Fun stuff

When we arrived at the Keukenhof Flower Show, the parking lot was like a sea of tour busses. As our driver parked our bus next to all of the other maroon and gray busses, some of the passengers on our bus started to snicker.

We looked out the window and saw a bus parked across from us - light gray/silver in color, with purple lettering. So I sent Justice over to take a picture of the bus - just for fun!









Funny, huh? I'm sure it means something else in another language, but we were not able to tell where the bus came from - there are tours from all over Europe to the Keukenhof.

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I was fooling around with Bablefish this morning (procrastinating about doing the taxes!). I put Justice and Journey's names into the program and translated them from English to Dutch. Since they are real words in the English language, and not names, I got a number of results.

Justice - the quality of being just or fair. Dutch translations:

• justitie
  
• gerenchtigheid
  
• rechtvaardigheid
  
• bilijkheid
  

Journey - the act of traveling from one place to another:

• reizen
  
• tocht
  
• trip
  

Jagger's name is not a typical word in English, but he wanted a list of new names, just like his brothers! So I looked up the word "sharp" (in some parts of the US, people refer to the sharp thorns on roses as "jaggers"). Translations for the word sharp are:

• peinter
  
• schrander
  
• snugger
  
• spits
  
• vernuftig
  

So we have been calling the kids by their "Dutch names" all morning - they love it!
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As part of the dining room decor, the owner has a very large ceramic bowl in the center of the dining room table. The bowl is meant to look weathered and old (but the price tag on the bottom shows that it was purchased at Hema for 9.95 Euros!) The bowl is filled with fresh cinnamon sticks. It makes the room smell really good and Jeff regularly stirs through them with his hand to refresh them.

The other day we were eating breakfast and Jagger asked what the brown sticks in the bowl were. We explained to him that they were sticks of cinnamon - and you can guess what happened - he quickly grabbed one and stuck it in his mouth! The sour look on his face was priceless! He loves it when I make him toast with cinnamon and sugar, so he thought the cinnamon sticks would be a yummy treat!

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The cleaning service comes to clean the apartment every Friday at 11:00am. The owner's girlfriend is in charge of the arrangements and she regularly comes to check on the cleaner's progress.

When we came back to the apartment, we found some little signs, typed and printed on white paper, above each of the toilets. They were reminders not to flush anything other than toilet paper down the toilets.

Well, Justice and Journey decided that they didn't want the signs over the toilet, and ripped them up and threw them in the trash! When we found out, we were angry, as they did not have the right to take the signs down.

So we got out some paper and had them write new signs! Justice had to copy the words from the original sign two times, for the two bathrooms in the front of the house. And Journey had to copy the words one time, for the bathroom on his side of the house.

It really bothered me that the signs were not grammatically correct, but we had them copy the words exactly as they were. Next, they will each write a letter apologizing for taking the signs down and explaining why they re-made the signs. Pretty good punishment, huh?