Sinterklaas Gathering here in Salatiga with the Dutchies!

December 5th ~ Wow Can you believe it - celebrating the Dutch Saint Nicholaas here in Salatiga????!!!

It all started with Christiaan & Leanna receiving a (several boxes!)  box from Holland with goodies in it..preparing them for Sinterklaas!  Christiaan & Leanna said "What shall we do with all that...let's have a little get together with the Dutchies!!!!" - yes- how fun & there is enough to share!  SO..........Beppie invited us all over to the house on December 5th! 

And Beppie being quite a cook/baker made Homemade Carrot cake and it was GOOD!                                 Wortel Taart in Dutch! 

 We all enjoyed one anothers company chit-chatting in Dutch....of course!  Nick & I are a little rusty compared to these 'fresh from Holland' group- but our Dutch/American mix - it was fun anyway...ha!

                      Beppie made us all feel so spoiled - it did us good to be together this evening!
Thank you Beppie - for having us all over...it was a FUN evening!!! We all appreciate it...echt waar!

Yes it was a wonderful evening - kopje koffie met wortel taart!  Yes! There was pepernoten and schuimtjes and gummitjes...and we sang the Dutch songs that Nick had copied off the internet!  Oh how handy is that - yes all available online!

Christiaan had a T-shirt on from a VERY familiar store in Leiden where Milou works and is Manager there!  Look Milou! 

Albert, Liesbeth, Leanna, Ewout and Beppie and Nick & I had a great evening!

"Zie ginds komt the stoomboot van Spanje weer aan" "Sinterklaasje kom maar binnen met je knecht" it was fun singing all together and remembering that back home in Holland and Bend, Oregon they would be celebrating Sinterklaas too!

 We are 15/6 hrs ahead - so we beat everyone to it! ha!

 Christiaan told us that in Holland they are making the old songs a little more updated! It was pretty cute the way he sang it!                               Helemaal stoer zeg!

 We also did a "elephant exchange" of gifts - and the rules were also printed off the Net below!

 

For you Dutchies - you can read off this sheet and see the rules to this game...It was lots of fun 

and we did a whole lot of exchanging with these rules...everytime you thought you had 'the gift' and then before you knew it was gone again!  

Sinterklaas in Salatiga Central Java Indonesia...pinch me...is this really happening?  Did we ever think??????

Nope! BUT WE DID!!!!