Houten

An afternoon with cousin Hanneke and family in Houten (near Utrecht). Cleared in advance, we brought Barney with us.

When we arrived Hanneke's son Floris was stuck to an iPad.

Barney smelt the pet rabbit upstairs and insisted on investigating. We had to keep stopping him from having rabbit for dinner.

Other son Julius came home from spending time with his girlfriend, sat on the side of the couch and received much ridicule about 'the girlfriend' from his mum and brother. Awww.

We all went for a walk around 'the beach' of Houten, a lake like thing with a man made beach. It was cold and so no one was out. The boys had brought a football with them and with poor skills lost control of it into the water.

The ball bobbled on the edge of the water and Hanneke called to Julius to take his shoes off, wade in and get it. Nope. The boys knew better. In their adolescent wisdom they threw handfuls of sand at the ball to get it back. We stood mystified as to what they were thinking. Of course it didn't work. Sand? C'mon.

With their ill though out scheme a total failure, the procrastination had let the ball get well and truly away. All that was left was for Julius to strip down and swim out to get it.

What kind of family have I married into?

At least they are entertaining!

And the area was nice too.

Back at home and with Julius showered, we got stuck into some home made burritos. Floris and I battled for who could eat the most. We tied at five burritos each.

Barney also had his dinner at this time. Once he was finished he then proceeded to disgrace us by humping Hanneke's couch cushions. They all fell about laughing at Barney. He never usually does this...okay - he always does it. Bad dog.

The boy from next door popped over to play games and all the children got stuck to their devices again.

As Hanneke says - they are the modern family.