Katie Greiling's Baptism

Just after my return from the Netherlands we headed over to Woodbridge for Katie's baptism. Evan was asked to be her godfather, and our friend Renee her godmother. It was actually a dual baptism for their family, as Eric's sister Lisa also had her son Gavin baptized that same day. It was so nice to be able to take part in this day with their family...and it meant even more that Katie wore Natalie's baptism outfit! I was so glad to see this get used a second time, and by people who mean so much to us. I took a ton of photos, and will probably split them up a bit here. This post just has photos of the baptism and their family.

The Greilings!

 Katie!

 I love this photo of Katie and Kathy. They both look so beautiful!

 Kathy, Katie, and Aunt Lisa

 Katie just before her baptism (and water was poured all over her little face by accident!)

 Renee, Eric, Kathy and Evan

 The Greiling family

 Eric and Kathy with her sister-in-law Kristina and Kathy's brother Robert

 Kathy and Eric, with his brother in law Chris and Eric's sister Lisa, and their son Gavin (who is also adorable, and I didn't get nearly enough photos of!)

I used my 50mm prime lens to shoot a number of portraits of the various kids present, and will put those photos up on the photography blog most likely, so no worries if you were present and your adorable child wasn't featured here - s/he will be soon :)

Turtleback Zoo 2012

While I was spending a weekend in Amsterdam, Evan took the kids up to his parents' house in NJ. On Saturday they took the kids to Turtleback Zoo. We took the kids there almost exactly one year previously, and I wasn't there to take photos, but Evan grabbed a few decent ones of their day there.

I really like this photo; even though neither of them are looking at the camera, the excitement on Henry's face pointing out the lizard (is that a Komodo Dragon?) cracks me up!

 And then Henry's favorite - cows!

This year, unlike last year, Henry was also excited to go on the carousel.

 Lastly, Grandma & Grandpa with the grandkids!

Wageningen, NL

On Sunday afternoon we drove from Amsterdam to Wageningen, a little over an hour south-east of Amsterdam. The drive was very pretty, through some local farmland.

We checked into our hotel and went out to the the "happening" town of Wageningen. It's a quaint little town with shops and restaurants around the large church in the city center.

One plus of being so near Belgium is that every restaurant we went to had a lovely fruit beer for me to drink! I did get a decent amount of teasing from my Dutch colleagues, as well as a waiter one evening, for my liking of super sweet beer, but I can't help that it's fantastically delicious, can I?!

Below is a photo of some of the restaurants that surround the church; we ate in one of these on the first night.

My week at our Dutch office was jam-packed; we were exhausted every night. Here are some of the highlights:
- We met our many colleagues at the BV (our internal term for their office; it's basically the same thing as Inc here in the States), both those we had met from their trips to our office and those we had yet to meet.
- We received a day of hands-on training on our two main products (which was incredibly useful and my favorite day of the trip!). The photo below is the final setup Kristin and I created - we've got a video camera for recording, computer running our software, and part of an 8-arm radial arm maze that we set up and automated with our software. Having never done half of that before, we were pretty proud of ourselves!

 We took two "field trips" while there; the first to the Restaurant of the Future, which I believe I posted about before. It allows for research into what type of food choices people make in a restaurant setting, and to also alter parameters of food presentation. We equipped the whole restaurant with A/V equipment and our software for coding behavior and reading facial emotions. Pretty cool!

 Lastly, I had to share this photo that I took at my loaned desk space. I had brought Rufus Whiskerton III with me, as well as my notebook (which I would be unable to work without!). I got the apple at lunch one day, and they had given each of us a mug. I had to share - I do enjoy our Noldus green!

Amsterdam

It's finally time to write about my trip to The Netherlands from September! I've got hundreds of photos that I took there, so of course it's not possible to put them all up here for all to see. It's not even possible to put a 1/10 of them here. So, I've decided to write just two posts here on the family blog, and put some of my more "artistic" photos up on the photography blog. First up: Amsterdam!

My colleague Kristin and I arrived in Amsterdam on Saturday morning. We spent the day walking around to try and avoid sleeping (to deal with jetlag), and saw a good chunk of the city, which is beautiful. It's probably the most green city I've been in; there's just so much vegetation everywhere! And the canals criss-crossing through the city are stunning.

One of the stops we made were to the massive Flower Market. We knew we wanted to purchase some tulip bulbs to bring back to the US; it took a while to choose which ones we ultimately wanted. We all settled on some blue ones that you can't find here in the US, as well as some that are on the "approved" list. I gave away most of the ones I brought back, and I'm looking forward to planting my own, which needs to happen soon!

 We also had to hit the red light district. I didn't take any photos of the girls, as that just seemed terribly creepy, but this statue shows how much the city is known for its legal prostitution. The whole thing seems depressing and desperate to me, but at least the girls have a number of organizations that look out for their welfare. Even so...it's just not something we here in the US are used to!

One other thing we saw was the Van Gogh museum. I had no idea of the breadth of his work before going there! Unfortunately the museum was in the process of moving (that site permanently closed the following week), so we didn't get to see everything but I think most was still on display. Even worse, however, was that they did not allow any photography! I understand why, but for me it was still quite frustrating. I'll just say that his paintings are beautiful...and wow was he messed up in the head.

 On Sunday, our colleague Paige arrived, and our colleague Matt (who was already in the NL) drove to Amsterdam from Wageningen (where our office is) to spend some time with us and drive us out there for the work week). Here are myself, Paige and Kristin on the canal boat tour we all took that day. It might have been touristy, but it was a really great way to see the city and learn a little history.




We had to switch boat lines at the Amsterdam Central train station, which is huge and beautiful!

 I tried to find a photo that exemplifies travel in Amsterdam, and I think this one does: bridge, canal, and bicycles. While there are plenty of cars driving around, most people travel by bicycle. On average in the Netherlands there are 2-3 bicycles per person. And the accessories! Carts, wheelbarrows, kid seats...it was pretty great. And strange to see kids zipping around in a major city without any sort of protective safety gear.



A large number of house boats also reside in the city. I couldn't get a good photo of them from the canal boat tour, so this is one that I took from a bridge.  The house boats are fairly stationary (many had so many plants and outdoor furniture on top there's no way the boat could move without losing all of it), but they're all occupied, and looked very modern from our glimpses through the windows.

Kristin and I then returned to Amsterdam on Friday night, after our work week, but I was feeling somewhat miserable from a cold I picked up on Thursday, and we only had a few hours. We stayed right near the train station and red light district, so got to see what that looks like on a Friday night (basically, crazy). We then had to be at the airport by about 8am on Saturday to fly home, so I don't have any photos from that last night except for these two that I took with my phone.

LEFT: Amsterdam at night

RIGHT: taken from a "specialty shop" in the red light district. I don't even want to know how that thing works, but it was displayed so artistically that I had to take a photo and share it here. Oh, Amsterdam!

The littlest Macbeths sing!

We interrupt the backlog of event posts to bring you some recent song stylings from the Littlest Macbeths. Up first is our newest sensation, Henry!

Second is our original diva, Natalie. She recently learned this one at school, and wanted to make sure that we all learned her newest hit by heart by singing it to us roughly 20 times in a 2 minute period.

National Arboretum

On September 8, a group of us got the kiddos together and met up at the National Arboretum. I hadn't been there before (it's in North East DC, so not in the best neighborhood), but I'd heard it's really beautiful. And man, was it ever! It was still quite warm the day we were there (of course, the next day cooled off about 15 degrees, but we couldn't make that happen with our schedules), but I think we all still had a great time.

We started off with about a 30 minute trip around the Arboretum on their tram. It kept us cooler, as there was a breeze while driving around, and we learned about the various parts of the Arboretum so I highly recommend it if you go. Here we are setting off.

 I took a ton of photos of what we saw on our ride, and will be posting those on the photography blog soon they are available on the photography blog HERE. I did want to share here one of my favorites. We saw these columns from far away, and later from much closer up. Turns out that these used to be at the Capital building, and after renovations were put into storage, and then eventually moved out here. I think it's a beautiful setting!

 The highlight of the trip for the kids (well, at least for Henry) was the koi pond. We stopped here to enjoy our picnic lunch and to feed the fish. Henry made me a bit nervous, getting so close to the edge, but my friend Will was right behind him, ready to grab if necessary (which it wasn't - Henry was very good about not tipping forward).

 Think these guys are used to getting fed? They were super pushy once we started with the fish food!

 Right next to our picnic area was the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum (as you can see in the sign below). There were beautiful bonsai works there! The kids were of course more interested in touching the water than anything else, but they did consent to pose for a few pictures (these two with me in them were taken by Will).

 You'll probably recognize this one - it was my Facebook profile picture until just yesterday.

 I then grabbed these two of Natalie and Henry. I absolutely LOVE this one of Natalie - the light and expression on her face are just beautiful.

 And here's my handsome little guy "cheesing" for the camera!

All in all, a really fun day, and if we had a spare weekend I'd be taking the kids back this fall to see the leaves changing - unfortunately we just don't have any spare time! Hopefully next spring when everything is flowering we can go again.

My birthday!

I posted previously that on my birthday I had Evan take some photos of me and the kids at the restaurant. I hadn't really prepped for the photos (like I said, didn't even brush my hair), and as much as I love him, taking photos is NOT one of Evan's skills. However, I figured why not...and I'm so glad I did! Something must have come together right, because these pictures are fantastic. Great way to remember my 32nd birthday!

Labor Day Weekend

I had planned to post a number of photos from what we did on Labor Day weekend, but in looking back through most of the photos I took there's far too much blurring/problems with them to want to show them to everyone.

We did have a pretty great Labor Day, however - we somewhat spur-of-the-moment went to Kathy and Eric's house to spend the night and hang with them. Evan was feeling stressed and wanted to get out of Leesburg. We had a great night - put the kids to bed in their cots and played cards for about 5 hours. Maybe that seems boring to some, but often that's all I want - good friends, good talk, good times without actually having to go anywhere!

While practicing with my new lens (which I've since gotten better at using), I did manage to get a few good photos of my family over that weekend, so thought I'd share here. 

Potomac Nationals

I (yes, me!) attended a real live baseball game. Look!

For those who don't know, I'm not a big fan of the sports in general, and baseball in particular. But in person it's a lot more enjoyable, particularly when you go with friends! And when it's Star Wars night (hence the jumbo tron photo in the back), so R2D2 is rolling around and others are dressed up. 

We went the last weekend in August to a Potomac Nationals game with a group of friends. We lucked out in that it wasn't very hot...but unfortunately we ended up leaving around the 6th inning because of rain and cold. Before the, however, I got some cute shots of everyone!

Baby Katie!

Kathy and Katie

Evan and Katie

Eric and Katie

Can you see a theme there? Katie, being the littlest, got passed around a lot - she's super fun to hold :)

Our kids had a blast too - climbing up and down the bleachers (we were up top with some room around us so the kids didn't bother other poeple), enjoying some baseball-game food (Dippin' Dots, french fries - you know, the good stuff).

Henry then discovered the mascot, and had to point him out to us repeatedly. It was pretty cute.

Kathy then asked to play with my camera for a bit, and got this highly entertaining shot of Natalie.

I wanted to make sure that we had photos of everyone, so here are the rest of our friends who went.

Kevin and CJ

Angie, Erin, and Bryan

Kathy also got this one of me and Evan - I think it's pretty cute! You can see Henry in the background, and the spoon in my hand - he wasn't very happy to have his Dippin' Dots interrupted by Evan kissing me, but he can deal!


Since it was the last home game of the season, and it was interrupted due to weather, we're really looking forward to going back next year and getting to enjoy the whole thing!