Last week we met Linda and Dennis in Amsterdam for some fun "tiptoeing thru the tulips".  We had a Mission Conference of the Belgium/Netherlands Mission that we were speaking at so they flew into Amsterdam and then we spend a couple of days seeing the sights.  Holland, or the Netherlands, is a beautiful and flat country on the North Sea.  We visited the Zaanse Schans area which is famous for windmills and wooden shoes.  We actually went inside a "working windmill" which was crushing peanuts to make oil.  It was quite fascinating.

We loved the wooden shoe factory with 1,000,000 styles of wooden shoes and a viewing area where they carve the shoes.  We also went to a cute and quaint village named Edam - famous for it's great cheese.

The city of Amsterdam is pretty amazing with it's many canals and beautiful architecture.  We took a cruise around the city on the canal boats and walked around viewing the amazing buildings and visited the Anne Frank haus.  It was sobering to go through .

Of course no trip to Holland in April would be complete without a day at the Kukenhof Tulip Gardens.  There are literally acres of tulip (and other flower) beds.  I never dreamed there could be so many different varieties of tulips.  It was a cold but amazing journey through these beautiful gardens.  Kind of makes the 3 or 4 tulips in the flower bed at home seem pointless.

There are also fields of tulips growing all around the area and driving past is a wonder in itself.  It looks like a patchwork quilt of colors.