Christmas celebrations at Joakim's school

There is a Christams celebration at Joakim's school every year. They all sang songs in a theatre last year, and they organised a nice small celebration at the school this year.

The tree on the square in the school garden was beautifully decorated.

Tobias enjoyed it, and we tried to explain to him that he would be part of it next year as well.

Live music! 

All the children carried their self made beautiful lanterns, and sang a song. 

More songs, followed by snacks!

Santa's grotto

We visited Santa's grotto in December. It was in a beautiful building in Riva del Garda. We set off later than we planned because the kids were tired and needed to nap. But this meant that we saw this beautiful sunset when driving to Riva del Garda.

Writing a letter to Santa.

We meant to take a picture of the kids with Santa, but poor Joakim and Tobias were too afraid...

Christmas markets

We had no idea that our region had so many Christmas markets (every city has one!). Maybe it is because Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol used to belong to Austrian Empire? It made us very happy, because we like them a lot, especially the eating and drinking: mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, and sweets, and more sweets. Here are some pictures from the one we liked most: Trento.

MART and Neuroscience

Jorien helped a little with a project that aimed to investigate how the brain behaves during artistic processes. Artists were asked to create an art work in their 'mind' while they were in the fMRI scanner, and they were ask to draw this as soon as they left the fMRI scanner. The nice thing of the project was that it was a collaboration between the university and the modern art museum of Rovereto (MART), and so the final art works were displayed in the MART. 

Here are the initial sketches made by the artists

Tada

Joakim's favourite 

5th of December

The fifth of December is the most important day in the Netherlands...... at least when you are a child. It means that Sinterklaas will come to your house and bring lots of presents. Wieske and Clayton organized a great dutch Sinterklaas party! Everyone had a great time.

Preparing a dutch meal: stamppot. From wikipedia: "Stamppot is a traditional Dutch dish made from a combination of potatoes mashed with one or several other vegetables, sometimes also with bacon."

Paola preparing her very first stamppot ever.

They think they heard Sinterklaas!

Candies were suddenly thrown into the house.... nobody knows who did it 

The presents have finally been found.

First snow of 2013

We decided to do some sledding with Marius and Paola when we saw the first snow of the year in the mountains (1st of December). There wasn't really enough snow to do proper sledding, but the restaurant served good food, and excellent wine. The weather was also perfect, and the company too! 

First steps in the snow

We were all in the Christmas mood, and decided to immediately buy a tree. Tobias and Joakim were great helpers.

Fun evening at Joakim's school

Joakim's maestras are not only very nice, they also organise a lot of out of school activities. They invited all the parents to come over in the evening to watch their children perform a play at the end of November. The play was about a snake who ate everyone.

Luckily all the children escaped in the end

All the parents brought some food, so we had a nice meal afterwards.

Joakim and Owen's party

One of Joakim's best friends, Owen, has his birthday around the same time as Joakim, and we decided to organise a combined birthday party. 

Another birthday cake for the birthday boys!

Happy parents.

Joakim's birthday

My parents came over for Joakim's 5th birthday in November. Joakim really likes knights, and his first present was a shield and sword, and a note saying that knight Joakim had to go on a treasure hunt and find his other presents.

Another present... with another note.

And the last one.. a real Castle!

 Finally time for cake (made by Jorien)

 

 

Joakim also celebrated his birthday is his class room with home made cup cakes.

 

We made a couple of nice trips with my parents. We went to the ice men museum in Bolzano during the weekend. The museum is  all about the mummy that was discovered close to Bolzano. It turned out to be a significant finding, since the mummy was much older than people thought (3300 BC), and he, Otzi, already carried copper tools with him. The museum is all about how thow 'cave men' might have lived.

I also took a nice picture of my parents with Joakim and Tobias in front of Otzi, but I managed to forget to use the flash.

There was also time to visit a nearby winery: Spagnoli

They have a couple of nice wines, and are very friendly (some local wineries behave like they prefer not to have to you there)

 

 The best thing was that the winery was preparing for a party, and Tobias and Joakim could play with the toys, and we had more than enough time to taste all the wines.

Joakim could also show his karate skill to my parents.

The weather was pretty decent, and we made a nice walk in a nearby forest: Bosco della citta

Early November is, of course, also the time that Sinter Klaas arrives in the Netherlands. Joakim and Tobias were very excited about singing songs, and putting their shoes in front of the door, so Sinter Klaas could leave a small present for them.

Joakim was getting too big to fit on the back seat on our bikes, but Italian traffic is not very bike friendly. We bought an add bike for Joakim in the Netherlands. My parents brought it to Rovereto; so this is what our school run now looks like.