Amsterdam - Day One and Two

We rented an apartment in Amsterdam. It was perfect for us. I loved how it was decorated and felt right at home amongst the forest wallpaper. Abs was ready for fun and action. She is such a doll and was incredibly well behaved on the car ride. She is content to watch her TV or talk and talk and talk and talk. 

Oh, and she talked -- a LOT.

Ollie. He's stinking cute, even in other countries.

Whose the queen of the playground? ME!

The fields of tulips were overwhelming. So beautiful. I was surprised how far out of the city you had to get before you started to see them. I thought they would be everywhere.

Tell us how you really feel, Ollie...

I kept walking around thinking my friend Jessica Davis would have LOVED these gardens. I wish that I could have snapped my fingers and spent the day exploring with her here. Also, she could have told me what all these flowers were. I was too lazy to read the signs.

It was crazy exciting to see windmills. Live. In person. I can't stop pinching myself.

Every garden was more stunning than the next. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better...

I loved this canal garden.

My mom was not too thrilled that I took Abby out to the middle of the lake with me. If the swan can swim out there than so can we.

The highlight of the trip, for me, was going to the Corrie Ten Boom house (The Hiding Place). The Anne Frank house was good, but it totally looks and feels like a recreated museum. Also, Ollie screamed through most of that museum and I ended up running through the last half of it. The Ten Boom tour felt like you were seeing the real thing. They take people up in small groups so you aren't fighting to see everything.

This was the church around the corner.

You enter through the back door, just as they would have. This is where the police came to arrest them.

The Ten Boom family were brave enough to allow the Jewish hideaways to sing and worship in this living room, which was incredibly dangerous. This is not the real piano.

This hiding place! Six people hid in this wall for 2.5 days after the police came. It was amazing to peer inside and see how dark and scary that would have been. They had no bathroom or water and only a few crackers. Just hearing the guards knock on the wall, a foot away from them, to see if the wall was fake would have been traumatizing. I just can't imagine, even after being here and seeing it myself.

They had 70 seconds to get all their belongings, climb up two flights of super steep stairs, crawl through the bottom of the wardrobe, and file into the hiding place. They had to practice every single day. Being the crazy competitive person that I am, I was desperate to see how fast I could do it. That somehow seemed irreverent under the circumstances. You know you have a problem when...

They put up walls on this rooftop so that the hideaways would get some sun every day. They couldn't stand up, but I am sure they still considered it a tender mercy.

This was the sign they kept in the window to let the resistant movement workers know it was safe to come and talk business.

A family walk.

Here are some random photos from my mom's camera: