MOM GOES TO HOLLAND

MOM PAYNE GOES TO HOLLAND

This was our group of Oklahoma Ambassadors. Marki and Stephanie (coach from OCU) escorted them to Holland. Two african-americans were from IKE. They play basketball. We also had a bowler from Elgin which is where we lived when we first moved to the Lawton area. We got to ride a double decker bus which was fun for all of us. Of course the kids went directly to the top of the bus. They were impressed and had a great time riding high through Holland.
When we made it to Holland we were wisked off to the Friendship Village. It was raining and it was late in the day. We got to eat finally (the kids were starving) then all the yuoung people met up with their specific sport group and went to their Hotel.
All sorts of games were set up during the day for everyone to play and hang out. We got to the Friendship village to late to get to play.
This was the soccer fields that were next to the Friendship Village. They played their games in this area.

The below pictures are the next day when my swim team and all the others went to an morning activity of learning how to play Korf Ball. What is so cool is that I had learned to play Korf Ball in Oklahoma at a Non-traditional Game workshop about 10 years ago. I had played it with my students one year. Now I can see how much fun it is and will teach others to play it

Each day we swam for 3 hours then we toured the country. The first day we played Korf. The second day we went to Downtown Amsterdam. It was so cool. It has canals all through the country. It is on the ocean side of the Netherlands.

My swimmers and another coaches swimmers wanted to eat Pizza. So we found an Italian Resturant. It was real good and the young people really enjoyed it.

These are some of my swimmers. I had 11 that I was resonsible for. They were very sweet girls. Only a couple were kind of challenging but it all worked out and we had a great time.

I stepped out of the resturant and took a picture of this beautiful church. It was across the street. After we ate we went over to the the church and in front of it was the below statue of Anne Frank. We went to her house and toured it. It was very interesting.

The great thing about touring the Anne Frank home was that most of the 7th and 8th graders had read or were getting ready to read the book. They all enjoyed it.
After we left the Anne Frank museum we walked to a outdoor mall area. The above picture was taken in front of some of the businesses on our way to the mall.
We also passed by this gorgous tram station. This country is a big commuter country. The people ride their bikes to the tram station and park their bikes in a bike parking garage. You will see that later.
Bikes were parked every where. The bikes were not fancy ones but they did have a ginga on most of them. And the people used them if you were walking on the bike path when they came by. We learned real fast to quickly get across the paths or you might get run over!

This is the mall area. Many of the same stores we have in our mall. Many that have different names than ours but were the same. No vehicles on the street.

When we were walking through the Mall area we looked down an alley and this beautiful building was there. It lead into another area with shops.

The bike path is so important in Amsterdam. This lady has her heels on heading for work!

Cheese is a big business in Holland. This store had all kinds of cheese plus a sandwich shop

I thought the sign was cute!!

This was at the pool. I had a differnt 11 girls I coached. This was a bit confusing. I would rather have the one group and work with them. I felt that I ddin't get to know the girls in either group like I would of like to. Maybe next year it will be different.
Stretching out after we warmed up in the pool. I had a great group of girls. They were very respectful and fun to be with. We got a long very good.


A draw bridge which was on the canal next to the bike rental shop. Many of these bridges were drawn up by hand still. But a lot had a machine crank.

Judy on the right was my room mate. She was a H.S. Swim coach from Florida. Dale was from Yorktown, VA. My daughter, Kristin lived there. He coaches an age group team and teaches.

The below picture was a beautiful representation of the homes we rode by on our bikes. Flowers were everywhere. With the amount of water available it was no wonder.

We rode our bikes for about 6 Kilometers. We traveled on the bike paths then down a country road. Riding by windmills and a large dike and very interesting houses. We ended up at the cheese factory and had a lesson on how cheese is made. Then off we drove in our big bus to the wooden shoe factory. Thought about buying everyone some shoes but I felt the floral decoration was a bit much.

The roof had a grass looking top on it. They said it helped with insulation. The canal was in front of the house.

The shape of these buildings were interesting. In the back ground you can see four poles sticking up. That is a hay house. The roof goes up and down depending how much hay is in the under it. That way the roof is close to the top of the hay. These houses were a long the road as we rode our bikes.

The cheese farm was a really fun place to visit.

Our bikes were left here and we toured the cheese factory and then road our bus to the Shoe Factory.

Traditional clothing was worn by the women on the Cheese farm.

This gentleman was sharing the cheese story. How it was made.

One of our girls decided she to buy a hat. She was a real character. Can you tell?

SHOES of all colors and sizes are hung from the ceiling to dry. The shoe maker had been at this factory for 40 years. He was real funny and kept us entertained as well as told us all about how they make wooden shoes.

Below he was showing us a LARGE shoe he made for the giant down the road.

After the cheese factory we headed to a real nice place to eat lunch. The lunch was served like a big dinner with bowls of food. Then we went shopping around the little town we were in called Harlem. I started looking at all the doors in Harlem. They were each so different and unique. I loved looking at the door knobs.

After lunch we headed to the pool for a 3 hour work out. This was our 3rd day of practice. We had one more before we had our 3 day meet. The workouts went fast. I would of like to have more days working with them. They were so eager to do good.

On Wednesday night I had a night off. Several of us headed for downtown Amsterdam. We headed to the Van Gogh museum but it was closed when we got there. I really wanted to see it but we saw some great art on the outside of the museum.

The Riche Museum was another art museum I would of loved to have seen. The outside was spectacular. Imagine what the inside looked like.