Sunday March 11 Mass in Dutch!

It is First communion Sunday at Pijnackers Catholic Church,Saint John the Baptist. We decided against going to Den Haag for mass today because of the big road race scheduled there. Unfortunately we were too late to sign up for the 10 or 5K part of the race, they close the numbers at 32,000! Wow! And they expect 150,000 spectators to cheer on the elite half marathon field. Several world records have been set on the course and many of the runners are tuning up for the London Olympics this summer. Anyway, because of this we decide NOT to go there, and opt instead for our local church. The mass is very interesting, they only do a gospel reading, and they do not have the precious blood option for communion. I also noticed that the deacon did most of the mass, with the accept ion of the gospel and the concentration. Danny commented on the body of Christ, which is “much more like the bread that Jesus gave his disciples at the last supper than the paper we get in America”. Neat!
When we get home the kids and Jerry head to the park for their big workout. They have named the teams..

The Pijnacker Pineapples-Charlotte and Danny
VS.

The Hhoffschien Homies-Jerry and Molly

They have developed an obstacle course in Pancakken Park and are anxious to try it out. What a success! They all had a great workout, and Jer figured out that three laps around is 1 mile, so hopefully the girls can to run on their own sometimes. Actually more hopefully my foot will soon be ready to go again.
After a big lunch of chicken noodle soup and bread we head off to Delft to walk around and explore a bit. Unfortunately just as we are parking the parking police come along and tell us we can’t park there. We make the mistake of deciding to separate, with Jer going to repark the car and the kids and I heading towards the markt to look around, and we’ll meet up at the church. Bad move! It turns into 2 plus hours of waiting, walking,looking,worrying,reparking, circling churches(some not the right one!), realizing we had no back up plan, no extra house key, no way to find out if Jer had had an accident or worse….it was pretty stressful! The town of Delft does indeed look lovely, and we sure look forward to seeing it on another day-together!
The evening finishes with frittjes, The Smurfs movie, and some last minute math lessons for Danny so he knows what to do tomorrow.