That time again... Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piete

I know I have been M.I.A. lately.  There has been a lot of personal stuff with my parents visiting and my first niece/ God daughter being born.  My mind has just been else where lately.
I know in the past I have made this blog more about what you will expect to see in the Netherlands but now I am running our of idea's here.  I have decided to turn this into just plane and simple my life and what we as a family experience in the Netherlands.  Some of it may or may not be Dutch living related.  If I do come across a "must see" tourist spot or something you "must try before you die" - I'll be the first to tell you.

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Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet has once again invaded the Netherlands with whipping pepernoten at children, leaving goodies in their shoes and making parent's wallets a little lighter.
Last week Kiana (my youngest daughter) starts off her school morning as normal as can be, being greeted by her Siamese twin  best friend.  This time her best friend had a pretty little gold box in hand with a glass angel in it, "See what Sinterklaas brought me?".  Kiana's jaw dropped.  Ever since she saw this glass angel in the pretty gold box she could not stop talking about it.  Every night she would put her shoe out and beg pray ask Sinterklaas for a gold box with a glass angel in it just like he gave to her best friend.  She even wrote a letter in the best writing a 5 year old can. What was I to do???  As a good mommy Sinterklaas, I went to every single store in town in search for this golden box with the glass angel in it.  Four hours later I was tired, still empty handed and about to give up.  I started to head back to my bike and noticed one last gift store, "Pour Toi". Deep breath, fingers crossed... oh who am I kidding?  I went in, started to look around and finally in a ray of golden heavenly light... there she was ... HALLELUJAH!! Ok she wasn't in a gold box but at this point I did not care! Pink is pretty, my daughter is a girly girl so ya pink is good!  I had her wrapped up [yes this is one luxury of the Netherlands - almost every store will ask if your purchase is a gift and they will wrap it for you] and I biked home as fast as my tired legs could.  While waiting to pick Kiana up from school I decided to share my scavenger hunt story with Kiana's friends father.  Before I could finish the story he stopped me to inform me that they bought that gold box and angel in.... BELGIUM! If I would have known that in the first place, I would have saved my self a whole morning in the cold searching for my child's happiness! Since when do children want golden boxes with glass angels anyways?  At that age I was more than happy with toys... real toys! Anyways, I almost couldn't wait to give it to her, just to see her happy little face but I did at least wait to put it in her shoe that night.
The next morning I really did want to sleep in but around Sinterklaas time.... that is just not going to happen.  Kiana came running into my room "mommy mommy mommy!  Sinterklaas brought me the glass angel!!" All of a sudden the excitement left her face so I asked her what was wrong "it's not a gold box".
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!