November 2007

The holiday season seems to have started and every day of the week we had baked cookies or cakes at work. This time of the year inspires people to bake delicious things, apparently. Next Thursday its Thanksgiving.

When I was left from work I tried a few radio stations looking for some music. When I switched on 93.9 Kiss FM, there was a very pleasant surprise: Christmas music has started! On the way from work I hummed and sang along with all those familiar songs. Last year the Christmas music started a bit earlier, on what was then called Sunny FM.

Ettie and Gerben are getting married! Friday November 23rd will be their wedding day in Leeuwarden.

It's great news -- many congratulations from both of us!

Below you'll see the picture on their wedding invitation.

Friday afternoon we went for lunch at Dickey's, a barbecue place in Crossroads.

There are a couple of different restaurants there, and since a few weeks a Starbucks opened also. It's a lot closer to us than the one on Walnut Street, so that's really convenient.

Of course, my resolution to drink less coffee still stands, but on a Friday afternoon I'll drink a nice cup of coffee. Starbucks is now using the holiday cups.

Dickey's has an automated system to let the waiter know at which table you're sitting. The cashier gives you a key that goes in the machine on the picture above.

Holiday cups at Starbucks.

The making of the picture above.

Yesterday was my 29th birthday, and we celebrated it with an great party in our apartment.

In the morning we celebrated the traditional way, with presents, postcards, e-mails and lots of nice phone calls. The rest of the day we prepared for the party. We did most of the shopping on Friday evening (2,5 hours in the supermarket) so we only had to get some last minute things like fresh bread.

The first guests arrived just after 7.00 pm, and within an hour the house was full with people -- wonderful! We had food, drinks and a cake with 29 candles that I managed to blow out at once.

It was great to have so many people over. It's been years since we threw a big party at home and this was the first such a party we've done in the States. Hosting a party is so much fun! It reminded me of the cool parties we used to have in Florijn, and later in Haarlem. A special thanks to the folks who helped in the kitchen and offered to help during the evening.

For many people it was the first time in our house, and I think everybody had a very good time. It was nice that the different groups of people in my life met each other. In the course of the evening we had almost 40 people at the party.

After midnight the dancing started ('Beautiful Girls' was a particular favorite). Around 2.00 am we broke things up.

The livingroom.

The table with food and drinks.

The kitchen was, as always, a popular place to hang out. Here are Christoph, Mark, Matt, myself and Dave.

The view from the living room into the guest room.

Birthday cake.

Belen cutting the cake. Dennis, Rebecca, myself and Dave in the background.

Andrej, Michiru, Chris and Angelo.

Ron, Petra, Larry and Dave in conversation.

Mike, Hernan, Sasha and Vladi.

Brian and Sasha.

The Jaycees on a picture: Kevin, Christina, Christine, Charles, myself, Rob and Kathi.

The Duke team.

Hernan is learning the xoro from Vladi.

Guus, Sasha, Aum and Michiru.

The last hour or two there was serious dancing going on.

The morning after a great party. We have a lot of cheese and ham left over so we had a warm oven sandwich for breakfast. We spent the morning peacefully, chatting about the party. Cleaning up was easy as we used plastic cups. For the rest there's the dishwasher. So much better than some of the parties in Florijn where we would spent a good hour doing dishes by hand the next morning.