Girl with a Pearl Earring, c.1665

We arrived back in Amsterdam early this morning after a very rocky crossing on the ferry. The worst I can ever recall. I heard a number of alarms going off in the early hours and at one point I had convinced myself that we were going to be evacuated as I braced myself against the wall of the cabin. The kids, however, managed to sleep right through! Hubby met us as we left the boat having driven up very early that morning to collect us; it was great to see him. Rather than drive all the way back to Brussels we decided to celebrate New Year's Eve in The Hague as it's somewhere we've not properly explored yet.
We had a lovely wander through the streets before embarking on Mauritshuis where the above painting is on display. The gallery was fantastic with really informative videos on techniques used for portraits. They compared and contrasted a lot of the techniques with the modern day selfie which gave us a real insight into self portraits. Olivia was absolutely fascinated and at the end we bough several post cards from the shop for her to put in her art journal and share with her art teacher and class back at school.

Early evening we came across a restaurant where we could sit outside next to the heaters and enjoy a meal. We took our time and talked about our highlights of the year and all that we had achieved and experienced, ranging from Olivia being diagnosed with myopia and needing to wear glasses, singing in the talent show to a sold out theatre, Dexter losing four teeth, becoming a big fan of Everton and football in general, hubby achieving top results in his Masters and performing in lots of gigs with his band, me having laser eye surgery and being given the position of head coach, and of course all the wonderful holidays that we have been so fortunate to share together. There have been some lows as well but overall 2015 really has been a good year for us with lots of very special memories. 
We took it in turns to write them down and place them in our memory tin along with our hopes and aspirations for 2016. We will open the tin next New Year's Eve to see if we have succeeded! 

Despite Olivia's protestations about staying up until midnight to watch the fireworks, we were all sound asleep well before midnight!