Day 2 - The beautiful tulip fields....or so we thought.

We woke up at 9am, ran down stairs for eggs and bacon then got ready to go to the Tulip fields that we have been waiting for. We hopped our shuttle from the hotel to the airport, then from the airport took a bus to the Keukenhof tulip fields. We arrived and it was PACKED! We got in and Charlene instantly found her shoes. We decided we would buy her a pair while here, but have to wait until we got to a different place since Keukenhof souvenirs were EXPENSIVE!

We then walked around and found this really cool fountain. Behind the fountain was this modernized pipe organ (maybe an organ) When we first arrived it was playing "the rose" it sounded so cool on there.

We then walked down one of the pathways that was centered with different types of flowers. Charlene who LOVES flowers had to stop at every couple to take a whiff.

On the way to the fields we found this little petting farm. They had horses, sheep, bunnies and pigs. Surprisingly Charlene wasn't scared so she got to pet one of the sheep

After the petting area we found this cute little play area. There were 3 play areas for different ages. The first 2 we were surprised they had "stunt" ropes about 5 ft off the ground for kids to walk across (our first thought is, kids falling and breaking their arms), so we looked to our left and found this little cute area just Charlene's size.

After the play area, we saw a windmill in the trees blowing. So we found a little trail that would take us to it. On the way we found this little boat. Great photo opportunity :)

We finally made it to the windmill that faces the tulip fields. Charlene was so excited, she wanted her picture taken by "pink" tulips with the windmill in the background.

We then climbed up the windmill for what we thought would be a glorious view of the fields. To our surprise, this is what we saw. :(

PURE green, tulip-less fields. :( Those little tulip boxes were so deceiving as we walked all the way through the gardens to this empty field. We have missed them this year. If ONLY, ONLY Joshua's class didn't get pushed back a month, we would have made it. Bummer. GOOD THING next April he has another class. :)


We found this fountain in the garden that rotated spray positions. It reminded us of the one in downtown Portland.


On the way back to the bus, we passed through a little private garden. There were some great photo opportunities here. Including one of Joshua acting like a girl. LOL


We found these two little shoes and as we were getting the kids ready to pose, next thing we know is EVERYBODY (which there was a lot) was taking pictures of our kids and saying "look at her little red coat" OR "He is so adorable" (that is why we call him "Theo-adorable") Both kids were a big hit. After that we counted how many times we heard "He is so cute" it was more than 50! we stopped counting after that. Theodore is defiantly the little charmer, especially when he smiles back at the ladies. If people didn't speak English they would give us a thumbs up.


Here is the other photos that people were getting of little Theo-adorable


We live in a shoe j/k We found this big shoe that fit all of us. There were kids swarming all over it, so we had to hurry.


I got some cute photos of little Charlene-e in her famous red coat.


Next was Little Theodore's photo shoot. The first photo He is pondering.

Time for a little Family photo. :)


On the way back, we found Mama's favorite flower/color in the green houses.


At the gardens there were many green houses full of fresh cut flowers. Oh, it smelled so GOOD inside those! Here is Charlene's favorite. Its pink - her favorite color.


After we were done at the tulip gardens, we decided to hop on the train to go to downtown Amsterdam to buy some time, since if we went back to the hotel we know we fall asleep and ruin our time change schedule. We walked down to Dam Square and this is what we saw from our eyes. It was jammed packed with people and bikes. Since our little leggies hurt, we decided to take a bike taxi around town to see what else there was. Amsterdam is defiantly full of culture.


After a quick tour around the down town area, He took us back to the train station. While waiting at the train station anther lady stopped to play with little Theodore for some smiles. Our train arrived, we hopped on, and to the hotel we went! Dinner than bed time. What a day!

tomorrow brings a 1 1/2 hr train ride to Eindhoven to our 2 bedroom down town apartment Joshua's work put us up in. :) Home sweet home for the next couple weeks.