First CHS Swim Meet 2024

 He always looks so handsome in his warm up jacket:

Yankee Swap

 The Dukes invited us over for some holiday merriment:

Dylan being silly while Benji very diligently hangs an ornament

It's hard to believe these two have known each other for 15 years

The whole crew

Benji's expression when he opened his pick (from Adrian)

Luckily he was able to trade it away (back to Adrian, who actually wanted to read it)

All City Band Concert 2024

 

Marching band did the music from their show "Joy in the Journey" (Benji is the first clarinet you can see)

The combined band did a fun performance of songs from The Grinch

The much smaller wind ensemble did Universal Judgement (Benji is in the blue Hanukkah sweater with the Santa hat)

Tree Trimming 2024

This year's new ornaments

It was more subdued without Abby, but we still had treats

 

Glee Club 2024

 

As usual, we wore our ugly sweaters

Abby's Secret Santa

Abby did Secret Santa with her friends in Copenhagen and shared a picture via Instagram:

Amsterdam, Day 2

For our second and last day in Amsterdam, we had tickets to see the Anne Frank house. Tickets have to be purchased 6 weeks in advance. Luckily, Abby is in the same time zone as Amsterdam and was able to grab some when they went on sale. We stopped at the Pancake House next to the museum to sample Dutch pancakes first (no pictures are allowed in the Anne Frank House):

Kevin and I shared this gingerbread pancake

Outside the pancake  house

Once we finished in the annex/museum, we made our way back to the canals for a second boat tour, this one focused more on history (our tour group was called Those Dam Boat Guys). We ended up being the only group on the tour (there was another big group booked, but some of their members were late and they decided to wait for a later tour). Having the boat to ourselves was nice, and Captain June let Benji take the wheel for the majority of the trip:

Our guide pointed out these plaques which often show who originally owned the building (and often their profession, because most were merchants)

This is the kissing bridge - if you kiss under it you will be with your love forever

Another view of the dancing houses - you can really see the lean from this angle

Another view of the Bloemmarket

This was a wealthy merchant house -- all these windows were used for loading product

Our guide also noted some of the oldest houses we passed

This little red house is the smallest property on the canal

After the tour, we wandered around some of the parts of Amsterdam we had not seen yet. We went through the central plaza, which was insanely busy (but also had very cool decorations) and then skirted the edge of the red light district (we did not go into the district, but the businesses on the edge gave us a flavor of how seedy it is) and ended up at the central train station. From there, we took a metro (the only form of transport we had yet to take) to dinner and then called it a night because we had to be up early for our flights:

The streets radiate out from the central plaza like spokes, and each one had a lighted sign with its name and a different type of decoration

Central Station

And that's a wrap on our trip!