so much going on

the wall party... and a poem by alycia


we look really gross and wet because we are really gross and wet. eww... but we did it! this was brigitte's first race!


the food, the girls


esmond and sebastian.... the party

friends, there has been a ton going on in just the past week! since the first, we have had a dinner party in which we drew all over a wall in shawna's dining room, i have registered myself here in the city (residence registration), i have registered the business of 'Embellish', we ran a 10k race in 1 hour and 2 minutes (it would have been under an hour if it hadn't been pouring rain and really windy out), and we catered another event last night. please look at the pics that i have on picasa - http://picasaweb.google.com/aliwats/December - or click on the link to the right here - so that you can see all of the pics of the past week and a half! it has been really fun - so happy that the business is registered and now it is time for all the admin stuff to be set up and get the residence permit settled on the 17th of this month! hanging out with our friend, Alycia Lee, while she is on sabatical has been wonderful... and she is still here in the country for another couple of weeks! in terms of hanging out with people, the wall painting night was awesome (people are still talking about it) and the party that we were invited to cater for last night have been the highlights. the wall painting really felt like a family event... many of these people that we love and care about here were putting dreams and images on a wall here in the house and really being pushed to create... so beautiful. please look at the images if you have a chance - they are well worth it! the catering job last night was a gift to sebastian, wanda's son, for his graduation/birthday party. wanda and sebastian's girlfriend, arianna, spent so much time and energy on this party and it was a really good time. being invited to be a part of it was really great, and the fact that they loved the food, almost to the point of being afraid to eat it, was and even better experience. i think giving away food to the bartenders at the end of the night was particularly fun. everyone had a great time, and hopefully we got some good contacts out of it! this month is going to be packed, so please keep checking in!!! oh... i almost forgot... we did sinterklaas in all of this too! ester and james helped us with that... all of the kids, shawna, myself and they exchanged little gifts and wrote poems about the people that we gave gifts to.... it is intended to be a bit of a roast, but it is really fun. ester is dutch, james is american, and they loved being able to share all of these traditions with us. earlier that morning, noelle and i went with shea and her school to watch sinterklaas come up the canal to come and see the kids. that was a trip all by itself... good times in the nederlands on dec. 5!