Wow, what a day!  We have talked about this event for well over a year and today it finally came to fruition - the celebration of 40 years of marriage for Jeff's parents as well as his aunt Greet and Uncle Marty.  The weather was beyond co-operative, almost too much so, in that it was the hottest day on record in almost a century.  The thermometer in the car read 39C when we started driving towards the boat and was a much cooler (ha!) 37C when we arrived.  Thankfully the party was being held on a canal cruiseboat so the water and wind helped cool things down a little, although we probably could've opened our own swimming pool with sweat alone.  It was so beautiful - absolutely quintessential Dutch with the green fields, windmills and canals.  At many points we were higher than the ground while floating along in the water… those nifty Dutch!  We sailed for 5 hours and all the time were served lovely drinks and traditional Dutch snacks followed by a buffet dinner.  Heel leuk!

The boat cruise took us along smaller canals in the countryside as well as large bodies of water, and due to the heat the water was the place to be today!  It wasn't quite a boat traffic jam, but anyone with any sort of floatation device (motor preferred) was on the water to try and escape the heat.  There isn't A/C in homes here because it rarely gets this hot so people were doing anything they could to stay cool.  Party, party, party.  I'm not sure how many were on our boat - probably 100 people and the atmosphere was incredible.  Everyone was happy and visiting, meeting new friends and re-acquainting with old ones.  Almost every single member of the Scholten family was there and it was so fantastic to all be together.

So, it's over.  The moment we've been waiting for and thinking about for so long.  Isn't it funny how an event can seem so far in the future and then all of a sudden it's done?  We still have the rest of the week here filled with events and parties and I'm sure it will fly by.  We are lucky.  :)