Our holiday season so far

As some of you know, we are in the process of moving. Last week, the 22nd-24th, we spent every minute until late in the night shopping, painting and laying floor. When you rent an unfurnished house in the Netherlands, there are no floors, drapes, lights or really anything other than concrete floors and thankfully kitchen cabinets and sink (in Germany, even the kitchen does not exist, you have to buy all that as well). Needless to say it is a lot of work and a lot of money but we are currently paying way too much for rent so within the next year we will break even with the savings in rent.

Christmas day we woke up and opened presents of course and then made our way to the church for a ward Christmas brunch. This was an especially important get-to-gether for most because as of January 1st, the Capelle ward will be no more. The ward is being split, some going to the Gouda ward and others going to the Rotterdam ward. In our old house, we would be going to Rotterdam but thankfully because of the move, we will be going to Gouda. This is a good thing because many friends will be in Gouda and we wanted to remain ward members with them. Well, to go on...Christmas afternoon we went to visit Hannah's friends family, the Winters, in Barendrecht. Later, I decided that I shoudl go and get some more work done at the house so in the evening I left to install more laminate flooring.

On the 2nd day of Christmas (26th) Kristal and I both went early (around 9, can't get going too early) to the house for more work. We knew our time would be limited since my Aunt and Uncle were coming into town later that day to visit. Harold and Ima Jean Oaks are serving a mission in Frankfurt, Germany and they had some work to do here in Rotterdam. In fact, a ward member, Hylke Falkena was helping me lay some floors the other day and I mentioned I had relatives on a mission coming to town. He said "is it the Oaks?". Come to find out, he had just been called into a public affairs position and the Oaks were coming here to, among other things, train him.

On Saturday morning, we all went to Scheveningen to the Sea Life Aquarium. This was pretty cool because they had a large open poll full of fish including Stingrays that you could watch the fish from the side or above. The Stingrays would tread water and stick there noses out of the water and swim right past. I could have easily reached out and pet one but you are not supposed to. We saw a really cool sculpture exhibit along the sidewalk on the beach which I will post pictures of later.

The Oaks stayed at our home until early Monday morning but they are still in the Netherlands conducting business in other cities. It was good to have family around here for the first time. Our good friends, the Webbs, came to visit in May and it was good to have someone familiar in our home again.

Today I am back in the office, obviously working hard writing this post. Last night a couple neighbors and the missionaries came to the new house and we were able to finish the living room and part of the kitchen. Tonight I am working by myself but only have small areas to complete before our big move on January 1st. Wish us luck!

I am finally home!

Traveling by numbers....

3 weeks
5 different countries
5 different hotels
2 countries entered twice
7 individual flights
1000+ km traveled by car
1 tired person

I don't usually travel for work but the last few weeks Novell has asked me to visit clients all over. On Nov. 25th - 27th I was in Denmark and Sweden. Last week starting Tuesday I traveled from the Netherlands to Denmark then to Sweden and finally to Finland before returning home late Friday. Then just 2 days later shortly after getting home from church I headed back to the airport to travel to London for 5 nights to attend some training in Bracknell. It has been interesting but too busy to barely breath so even though I have been visiting many places, I cannot say I experienced them. Maybe next time.

Single Parenting

This is our deal...I have to get up first in the morning and wake up the kids, make breakfast, make lunches and snacks for school and make sure the kids are ready to go on time and Chris gets to take Alex to school on his way to work. I like this deal because I hate to be cold and would rather get up an hour earlier then ride my bike on a winter morning. I know this sounds strange to everyone out there who knows how much I like my sleep though. Well, the last couple of weeks Chris has been out of town a lot, so I have had to do the single parent thing. I truly admire anyone who has to do this on a permanent basis.
Yesterday, I saw a teenage girl on a bike right in front of Alex and me almost get run over by a minivan...so scary, by the way. Luckily, she was paying attention and swerved out of the way before she got hit. I don't think I wouldn't have been that quick with the swerving, not that steady on a bike yet. This girl was amazing though, she was even holding an umbrella in one hand and steering with the other and it didn't seem to phase her too much. I on the other hand had a hard time not swearing and really wanted to go and rip apart the crazy driver of this minivan. Irrational anger, I know, but this is how I am sometimes.
This morning, after having rained for a good few days straight, was freezing cold, but clear and pleasant looking. I thought all was well until I went to cross a road and realized that it was a sheet of ice and another crazy driver was about to turn right onto us and then couldn't slow down, just sliding right for us, fun, fun...after that, I decided that I would be smart and walk my bike like everyone else seemed to be doing and tried to stop and get off my bike. Alex and I and the bike all ended up on the ground. We weren't moving forward at the time so we didn't get hurt and it was mildly amusing. Even Alex thought that is was pretty funny. We weren't the only ones who ended up kissing the ice though so I didn't feel too embarrassed about the whole thing. We did end up walking about half of the way to the school and did not have another tumble.
Only two more days of this...Chris, please come home soon!!!

Hannah's School Pictures

Oh, she is not our 'little girl' anymore!!!
A couple of weeks ago, Hannah's school had a parent observation week and the parents could go and watch whatever dance classes that we wanted to. She is taking modern, ballet and character (folk) classes this year and I got to see her in each one. Modern was interesting to watch. Not really my favorite, but that is because I am just too uptight by nature and it looks really uncomfortable to me to be that unrestrained:) Character looked like a lot of fun, but I love folk dancing, so I am definitely partial to that one. The teacher made the parents get up a learn a dance with their child towards the end of class and that was a lot of fun. I think the kids really thought it was funny having their parents try to learn the dances that they do everyday. I wish that we had some pictures of that to post. Ballet was ballet. Hannah is, of course:), very fun to watch. She is very strong and graceful looking, just a natural. All in all, I had a good time and hopefully Hannah did too. I have to say that I really admire her for putting up with this move on the whole. I could hardly understand anything her teachers had to say and I don't know how she does it day in and day out. She is very brave. We keep telling her to just do her best and I think that she is doing a fantastic job with everything. Keep up the good work, Hannah! -kristal