Decorating for Christmas, "Cow Tipping" and Rueben sandwiches!

Friday after baking pies, Linda and I went out for lunch. We went to a restaurant in Haarlem called "Jacobus Pieck" and had a delicious hamburger! 

Afterwards we stopped at a little Spanish deli called "Jamon Jamon" and got some pastrami. She was getting some and I thought I would also to make rueben sandwiches for dinner. Then we stopped at Deka Markt for the rye bread and emmentaler cheese and I bought the sauerkraut and cocktail whiskey sauce at Albert Heijn. 

Linda also showed me where to get Crisco (Mabrouk just started carrying it!) and corn starch (Albert Heijn)!

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Today (Saturday) Andrew and I started decorating for Christmas!  We hung a wreath on the front door and decorated our table centerpiece.

Is it the Wizard of Oz?!?!

Andrew also bought another lock for the bicycles so that we could get them away from the house. We were having to strap them to the gutter in front, which wasn't easy and I was worried about breaking the pipe.  Now we can lock them to a pole in front of the house...

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Sunday, November 25th

Today we took a dreaded trip to IKEA!  It's one of those huge stores that they have pathways through forcing you to go through every department before you can leave!  We bought some more Christmas decorations and a new light for our bedroom. It gets dark so early here and we found we couldn't even see the color of our socks to get dressed!

We also stopped at the carwash in town. It was very windy today and the decorative cows they had next to the canal blew over!  Looks like "Cow tipping in Haarlem"!

Bought a few more Christmas decorations....and put up our new little Dutch Village!

Thanksgiving dinner in The Netherlands!

Around 10.00 this morning Linda stopped by and brought the neck and innards from the turkey they had purchased from the butcher at the Grote Markt (so I could make the gravy for dinner). Because the ovens are so small here, the turkey barely fit in their oven. The final cost for the turkey was 120 Euro...about 12 lbs. 

During the day, Andrew and I went downtown and stopped by the Blokker store and bought a few things to decorate for Christmas. 

We also went to the chocolate shop in town and bought a few things for gifts. We will only be sending a few things to the U.S. to the "children".

At around 1730, Bruce brought the pan full of sweet potatoes and pan of stuffing over so that we could bake them in our oven. We put them in around 1800hrs and it was ready by 1845...then we headed over to their house since they were hosting dinner.

Walnuts for the men and chestnuts for the women!

Where would you like to sit?!?

It was a wonderful evening shared with friends and neighbors. We are truly blessed.

Thanksgiving-"Pie Night" with AWCA

On Thanksgiving evening we had gone to Terri and Leo's house in Heemstede for "Pie Night". There were about 60 people there (including children)!  They had set up the table so beautifully, and everyone had brought some kind of pie to eat!  What a wonderful evening!

My apple pie on the left!