Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet

Yesterday after we picked Justin up from work, he needed to stop in at a store on the way home. The children's toy store, Dreamland, happened to be next door. I noticed a big banner with Sinterklaas' picture on it. As I read the information off of the sign, including that Zwarte Piet and the Sint would be visiting the store on November 12, Erika got really excited. She exclaimed, "today is November 12 Mom!" Then Austin and Erika got instantly hyper. I took them in to visit Sinterklaas. We only had to wait in line for less than 30 seconds. Erika went right up to the Sint. He said that he had heard that she was really good at school and that he had heard that she could sing very well. I told him it was true that she could sing well and so he asked her to sing a song for him. After a moment of deliberation, she choose to sing "I am a Child of God," a familiar favorite from church. Sinterklaas was very surprised to hear her sing in English and so well. He told her that she had the voice of an angel. There was a bit of a line behind us and the Sint told everyone to come closer and hear this child sing. He then asked Erika to sing again and she did. Everyone clapped for her - she was a bit nervous, but handled it well. Zwarte Piet asked her where she had learned her English she simply replied, "In America." He was amazed that she could speak Dutch without an accent and that she was bi-lingual. After all of this Sinterklaas showed Erika his magic coloring book which had pages ready to color, then after a hocus pocus, its' pages were all colored in, then after one more hocus pocus, it was blank. Erika really liked her visit with the Sint.

When it was Austin's turn he was a bit shy. Erika told Zwarte Piet and the Sint that Austin likes to "rock". Then Zwarte Piet pretended to rock out and play a guitar. Austin laughed so hard - it was so funny! After visiting with the Sint Austin was proud of himself for being so brave. The kids got a free dominos game and a bag of goodies given to them from their visit. They also get a copy of the photos for free next week. I'll post them when I get them.