Cadzand, Netherlands

Spent the morning cozy in our hotel, taking advantage of the bottomless coffee. The automated coffee machines, that spit out a café au lait with the press of a button are really growing on us, although some little part of me that was nurtured in Berkeley turns up it's nose at coffee that wasn't lovingly ground five minutes ago by a pierced-nosed barista. But Dennis pointed out that there is an ideal method for an ideal cup of coffee, so it a perfect process for automation.  I had at least four cups.

We joined Grandma Joani and Grandpa Dan after church for an early lunch at a self-proclaimed American coffee shop.  Joani quickly made friends with the owners, a married couple who are raising their three-year-old in amongst the coffee ground, so the restaurant was very friendly to my kids.  They had lots of toys, and Alex and I had a game of checkers.  I'm constantly impressed by wonderful sport Alex is: he happily accepts and just rolled his eyes and grinned whenever I took his pieces and, ultimately, beat him. Ella wanted to play as well, and I beat her more swiftly since she refused all advice.  After our game, she borrowed my iPad so that she could play against the computer, studying up for our eventual rematch.

We found a children's book that illustrated to the kids the meaning of their Dutch last name.  Ella loved that: "So when I walk up to people here and tell them my name is 'Elizabeth Marie Geels,' what they'll hear is Elizabeth Marie Yellows?"

We wanted to take the kids to the ocean today, especially considering how much fun they'd had in the sandbox yesterday, and we'd asked both the propetier of our hotel and mom's and dads which shore to take the kids to; there are two main beaches close to Bruges, and they each said a different one would be best.  We decided it might be nice to get tie-breaking opinion, so we asked the propetier of the coffee shop: she recommended going to the Netherlands instead, since the beaches near Brugges would likely be swarmed on this pretty day.  That scarcely added any time to our trip, so we stopped home to grab our passports and then drove to Cadzand, Netherlands.

The beach we ended up on was incredibly windy but really impressive, and it was so fun to think that the closest land to us, as we looked across the water, was the northern shore of Canada.  The wind never did stop, and most beachgoers had put up windscreens to hide behind.  But we braved the blowing sand for the sake of our beachcombers. There certainly was a lot for them to look at on the beach.  The shoreline was covered with glass-clear jellyfish that just fascinated the boys. And the beach was very shelly, and Ella and Alex quickly noticed that there were more of the minute sand dollars that they'd found at the park the other day, and worked there way up and down the beach, finding dozens. Meanwhile, Joey practiced bellyflops in the sand.  Alex tired more quickly of looking for shells, and moved on to finding and rescuing caterpillars, that were being blown down the beach in little roly-poly balls.

After about an hour, when our clothes and bags were sufficiently saturated with sand, we left the beach and went looking for a park that Dennis found on google maps.  Our walk took us past to a mini-mall that could have been transplanted from any seaside town in Florida, complete with ice cream stands and those wonderful shops selling bins and bins of seashells.  Considering the wind, I picked up a three-Euro kite for the park. And that was a good thing, as the park ended up being an emptly lot.  Ella took one look and said, dryly "I think the playground yesterday might have been a little better."  But they had their kite: it seemed to me that 45 cm, the advertised width of the kite, should have been a lot bigger. but the kids had a blast running up and down the field, draging the microscopic kite behind them.

Dennis had noticed a mini-golf place on maps as well, and we decided that, since we were in this weird little pseudo-Florida, that sounded just about perfect. We drifted into three groups of golfers: Grandpa and Joey, who hopped around the course wily-nily, with Joey crowing at his own skill; Dennis and Ella, who took their game very seriously, although they allowed themselves many, many mulligans; and then Joani, Alex, and I, whose game resembeled croquet more than mini golf.  But a good time was had by all.


We golfed until 5:00 and then returned to that minimall to feed our rapidly fraying children at a pizza and ice cream restaurant.  Before we left, Ella and I ducked into the shell shop next door, where she used her allowance to buy a little shell box and four pieces of coral, three from the 25-cent bin, and one from the 5-cent bin.  And, as she chose them, she anticipated trouble: as she handed them to the cashier, she said, firmly, "80 cents." And Ella was right to worry: "No. Impossible," the lady said, so Ella walked over and held up the sign, holding up a finger. 


No Flemish? No problem. Not when you have Ella Yellows.