Sinterklaas, wie kent hem niet?

Zie ginds komt de Stoomboot
Uit Spanje weer aan

Hij brengt ons Sint Nicolaas
Ik zie hem al staan...

This is how a well-known Sinterklaas song starts. Sinterklaas is the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus, and every year he visits the Netherlands for about three weeks, from Mid-November until the evening of 5 December. He is accompanied by hundreds of black helpers, called 'zwarte pieten', who are generally very athletic, silly, and generous. He usually arrives on a cold and windy, if not rainy, Saturday morning, and spends his time in the Netherlands preparing for the highlight of his trip, "pakjesavond". Pakjesavond, which literally means 'package evening' takes place on the 5th of December, and this is when most children - those who have been good children - get lots of gifts, and some children - those who have been bad - are taken away by zwarte piet, put in a bag, and sent off to Spain.

This year, I suppose on his way back to Spain, Sinterklaas made a little de-tour, and stopped off in the Haifa port where his 'zwarte pieten' quickly brought a few things ashore for Menchie, Maarten and mommy Ping, who is visiting from the Philippines. The following things were found in the package:

Pepernoten: these tiny, hard gingerbread cookies are delicious and once you're getting started on them it is hard to stop. These pepernoten are usually carried in a jute bag over zwarte piet's shoulder, and whenever piet finds an occassion, he would take a handful and throw them all over the place (or just give you a handful). Unfortunately, these delicacies are only available during November and December, as for the remainder of the year Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet are baking new 'pepernoten' in their castle in Spain.

Chocoladeletters: Chocolate letters (as I am sure the non-Dutch were quick to figure out) are another feature of Sinterklaas. You generally would only ever get the letter that corresponds with the first letter of your name. To make sure that someone whose name starts with an 'I' would not feel disadvantaged compared to someone whose name starts with a "W", Sinterklaas has made all chocolade letters of equal weight!

Gevuld Speculaas: This cookie with soft almond filling is another delicacy that goes really well with hot chocolate. For the occassion, we purchased some Herschey's Dutch chocolate from the Food Centre :)

Speculaas brokken: Another kind of speculaas, but these things are quite hard instead! Also very delicious :)

Sinterklaas also knows that Menchie is pregnant, and he included in the package a few small sheep-shoes to keep our soon-to-be-born daughter warm during the winter months. :)

Just a few more days now...

The birth of our daughter is now only days away, and Menchie's tummy looks like it can't get much bigger anymore... To continue the experiment with using video on our blog, here's a small video clip of Menchie and baby (still veiled by her tummy though)... accompanied on guitar by mommy Ping!

We hope you will enjoy this ;)

Menchie's Last Day at Work & Visit of Mommy Ping...

Four December was my last day at work. Maarten and I brought a delicious cake for our friends and we had tea-coffee-cake break in the afternoon. It was kind of a mixed feeling I had...sad since I won't be coming to work for awhile, won't see our friends/officemates everyday, of course won't see Maarten all day anymore :-( But very happy that I will be joining the "Department of Motherhood" here at the World Centre. I look forward to spending a lot of time at home with our baby girl, and with the other mothers who have recently given birth.











The next day, 5 December, my mom Ping arrived from the Philippines to visit and be with us in time for our baby's birth. She will stay for 7 weeks (yeheey!). Here are few photos of her...

(mom at the Seat)
(mom with Franco, Rhea, Marcelina and myself in Bahji)
(mom and Menchie). We are having a wonderful time together, it is nice to catch up, and also for Maarten to spend some more time with mom.

She brought lots of delicacies from the Philippines, and so we've been eating very well for the last couple of days :)!

Recent Weddings in Haifa

Here are some photos of us taken at the three weddings we attended in October and November 2005.

Pash & Ulviyya's Wedding, 21 October:

















Faraz & Swee-Chengs' Wedding, 5 November:
















Nica & Francis' Wedding, 18 November:

End of Childbirth Class

Here is the group picture of our childbirth class taken at the last day of the class. We enrolled in this English-speaking class for six sessions with three other couples. From left to right, they are Yoni and Carmel, Ania and Amir, and Amir and Ilana. Our teacher, Mrs. Wendy Blumfield is standing at the far right.

Baby Shower

Saturday the 22nd of October was baby shower day! Since Menchie didn't want it to be an event just for women, it was decided sometime ago that men and children would also be invited to attend, to make it much more of a family event!

(Food) preparations started the evening before the shower, right after Pash and Ulviyya's wedding. Daniel, who works in the kitchen at the Bahá'í World Centre, came to our home, and did an excellent job in preparing some of the yummy food we would be eating the next day. Highlight of the evening was the "how-to-make-springroll/eggroll/lumpia-course" which we really enjoyed, and which is a skill that I am sure will come in handy in the future. After making about 25 springrolls, I've become quite the chef!! (I have said the same thing after Shingo's sushi class, but am definitely in need of a refresher course on that one... So, Shingo, when you read this, you'll know what to do! he he :)))

We had invited well over 40 guests to our house, and surprisingly, they all fit quite well! Barbeque was great, thanks to the great marinade Menchie had made the night before, and thanks to our wonderful b-b-q chefs, Kevin and Santana and all the food and desserts that were brought by our friends were equally delicious!


Highlight of the afternoon was a game we played where we all had to come up with images of what our baby will look like. The trick was to combine features from both of us, which were superimposed upon a baby's face... The results were HILARIOUS! And now we definitely know why we should leave all of this in God's hands :) Click here for some impressions of the event, and make sure you don't miss the wonderful picture at the end, which we have also included here!

It was a wonderful day, with lots of fun and in the end we had fun opening the wonderful gifts from our friends. We feel so blessed to have such a great community of dear ones here with us, specially since neither of us have our families very close by. We thank these friends for being our family...and for spending time with us in this special and memorable shower party!

Learning Infant Massage

A couple of weeks ago, we were invited to learn how to do infant massage. We learned from our teacher Nancy White that infant massage makes the baby grow faster and develop better, and that bones will be much stronger. This is the group picture of that evening, from left to right: Kamran, Menchie, Parvaneh, Mouzhgan, Vida, Nancy, Fereshteh, John and Maarten. Our model who is not in the picture was Melody, the 3-month old daughter of Kamran and Parvaneh. Mouzhgan and Vida are also pregnant like Menchie, so it was really nice for us to learn some strokes and styles that we can use on our baby. Nancy and John are from New Zealand, but originally Nancy is from Fiji, where infant massage is common and well-known.

Experiment

I've been curious about how hard it would be to add video to one's blog as well, instead of only pictures. So, after only an hour and a half of fiddling around, I managed to come up with the following. Not bad, eh, for a rookie!?? Its a video clip of a song I've been trying to learn on guitar for the past couple of weeks... Next step will be to put our own video content, and not 'borrowed'... If you have any suggestions, let me know! :)

Weekend at Dor Beach

This last Saturday, we went to the beach and enjoyed the water, food and company of some friends. It was also Canan's birthday, our friend from Turkey. Her husband Arnold organized this party.
As you can see from these pictures, friends are happy, chatting and enjoying each other's company.







We had some barbecue...















...a relaxing afternoon, eating...

...Martijn and Maarten playing beach tennis and Arnold, like a little kid, fascinated by his new kite... he he :)

We really had a great time. The water was excellent (except for the tiny fishes nibbling and poking our feet all the time)!! Most of us got a tan so quickly as you can see from Maarten's rosy cheeks...
Here with us are Martijn and May, Canan (the birthday girl) and Arnold. We were about to leave this beautiful beach that is only 25 minutes away from Haifa (if Menchie drives only 15 minutes). We will surely come back at least once before the winter kicks in... Oh well, that's still some months away he he:)!

One Afternoon on the Balcony

Last Friday was a relaxing day indeed, as it was the first day of our weekend. We went to work in the morning, came home, and had lunch together on our beautiful balcony. Then Maarten started doing some gardening work. This is how our balcony and little garden look like now! The last two plants are the result of some experiments; they originally came from one plant, which was getting too long, so we decided to cut it and re-plant it in other pots. They are looking good, are growing and healthy!

Lunch with the Youth at the Teaching Centre

On Thursday, we had the privilege to be invited by the youth who work at the International Teaching Centre to have lunch with them at Giraffe Restaurant in the Merkaz. This was a great opportunity to spend time and get to know each other more, as our Department works closely with them. Unfortunately, not all the youth from the Teaching Centre were able to make it. Of course all of us in Stats made it there (since there are only 3 of us at the moment...he..he!)...
In this picture, (L-R), there's Menchie, Maarten, Jarrett, Jasmine, André (hidden), Faraz, Mitch, and Soraya. Next time will make sure everyone will be there! We tried the lemon chicken dish for the first time, and it was super lekker...! Other favourites of ours are the Afghan dish, the Malaysian dish and the Filippino dish (of course!).

Latest Pictures of Us...

These pictures were taken at home after our dinner with George, his brother Miron, and Quddus (the photographer), and the last three ones were taken at Horev Hospital.

Update on Menchie's Pregnancy

Twenty-four weeks have now passed, and so it was time for our major ultrasound test in the Rambam hospital in Haifa. Excited and also a little bit nervous (Maarten), we went to the hospital and were able to see our baby for the fourth time.... But this time, we could peek at baby for a little bit longer than during the other visits :) ...

It was so wonderful to see... the doctor took us on a tour of baby's head, arms, legs, and rest of its body! What a miracle to see the little hands and feet move, the heart beat and the mouth drink... It was very moving and left us truly in awe! Here are a few pictures of the event :) ...

Here you can see baby lying on its back, with the head on the left, its arms next to its body and the legs slightly up. Baby is now so flexible that the feet can almost touch the nose... :) ...

Baby is now 650 gram, almost 10 inches tall...and enjoying the space it still has to move around... Every day it is kicking and turning and basically developing its skills which may come in handy with playing football later :)...SO...that will leave you with something to ponder about whether the baby is actually a B or a G :) ...

The next picture is a closer look at baby's face. Now the baby's head is on the right and looking upward...

This is the update for now. We are very happy indeed with this development :)! ...

Santana's Birthday at Tatami Restaurant

Last Tuesday 26 July, some friends went to Tatami restaurant in Moriah St. to celebrate Santana's birthday, our Mexican friend who's wearing pink shirt beside his lovely wife Evelin in this group photo. This was our (Maarten and I) first visit to this Japanese restaurant. Not knowing the dishes on the menu, we relied a great deal on the help of our dear Mr. Japanese himself, Shingo. He recommended some really nice dishes to us, and we truly loved it!

In this picture to the right, Maarten was eating miso ramen. It was delicious, had egg, spinach, tofu on it. The picture below was full of sushis on top of a wooden designed boat. Shingo and Victor ordered these sushis, and it is reported that the boat sailed home with them afterwards... :) j/k.... Each one of us enjoyed the food and company. We will surely come back and try other dishes...he..he!