The farm that Antoon built ....

Dad and I are staying at Antoon's and Tiny's for a couple of days. (As family background, Tiny's grandmother and mine were sisters.) They live not too far outside of Boxtel on a beautiful little farm Antoon has built. They fisrt built the garage and the stable and lived there for a few years while they buiilt the house. Antoon did all the work himself. They have some ponies, a couple of horses, and a couple of Belgian Shepherds (Groenendael) dogs. There is a horse farm right next door and between the two properties there is a field of a half dozen yearling colts so I am quite enjoying the view! Tiny and Antoon are wonderful hosts and I think it is tiring for everyone when there is a language barrier. I know it exhausts me. Tiny understands much of what I say but usually answers in Dutch. Dad translates. Antoon understands little of what I say. Dad translates. I understand nothing of what Antoon says. Dad translates. Getting the picture? LOL!! Actually, their command of the English language is way, way, WAY better than my Dutch. Part of what stops us both is confidence. I feel like I hace a mouth full of marbles when I am trying to pronounce many dutch words. Three of their granddaughters visited today and I had great fun with them. Michelle is almost 14, Jessica is 11 and Cindy is 8. They are beautiful, charming girls. Michelle and Jessica both have excellent English and Cindy is learning. Cindy already knows more English words than I know Dutch. She laughed with delight when I shook her hand and said "Ick ben Jeannie".  :-)  Like most girls of their age, the two eldest wanted access to their Oma's laptop at the same time. Since I have mine with me, I let one use mine and we shared photos and Facebook pages and exchanged emails!  I also had them invite Karen to be a FB friend as I know they would all get along so well. I also know Cindy and Dana would have a blast playing together ... perhaps some day in the future.

Antoon generously took usout ion the car today and we stopped at a couple of horse farms so I could look around. I enjoy touring the farming communities here as much as the medeival cities and their amazing cathedrals and castles. He took us to a tack shop in an old barn, where I purchased a new set of stirrup irons for Miss Maddie. Ok ... they are for me to use on Miss Maddie!  :-)  Dad scored a free piece of used leather strapping he will use to repair a rifle carrier thingie so he was happy too! lol! The trip back to the farm was interesting because Antoon kept stopping for me to take photos. I told them about Glenn's blog (www.hubbers.ca) and the photo challenge he has us playing there. The current theme is FENCES, so Antoon stopped every time he saw a fence he thought I might like to photograph. And I think he purposely  took some detours in our return trip to facilitate my picture taking!

So, no history lessons yesterday or today! Just much time spent getting to know extended family and touring this mooi country!

hugs from me!  :-)