Our last day of vacation was brighter and sunnier than most. We wandered across museumplein enjoying the morning on our way to the Van Gogh.
A few year ago we book Siena a children’s book filled with
famous pictures for the world’s greatest artists.
One of those pictures was a bedroom scene Van
Gogh had painted of his room in Paris.
The book was a touch and feel book that had the red blanket on the bed
as a piece of felt and a caption that said help Van Gogh make his bed.
Siena loved this book, and when we visit the
Van Gogh Museum, guess what she found.
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| Making Van Gogh's Bed |
The Van Gogh Museum is filled with some of his greatest works
and many self-portraits. As we entered
we were great by a wall size version of his Sunflowers painting. Siena immediately wanted to draw the picture,
so when we found it she settles down and began sketching.
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| Sunflowers - Vincent van Gogh 1889 |
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| The Artist |
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| Siena's Sunflowers - Mid-creation |
Initially she was drawing it much the way it
looked. But then she drew in a blue
flower. When I asked her why she used
different colors she said, “because this is my picture, it’s just like his.” And with that statement she colored in the
background red and presented the picture to daddy as a gift.
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| Siena's Sunflowers |
This Van Gogh was such a fun experience we spent much of our
day there. After a really good
cheeseburger at Lombardo’s we went to visit the Flower Market. Tulips are Lisa’s favorite flowers, and
here we could have bought enough bulbs to grow a beautiful garden, but it
doesn’t get cold enough where we live to grow them. So we bought some pretty wooden ones
instead. A few fun things for her
school friends and teachers and we headed toward home.
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| The Prettiest Flower |
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| Flower Market |
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| Little Dutch Girl |
Along the way we stopped at a classic Dutch restaurant, Piet
De Liuew’s. If you think old New York
Steak house décor you will have the idea, wood, more wood and low light. That said, the food was supposed to be pretty
good. So in we went and as the waitress
approached Lisa asked what their specialty was.
Without skipping a beat she said the horse steak. The look on Lisa’s face gave away her
thoughts and the waitress tried to explain it wasn’t the kind of horse you rode
but that it was bred to be eaten, kind of like cattle. Well, even given the nice explanation, we
didn’t try the horse, despite the fact that there were multiple preparations
available on the menu.
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| Horse Multiple Ways?!? |
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| Do You Like Dark Wood? |
Our dinner was good and we finished our visit to Amsterdam
with a nice walk back to our apartment.
Our last chance to take some pretty picture of the canals, bikes and the
unique architecture of the city.
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| I want a pink bike |
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| Shoe Boat |
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| Coffee? Not Really |
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| Classic Amsterdam |
The next morning we headed to the airport to fly back
home.
The cloudy skies gave Siena one
more going away present as we arrived at the airport, a side by side
rainbow.
With wonderful memories, a few
trinkets and great time together as a family in our hearts we flew home.
Vacation is never long enough.
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| The End of a Great Vacation |
