Category: Familie en vrienden

Class photo

A class photo is a very nice way to remember your class for when you are a bit older. It is nice to see your classmates and even nice if you are still in contact with some of them. A picture makes it easy to remember, but it seems that pictures are not a very reliable way to remember anymore.

Alex just got his class photo of his class with 5 year-old. A nice picture but with something strange. Just look yourself:

At first glance there is nothing wrong with the picture. A typical picture with a lot of kids that remarkably all look more or less at the camera. We only noticed Alex who seemed to have his eyes a bit closed, but hey, they are kids after all, so this is to be expected.

Then I noticed something else. The boy on the bottom right seems to be floating. A better look makes it clear somethings up here. The boy looks at the camera perfectly, has a clean black uniform, and his colors are more crisp. This boy has been added to the class photo using a photo made in a studio.

The teacher and the two most right boys were cut from the rest and moved a little to the right. The new kid was added and moved to the background, blurred a little, and then the teacher and two most right boys were moved a little in front of the new boy. Just like he was there. But in reality he wasn’t there. Should we want him in the picture even if he was part of the class? If we are going to edit the class photo anyway, why not just all studio pictures of all kids, smiling, clean and looking at the camera, and paste them all in a class composition.
Swing

While Alex is developing his musical talents his little brother Alan is developing very fast. Alan already crawls to any place in the house at a record speed. Walking is still a little bit to risky, but it won’t take long. Alan is getting up on his feet more and more. When we take Alan for a walk to the park it is not enough anymore to just look around. Alex demands to be taken out of the stroller and be placed in the swing.
First performance

Alex has been going to the Yamaha music school for almost two months now. He has a one hour class every Monday and he has to practice a couple of time through the week. Enough to get the basics. Here is a part of Alex’ first performance, together with his best friend Dario.
Running for two reasons

Today we have another run especially for kids. We hope Alex will enjoy himself and get a nice shiny medal, but this time there is also a good cause. We are running for a medal and for little kids with cancer. A double win.
Doing the dog?

English is without a doubt a very important language. Still, in the education we are giving Alex and Alan it is a little less important. For our sons Dutch is much more important. I want them to have at least a basic knowledge of Dutch so that they can manage themselves once in Holland. At school English is also a little less important. Alex’ school focuses more on German, with German classes every day, and English only twice a week.

We still feel that a little English at school, and all the English we can get on the TV should be enough to get a basic understanding. At least, as long as he is not taught incorrectly. At his school Alex got a drawing with the English title “What’s doing the dog?”, the words are in an incorrect order, which make it quite wrong. It should have been: “What’s the dog doing?”. Such a mistake in just once sentence is sure making us a bit worried.
Family update

Things are going very well with our kids. They support eachother very well, even though sometimes little Alan treats Alex to a bite.

On this picture we are visiting Jardin Canario, the local botanical garden. We went to see if there were any pitangas, but we found none. Still it was not all for nothing, we got to see a lot of Canarian lizards.
Yamaha

Alex has a hard time enjoying extra activities outside of his school hours. He did not like kung fu, and swimming was also a no go. Now we finally found something he likes. The Yamaha music school. Making music on a keyboard.

Alex already followed two classes, and he enjoyed them. He now knows Do, Re and Mi! We got a keyboard at home, so he can practice all he wants. The neighbors are not (yet) complaining, so Alex must be doing a good job.
Neck

Alan already had a well trained neck, but he keeps progressing and is getting stronger all the time. His diet is still limited to only milk, but he is starting to complain, so we let him lick some fruit. He already sucked on a piece of apple, an orange and a pear, and he loved the new flavors.
Neck and cabbage

Alan is growing very very fast. Like they say in Dutch he’s growing like a cabbage. He is getting bigger by the day and he is getting stronger. We train him sometimes to support his neck and as you can see in the image he is doing nicely.

Alan also spoke his first word. Not the cliche like every other baby, no, Alan didn’t settle for ‘mommy’ but choose his first word very carefully and made his first alliance at the same time. His first word was ‘Alex’.
Corriendo por Vegueta

I started running again and ran a nice lap in the center of Las Palmas called Corriendo por Vegueta. 10 Kilometers which resulted in a very nice 52:45. Not bad at all.

Maybe I was expecting a little bit of attention for the running effort, but I did not get any. All the attention went to Alex who ran his first match of about 100 meters. He was followed by a cameraman that grabbed his entire run.