Dutch Cousins

After our lovely stay in St Petersburg, we flew to the Netherlands (hey, we were in the neighborhood) to visit Ryan's Dutch cousins. Ryan (and his parents) got to go and meet them in March 2004 while I stayed home, too pregnant to travel - I was 32 weeks along with Roderic. Then, in September 2004, Elly, Gerard and Annie came to Utah to stay with Ryan's parents and tour the west. We went down and got to take them to some sights around Salt Lake City.

The top of Hidden Peak at SnowBird Ski Resort in 2004.
Robert, Elly, Dorothy, Roderic, Malauna, Sabrina, Ryan, Gerard, Annie.

Elly loved to hold Roderic and sing him songs in Dutch. Needless to say, I was excited to take Hyrum to visit Elly, so she could sing for him as well.

After a delayed flight out of St Petersburg, we missed our connecting flight in Paris, so we got to Amsterdam about 2.5 hours later than we planned. Gerard was planning to pick us up, we weren't able to contact him to tell him about our delay, he left the airport before we got there, so we booked a hotel near the airport and spent a lot of money on a taxi to get there (and back to the airport train station the next day to go to Rotterdam).

View of Elly's back 'yard.'
Malauna, Hyrum, Bianca, Vivian in Elly's living room.

We stayed at Elly's house in Rotterdam. We got to tour around Rotterdam and Kinderdijk with Elly, her daughter Bianca and granddaughters Charlotte and Vivian on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday and Monday we toured around The Hague, Delft, Zaanse Schaans and Amsterdam with Gerard and Annie.

Annie and Gerard walking in Delft.