He got more presents throughout the day, from parents, grandparents and even a present from the new baby in mama's belly. He was impressed by the fact that she gave him a present :-) He got lots of lego, dinosaur, Starwars, roboriders and a throwbot. Also a contraption which can be used as magnifying glass, binoculars, compass and a few more things. Very fascinating for a little boy. He also got a Pajama Sam computer game, a Pikachu watch and a Playmobil ghost. He was happy with all his presents, and is wearing the Pikachu watch all the time now.

We also ate some special snacks and had real Dutch pancakes for supper, with margarine and brown sugar, and then rolled up. The birthday person can always choose his supper here, and that's what he chose. The Dutch pancakes are thinner and more flexible than standard American pancakes, more like crepes and they usually get rolled up before eating them.

His cake was a 'castle lego cake', basically a simple chocolate cake, with some frosting, green sugar sprinkled on it for 'grass' and then some castles and knights on it. He loved it and although it was very simple to make, it looked really neat.

Another tradition in our family is that for your birthday you can either have a party and invite friends, or go somewhere fun with the family. The advantage of our family is that even if you decide not to invite friends, you have quite a party anyway, just with the attendance of your brothers and sisters. Timmy chose this year to go on a trip and his choice was the Aquarium in Boston. We had been there a few years ago, when I was very pregnant with Jane and Tim really enjoyed that trip and still remembered a lot of it. He has a very good memory, often coming up with details of things which happened years ago.

I wanted Sander to be able to go with us, so we waited till Sunday the 20th to go there. It is not extremely far, but my kids are not good car travelers, so 2 to 2.5 hours one way is quite challenging. It meant we had to be in the car for 4 or 5 hours totally. But the Aquarium was fun! The most spectacular things in our kids eyes were the pinguins, the sharks, the giant turtle and the flash light fish, but they enjoyed the other fish and exhibits too. Oh, and the divers of course, it is kind of neat to watch them swim around in between the sharks.

When we arrived, we saw a real long line at the ticket office. Hmmm, that was not good, since somehow waiting in line with five small kids is not our favorite thing to do. But then I noticed a sign saying that you didn't have to wait in line if you wanted to get a membership, since then you could just go inside and purchase it at the info desk. Phew! That was much better! I had been wanting to get a membership anyway, since we would only have to go 2 times to make it worthwhile for us. So we bypassed the loooooong line, went inside and spent just a few minutes becoming members. That was easy!

All in all we had a good day and Tim really enjoyed this birthday trip.

Cees, Tara, Tim, Jane and Kate watching the penguins	Giant turtle