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!