This gorgeous shot of the Northsea at Huisduinen was made by my BFF Irène.
She and her partner Eric visited us for a day and after hours of coffee and catching up we went for a brisk walk through the dunes and along the beach.
It was sunny but very windy and the people in the selfie she made don't even remotely look like us:

                                             

                                             This is why I don't make selfies .. sjeez!

We had a great time and as always were sad to say goodbye but there was tentative talk about maybe visiting the US, and us, somewhere in the near future, which would be awesome! We'll see ..

All of a sudden we'd entered the last week of our stay and we were making the most of our family visits before we have to leave.
Morning coffees with my mam, and often my niece as well, were a routine by now and we were taking turns 'hosting'.

James usually joined us for a little while to take a break from studying, which he diligently kept up for all these weeks in between all the festivities.
Sometimes we walked over to one of the beach-side coffee houses where they have very nice apple-pie and of course you can't beat that view!
 

On the way there we passed this old coast-guard tower which now features a rentable apartment with scenic views.

I wish I could take this view with me, there's always something to see, even when the weather is not so nice ..

When the tide is out the piers are visible and lots of birds come in for a rest or to find a little snack between the rocks ..

Or they fly over the dike to a small wetlands-area that lies just behind it  ...

                        

                       

The geese in the pictures above are Rotganzen or Brant/Brent Geese) and the ducks below are Northern Shovelers :

                  

I'm soooo going to miss my walks along this beautiful beach, as well as the ones in the dune area just inland from here which I mentioned before in a previous post, the Grafelijkheids-duinen(dunes):

The pines along the west-coast here are all rather stunted, caused by the salt air and always present winds which more often than not develop into storms ..

They're very photogenic!

For our last meal together with the family we chose to meet at a local Chinese restaurant:

Of course 'the Last Supper', the mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci comes to mind when talking about a last meal together, but for some reason (must be the dark light) this famous Van Gogh painting 'De aardappeleters' (The potatoe eaters) came to mine when I saw above picture .. ha, ha

We didn't eat any 'taters' though, our meal consisted of a delicious Chinese/Indonesian 'Rijsttafel' a dutch word that literary translates to 'Rice-table' ..
Brought back to the Netherlands by former colonials and exiled Indonesians (Indonesia was a dutch colony) after Indonesia gained its independence in 1945, the rijsttafel was created for and by the dutch to provide a festive and official type of dinner that would represent the multi-ethnic nature of the Indonesian archipelago.

Can you say 'delicious'?

It is a is a nearly unending parade of small plates all filled with different spicy-sticky-sweet Indonesian cuisine. Most rijsttafels have between 12 and 25 dishes and come with white or fried rice (nasi goreng), noodles (bami goreng), or a combination of these.

And there you have it, how to do the north of Holland in 4 weeks .. or something like that.
Of course we didn't set out to 'do' much this time around, we've seen a lot of the country already and we merely wanted to be with family for the holidays, study (in James' case) and basically just enjoy doing 'nothing' for a while!
Which we did .. and it was great .. but it's time to go home. Back to our own cozy and comfortable little home .. and bed, there's nothing like your own bed!

So, it's back to the USA we go, yo-ho. We're packed and ready to go and I'll post again when we're on the other side of the pond.
Here's a last sunset picture of that old coast guard tower .. bye-bye Holland!