with us :-) I really, really hope they come and visit us in Australia so we can repay their hospitality and spend more time with them all!!
Joran, Maarten and Annika had introduced Bella and Liam to the game Kees Board so the night could not finish without a few rounds.  I filled in for Vivian when she went to answer a call.  The cards are all in Dutch but Bella assures me that she knows all the rules so we don't need any translation if we buy a set ourselves!
The next morning we were up early to get to the Van Gogh Museum.  Again, Casper was our companion and guide - it was wonderful to have his help and company!  It was a very wet and windy morning. We made it into Amsterdam before 9.30am and as a bonus street parking is free on Sundays, so we were very happy to find a spot.  Even happier to find there was no queue at the Van Gogh museum!!  We decided to spend 5 euros each on multi media tour - well worth it!  We all loved the museum which had so many gorgeous Van Gogh paintings and Liam was especially inspired.  We spent three happy hours there.  The crowd was growing while we were there, but seeing the huge line to get in as we left vindicated our decision to make an early start.  Greg vowed we would continue to do this for the rest of our holiday!  Bella just groaned!
Leaving the museum the sun came out (Liam said it was because we'd been singing "Here comes the sun that morning!") - how lucky! After lunch at the Hansel and Gretel cafe (courtesy of Casper) we joined a canal boat cruise of Amsterdam.  Greg enjoyed it so much he had a little nap!!  We won't let him live that one down for a while!  The rest of us enjoyed seeing the city from the water, my only disappointment was that I couldn't sit outside to take photos and the windows were spotted with  the morning's rain... so I'll have to see if any of my photos were OK.
On our way home Dennis rang to say that he'd cooked dinner and was waiting for us!  Well, that was a surprise, he'd told me he never cooked!  We turned up to see the table beautifully set with wine glasses and candles... and a huge, huge amount of chinese food!  Casper was laughing and saying who over caters the most, Dennis or Nouschka.  I told him it was definitely a Dutch trait as my mum has always been guilty of over-catering!  We were thrilled to have Joran and Maarten join us too.  Again, it was a lovely evening.
With Joran and Maarten there OF COURSE we had to have another Kees Board battle.  Liam and Maarten won two rounds and then I partnered with Maarten and let Bell and Joran have a win :-)
So today we left a very windy Mijdrecht to head toward Rotterdam and then Belgium (sounds so incredibly exotic saying that

when you are an Aussie!).  We rang Wendy for her birthday.  Greg was distracted by us singing Happy Birthday and went to the left side of the road!!  Agh!  There was a momentary lapse as I said "Oh crap" and Bella said "My god Dad!" - but he quickly veered right away from the oncoming car and all was well!! It was so windy we noticed all the bike riders were opting to push their bikes rather than ride, we felt sorry for them.  We had to take two detours due to trees having fallen down and blocking the road (a challenge for our GPS!) - however we safely made our way to Rotterdam and took the kids to see the shop/home Mum was born and grew up in.  It was still windy but the sun came out!  We enjoy every moment of sunshine!  We were only about thirty minutes out of Rotterdam when the traffic just... stopped.  Four lanes of traffic!  We sat for a while with the engine idling. Then we turned the car off.  Greg took the opportunity to have a nap.  I read the kids some info about Belgium.  We had a car picnic!  (Luckily we'd stopped at the supermarket and bought some food for lunch!).  We watched the rain on the sun roof.  Did I tell you that our Peugeot has a sun roof??  I found it by accident playing with the buttons in the car!  It's so flash!  Anyway... an hour later... we were still on the freeway with hundreds of other people.  Eventually, we started off again, and in no time at all the traffic had evened out and although we passed two small accidents, it was hard to tell which one had caused all the drama!
So now we are in Bruges, staying in a B&B in the centre of the city.  It's a lovely old building and our room has a mezzanine floor.  Bella and Liam are upstairs and I'm glad its them, as the roof above their bed is less then 2 metres!!