It all started on saturday, where we had a trip planned from Sola Airport. As we live only 15 minutes driving away from Sola (and have planes coming from Holland and the like, everyday litterary over our house roof), we planned to go with the early plane leaving at 6.30 in the morning. We also decided to use the airport parking, as the taxi price back and forth would have been minimal double as much as a weeks parking at the parkingplaces.
So we left at 5am in the morning for the airport. People had warned us to come in time, as it was a saturday and a time that people would go for the sun in some other country. Well that was a great idea.. the incheck hall was loaded with people for holidays. Luckily though, we had already checked in online and even more lucky was that KLM had a waiting line of 5 people versus the other liners with 50 or more! Ofcourse we were way too early done checking in and waited a little before going through security (giving us some time to eat and drink something). We also figured that the shop seven - eleven, a shop that would be open from well 7am to 11pm, but seemed to be open at 5.30am.

Well I won't bore you with the rest of that trip, we arrived about 10 minutes earlier than planned because of a good directional pushwind. And then we had to wait... wait longer than expected. We were supposed to be picked up by a friend of ours, Nick, who would arrive an hour or so later from USA. His trip, however, was delayed by 30 minutes. And on top of that he ofcourse had to wait as well for luggage unloading.
So after a long while, we arrived at our destination at 12:30. There we met my parents and grandfather and some early friends with which we worked onto the preparations of our big party. The saturday was meant for mainly friends and the sunday for mainly the older people and family.

I am not going to describe these parties in detail, but I can say that it left us great impressions. We've enjoyed it very much. The good thing of the party was that we could see many friends and family without having to cross the whole country. The bad thing of such thing is that you cannot talk with everybody nearly as much as you would at a personal visit. Nonetheless was it great to see so many faces, also some friends of Germany joined into the party. The saturday party was enjoyed in the garden. Lots of food was prepared for this day as well as a cake that I prepared on the day itself (cheese cake). My mom made many different things and some friends brought their creative creations with. Sunday we enjoyed the rests of these creations and my mom made even some more for the occasion. Chairs and tables were borrowed from our neighbours. Saturday evening was closed with a nice fire basket in the middle of a circle of chairs and loads of candle-light. A fantastic thing to see and experience. When friends left, we went with our friend Sven from Germany for a little trip around Delden. He made some brilliant night-quality photos of Delden and us.

Monday was the day of resting out of a busy weekend but also the day of getting some business things done. On one side was this getting some stuff done with Dutch banks and shopping, on the other side it was finding the right type and size of suit for me. We managed that and after it would have arrived in Hengelo it would have been sent to Norway, as it would take a while to produce. This has happened already.. I am way to late with writing this article. Anyway, that suit is looking really good on me (so they say).

Tuesday we decided to go to a museum, (or I actually planned a lot beforehand) after first taking my grandfather back to his house. The museum to visit was the museum of antiquities in Leiden. This museum has a lot of history of mankind, including tombs of Egypt with mummies. We learned a lot in there. We btw parked our car (= moms car) in some central parking place and took a free bus to the museum and back.
After the museum we had planned to go to Peters office in Hilversum whereafter a dinner with Daphne and Peter at their bungalow. Peter has a fantastic office in the center of Hilversum, hope he will do good business the years to come. Before going to Daphne, we quickly visited the work-in-progress new flats. Soon they would have to move in (that is pretty much what is happening at the time of writing (November). We also visited Daphne and her horses. Theresa would love to go riding together with Daphne one day.
Afterwards I and Peter went for a trip to the center to an Italian stone oven pizza baker and to pick up Peters car from the office. At the bungalow we met up with each other again (Theresa and Daphne drove to the bungalow with Peters Volvo) to eat some delicious stone-oven baked pizza. Peter 'had' to see a football match, while we took Daphne on a trip into the world of 3D gaming (Nintendo 3DS).

On Wednesday our planning wasn't less busy. We went to Dolfinarium Harderwijk. Saw fantastic animals. It was a special request of Theresa that I knew about and so I organised this trip. For me it was a long time ago that I was at this park. It was ofcourse clearly a little end of season, so it was perhaps not as fun anymore, but nonetheless was it fun for us both. We petted flat fish and small sharks. We saw a world of different fish (filmed a lot as well on a borrowed HD camera), and playful dolphins and walruses. At the evening we had to eat at home so we didn't stay very long. Luckily the trip wasn't too far away from Delden. After dropping off Theresa, I picked up my father from work. I think he liked me picking him up. For one he didn't have to take a silly late train, for another it was nice to be with his son (and for me to be with my father alone).
In the evening we spent time with Richard, who was going to give us a guided tour through the hospitals' lab. Theresa became testing rabbit and Dr. Richard took some blood from her. Blood to test in the lab. Some to test on the machine way and some to test the traditional way. We saw all the machinery and got explained what each of the parts of the process did do to the blood. The traditional testing way did give Richard some hard time though. I won't go into details as it might bring his credibility in danger, haha. Nah I am kidding. But in general I am not allowed to show any results of blood tests. These test results are confidential and private to the person being tested. Also, only a doctor is allowed to have the results, as only a doctor can read them.
At the lab we got some white robes like a real doctor. We were just looking a little weird as doctors, as I had 3 cameras around my neck, two photocameras and one videocamera. After the lab visit we went to van der Poel for an ice cream with Mark and Jessica, and so it appeared to be, also with the girlfriend of wouter, Suzan (and her dog). A lovely ice cream and a nice picture taken later, we went to Richards flat to meet up with our friends Mark and Jessica to relax for a drink and play some games.

Thursday was another day with Richard. We went to Arnhem, to Burgers Bush, a big zoo in Holland (close to German border). We didn't have the best weather, at some point we were in raincoats hiding for a rain-burst. Nevertheless has the park a lot of inside areas (tropical, desertlike and ocean) so that we still could enjoy our visit while staying dry. Also here were a lot of photos and video recordings made.
The evening dinner we spend at Jessica and Mark's place, eating a nice dinner of Risotto with goat cheese. We played some games and I believe we tried to watch a movie, apart from cuddling with all of their kitties.

On friday it was another day of banking and in the evening a dinner with Mark and Jessica at my parents place. Cheese fondue was chosen, because my mom had so much bread left from the party. After dinner (and we were in quite a hurry on this one) we had to go to a party organised by Suzan and Wouter for Suzans birthday. It was a party of Geocaching in nature, a group cache where every location some calculation had to be done to find the next coordinations. Every location had to do with some war history, quite interesting. For the rest was it quite fun with our friends in the dark with LED lights on. The party was concluded with a Tapas, home-made small dishes by Suzan, in nature by candle-light. This was a fantastic party! I enjoyed it very much and we also met some friends that couldn't make it to the earlier party.
When we arrived back home afterwards, brought home by Mark and Jessica, we found a new fondue pan for them (Mark and Jessica brought their own pan so that we had enough cheese at our table that evening). Their pan had broken into pieces when my mom tried cleaning it. She felt so bad about it that she bought a new (and better in my eyes) pan for them the same evening. I guess that was a nice surprise to them. We said bye, as we were going to leave the next morning and went to bed.

So then came this last saturday of this busy week, in which we went with all our stuff (We got loads of presents from our friends and had also quite some luggage ourselves) in the direction of the airport. But not yet to the airport ofcourse. Our flight was in the evening and the planning was to meet some friends still before that at a restaurant. A nice lunch and coffee combination with my grandfather, Markie and Wop and Peter Zwaanswijk (and ofcourse my parents).
Afterwards we went to my grandfathers place whereafter to the pancake restaurant to enjoy a pancake together with Peter and Daphne. We drank a coffee again at my grandfathers place and then said goodbye to my grandfather. Peter and Daphne drove with Theresa to the airport, while I drove with my parents. We said goodbye to both of them at the airport and then continued our travel home. This last travel wasn't without problems either. We had some trouble with our luggage, a slow security check and a huge thunderstorm which the flightcrew had to steer under (or around). But we arrived safely in Stavanger(Sola) and after driving home we could (after cleaning up the mess that our kitties left for us) finally relax and think of the nice days spent on holiday in Holland.