Mariëlle

Well, here goes... I've been contemplating for days how I was going to get started on this blog/journal. I think I'll start with writing a bit about Marielle. She's the oldest of our three dutch Grand-daughters, and with Holland being 9 time zones away, she's already celebrating her 6th birthday. It's still an idea that is hard to get used to, not to be able to celebrate with our precious grand-daughters when they have a birthday. It was very special to recently spend 10 wonderful days with them, getting to know them a little better, seeing them at their best and at their not-so-good moments... Tomorrow morning we hope to celebrate by way of Skype, Sarah and Anne-Marie hope to come over with their children so that we can all wish her a Happy Birthday, while Marielle blows out the candles on her cakes. It's quite an improvement from any previous years, but as they get older it's more and more important to strengthen the bonds between them and us, and their cousins. We are very thankful that Jacco used the gifts he recieved for his birthday to buy and set up a webcam and a new monitor, although I can't imagine being on a screen in their living room that makes us bigger than life size!

So what can I tell you about Marielle? She's sweet, she's smart, she's very self confident, somewhat strong willed, and very sociable. She also tends to get her feelings hurt when she needs discipline, so she is quite sensitive. She reminds me so much of her mother as a girl, and shows a strong independence. Definitely the oldest sister! She's brave enough to pull out her own tooth when it's wiggly... the first one came out the first day we were there, and last week she had to show us that she'd pulled the second one out. She's an amazing biker! We made a couple of bike trips and she pedaled bravely along up to 10 or 11 km at a time!

We bought a set called Poingo for them, and were amazed at how well she picked up on learning the English words and meanings. That was so cool! She has picked up enough English from her trip to visit us in 2010, that she quite easily understands us when we speak to her and even answers in English after only a slight hesitation.

We were invited to go and see her school, a brand new building. Her classroom was so cool, all outfitted with the newest technology. Her teacher asked her how her Grandpa and Grandma came (to visit) and her answer was: "by bike", not the answer the teacher was expecting that we had come by airplane.

On behalf of the three grand-daughters, Jocelyn had bought a booklet for me that is going to be my homework assignment. It's called: "Oma, dit boek wil ik terug" which means: "Grandma, I want this book back". What is it? Well, it's filled with questions that I have to answer so that as they grow up, they will have a personal account of all the things that are important to me, such as: my personal information, my family tree, some facts about my parents, grandparents and our relationships, and many questions of a personal nature regarding my childhood, my marriage and motherhood and my faith. Seeing that the booklet is dutch and most of our grandchildren only will be learning to read English, I feel that as I go through this booklet I should blog my entries in English. It's going to be quite a challenge, as some of the answers will be very personal.