the santoro life

Finn had his first and only summer camp this week. It was a Lego Mindstorms one (in Dutch and English), and he was paired up with two other kids who were fluent in English. It was for 7-12 year olds and it was intense - they were learning the basics of computer programming and every day was a different project. He was a little hesitant when I left him Monday morning, but when I picked him up he said "at first, I was about to cry, but by the end, I give it a 9 out of 10". So proud of him for being brave and sticking it out. Camp was 10-12 each day so me, Soph and Emmett dropped him off, then went to a museum, shopped at H&M or hit up a playground. No matter their ages, wrangling 2 kids is so much easier than 3! With his Lego Mindstorm. They programmed them to play a national anthem, drive and perform other tasks.  With his small group on Thursday. Their scenario was they had to design their Mindstorm to do something that would be useful if they were stuck on a dese...

We successfully completed our first European road trip! On Wednesday we headed north through Germany and stayed the night in Hamburg. We got there late so didn't see much, but had a great dinner at Piazza, then crashed. Thursday morning we drove 3 more hours north into the middle of the Denmark country and hit up Legoland! We stayed all afternoon, rode the rides, played the games, did the whole deal. Compared to Legoland California there was a lot of the same stuff, but it was smaller, cheaper and less crowded. After Legoland, we drove 2.5 hours east to Copenhagen. We stayed at the Hotel Tivoli for 3 nights - all of us crammed in one room because damn Copenhagen is expensive! It was a cozy 3 nights but the hotel was super family friendly with a pool, climbing wall and play room for the kids. We were on a serious summer break schedule, everyone up until 11 or 12 each night and sleeping in late every morning. Friday was a lazy day and Saturday was packed with sight seeing. We took th...

Yesterday we walked a solid 6 or 7 miles through the city, visiting Vondelpark, getting ice cream and doing a little shopping. We ended the day by renting our own boat and cruising the canals for 2 hours. We were a little nervous because it's a little bit like driving in an unknown place. There are many one way canals, lots of tour boats that hog up space and also lots of smaller boats out and about. Noah drove and did an awesome job. We took the Prinsengracht south to the Amstel, then all the way up the Herengracht canal. It was fun to see things from the canal perspective and it was a beautiful night! Noah driving and Sophia eating. She ate for 2 hours nonstop.  Still going. A whole pint of strawberries. Looking good captain. Emmett just being a cutie pie.  Finn got to drive a bit.  Family photo! Hisham was here this weekend visiting us on his way to Switzerland, so he joined us on the cruise and was also our photographer. Saw some ...

We've had a pretty fun week, mixed with the usual outings to the market, HEMA (our very mini version of Target) and running around the city. I'm getting pretty good at navigating the trams. It's so easy, they're clean and fast and they go everywhere. We take the 26 in to the city and go from there. The day we visited Noah at work we took a tram, a metro and a bus. Quite the adventure but I'm getting more and more confident every day and the kids are pros, checking their tram cards in and out each time. We try to get out every day or else I lose my mind, but we've also had lots of playing at home. Sophia runs a daycare where Emmett and the baby dolls are her kids. These are their beds. She loves calling all of their parents to tell them their kids are sick and they have to be picked up RIGHTNOW. Finn is mildly obsessed with the iPad which is another reason we have to get out of the house. I made the mistake of downloading Pokemon Go and he's obsessed! ...