A day in Nuenen

Vincent van Gogh lived and worked in Nuenen from December 1883 to November 1885. In retrospect, his stay in Nuenen was one of the most important and productive periods in his life. He chose as inspiration for his paintings the hard everyday life of fellow man. The results of this amazing effort in Nuenen are 194 paintings including The Potato eaters, 313 drawings, 25 water colours, 133 sketches, 10 lithos and 29 'juvenilia' (drawings of young people).

This is the Van Gogh statue in Nuenen it depicts him walking through town with his sketches tucked under his arm. His parents lived in Neunen and he had a girlfriend here.


The Roosdonck Windmill. This windmill appears in several of VanGogh's sketches.


This is a sketch by VanGogh of the DeGroot family home. They are the family that appear in "The Potato Eaters" painting. You can see the Roosdonck Windmill in the background.

"The Potato Eaters"


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It was a beautiful day for a bicycle ride. It was about 11 miles round trip. The weather was perfect and the scenery was gorgeous. We had a great time.

Ikea

We don't have Wal-Mart, but at least we have Ikea. It is about a 20 minute bike ride from our apartment. This is one of many visits that we will undoubtedly make.

...more from around the house

Ethan looks a little unsure about this "brothers" thing.

This is the view from our balcony. All the tents and trucks are there for the outdoor market that they have every Wednesday.

This is Ethan's first cereal feeding.

The boys

De Fiets Verlicht (the lighted bicycle ride)

Every year in Eindhoven they put up lighted billboards all over the city on a bicycle route to celebrate the independence of the Netherlands. So, we went cycling on the route with Soile and Jerry's family. At the end of the route they have a pond that is all lit up and decorated with smurfs. They also had an ice cream truck and a soup stand with the best split pea soup I have ever had.

This is our bike trailer. The kids love it. They look so cute sitting side by side like that.

This is just one example of the lighted billboards.

Collin and Johnny at the Smurf Village.

The ice cream was different but really good. It was hard to get Collin to share.

Me and Soile. Her daughter Tilda is laying on her lap.

The Eindhoven Ward

We love our new ward. Everyone has been so friendly and helpful. These are some photos of ward members that I took when they invited us to their homes for dinner.
This is Daisy and Soile. They love to hold Ethan. He is the only baby in the ward right now, so he is very popular. Soile is from Sweden, but she speaks English. Daisy is from the states I think, but also speaks very fluent Dutch. She gave Collin a whole closet full of toys when we arrived and she gave us a crib for Ethan.

Johnny talking to Jerry (Soile's husband) This is their home.

Collin had a lot of fun playing with Soile's two boys.

Some of the missionaries. It has been fun getting to know them. They have been getting us fired up to share the gospel.

This photo was taken at the Young's house. They are the other American family. Collin was watching Finding Nemo with the boys.

Speel Park de Splinter

All of these photos were taken at a park that is about a 10 minute walk from our house. It is a beautiful park. It has animals and a pond and a lot of fun equipment. It is a very popular park around here, so it is nice to have it so close to home