It's (Amster)dam Cold Here!

After being back for Portland's coldest winter in 40 years, we came home to the rarely frozen Amsterdam. Every few years it gets cold enough here for the canals to freeze over and as soon as it does, the Dutch flock to the ice to skate. Here are some pictures Erika took in the park this weekend of our little Dutch Winter Wonderland.  

Goober-natorial?

Image courtesy of Rob's freaking parents.  

Happy New Year!

The new year finds us back in Amsterdam after a very relaxing two weeks in snowy Portland. We had a little bit of an adventure getting there, with an overnight delay/diversion in Minneapolis, but we were able to visit a couple of our friends while we were there, so it was actually pretty nice. Portland suffered through it's heaviest winter in 40 years, so that was fun. The area doesn't really have the need, practice or infrastructure to deal with snow and ice, so we spent most of the first week happily confined to Erika's mom's house eating and visiting.  

We spent the second week of our trip running around with wedding related errands, which was fun, exciting, and a little overwhelming (but mostly fun and exciting). We capped off our trip with a nice New Year's Eve party with some friends (Rob celebrated more than he should have and spent most of the next morning valiantly (and successfully) trying not to, um, revisit the previous night's festivities, especially since we stayed at a friend's house and while revisiting the previous night's festivities is unpleasant enough, it's a little rude to do it at someone else's house, especially when that someone else is sleeping in the next room and might be awakened by said revisiting).  

It's good to be back in Amsterdam and we're slowly getting past the jet lag.  We awoke this morning to a nice dusting of snow as Holland has been having a nice little winter, too.  We're looking forward to the coming year and are very happy to have some awesome visitors lined up for the rest of the winter and into the spring. And, there's always room for more if anyone else is up for it...

Hope everyone else had a great holiday and we wish you all a Happy New Year!