Water ways everywhere....

I am learning to not ever be in a rush around this country. People operate much slower that in the US. They don't work weekends...which is why we haven't received confirmation about the place we are trying to rent and stores are closed on Sundays...so plan ahead. Literally almost every store was closed yesterday. Its quite a nice change of pace, actually. I think that life balance is much better here. People take it easy and enjoy living life a little more.

Anyway, back to the point of my post. In the area where we are staying there are many lakes and waterways, and they do not have high bridges, instead all the bridges open to let the boats go through. There are SO many boats, so its quite a normal sight to see traffic stopped while a boat proceeds through. The kids love it, they are always hoping that a boat needs to go through so we can stop and watch the bridge.

Dutch pancakes!

At last, we tried pannenkoeken (dutch pancakes)  At the edge of a huge forest filled with bike/walking paths in Hilversum there is a little place called Restaurant de Rading. We tried the plain ones and added the traditional gieten stroop (pouring syrup), which is much thicker, but less sweet than maple syrup that we have back home. We also dusted them with poedersuiker (powdered sugar). They were delicious! They are huge and flat, like a crepe, but not as eggy. The restaurant even had a play are for the kids and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the 20 degree day. (temp is measured in Celsius here....so that is about 70 for all you back home who, like me, learned temperature in F.)

Volendam

We visited a town a few locals told us about, Volendam. It's a famous fishing village known for herring. (The hubs tasted it and enjoyed it, I stuck with a smoked salmon roll- which was insanely good!)

Here are some pics from our time.

By the marina 

All the walking we make these kids do... They love to find fun walking areas along our path...here they had a neat sloped are along the walkway...hard to walk along? No problem. :)

Beautiful marina area ( we need a boat...or so our kids informed us..let's just get the money off that "money tree" ha! Kids make things seem so simple, don't they?)

They even had play equipment for children on the dock! 

Walking from the marina into the village Volendam

Pictures can't capture how quaint, historic, warm, and charming these streets feel. Amazing! 

Of course a visit to the local cheese factory. :) They are crazy about there cheese in Holland.

And one of many treats today....I can't remember what they are called but they are puffed dough filled with a whipped cream and dusted with a fine powder like sugar, but different. So hard to explain. You must just try them. Delicious!

Hours of wasted time

I spent hours tonight ironing things like white tee shirts, jeans, silly things that you don't iron...all because of the fantastic small efficient wash/dryer combo machine that takes hours to run and then leaves me with the most wrinkled clothes possible. Seriously you can NOT believe the wrinkles. Just picture the more wrinkly thing possible...that is the end result of every article of clothing, even if you pull it out as soon as its freshly dried, or if you try to just wash a few things to give the dryer more space to fluff things. I just don't get it. I don't care, I quit. At least I have a dryer, right? I will adjust, I WILL iron and just deal with it until we get an appt and I can get my own separate dryer...I can dream right? ha!

amsterdam

we had to go into Amsterdam today for immigration, to get our identification card, and open a bank account. (cash is king here! - seriously no credit cards are taken anywhere!)

We were lucky to have a great relocation guide with us that gave us a driving tour of the city for over an hour and a half. we saw SO much. I see why people love it so much. Here are a few pictures I took while riding in the car enjoying the sights.

p.s. I cant wait to go into the city again and explore NEMO, the open markets that are everywhere, a canal ride, and various other things that I can not think of right now because I am too tired.

neat canal view

they Eye

The palace

bikes everywhere

another canal

Keukenhof

Tulips, daffodils, lilies, any bulb flower you can imagine and they were here, in bloom and in abundance. We enjoyed a down day today exploring a part of Holland we have heard a lot about. Its near a town called Lisse and the big garden is called Keukenhof. They are flowers galore and an old windmill that you can climb in and explore. We enjoyed the sights, some frieten (french fries...since we were too timid to try anything else this time) and fresh Stroopwafel (caramel between two very thin, fresh waffles - amazing!)

enjoy a few pictures.

 by beautiful cherry blossoms

 hopping across the pond

 She sat here for a picture...and then bounced around and FELL backwards into the pool. I reacted quickly to save her from going head under, quite a sight! We laughed hard about it, I mean what else can you do. She is a spunk one! We are such "Yankees" (as they say here.) I am just glad she didn't dunk her head under and get all the way wet. Everyone was quite concerned and laughed so hard at us.

 :)

 I love these flowers!

Fresh stroopwafel

another turn hopping across the pond with dad

 Behind us is FIELDS of tulips and daffodils. incredible sight hard to capture on film

 Wooden shoes to play in, of course!

 on top of the windmill, with fields of flowers behind

 Terrible picture of the windmill we climbed up in, not sure why I got SUCH a bad picture. :(

great day, fun time exploring as a family and seeing something new and not just doing business things that have to get done!

new day, thank goodness

Just a quick note : Today is a new day! Horray! Kids still woke up in the middle of the night, but settled back down pretty quickly (lucky them, because the hubs and I of course did not :( ) Who cares if parents sleep, its the kids sleeping that matters the most. I would give up sleep for them to be asleep any day. Tummies seem to be settled at the moment (thank the Lord) and I successfully completed a load of laundry in the neat new tiny washer/dryer combo that takes HOURS to complete the smallest load I have ever had to do of laundry. Europeans are so much more compact in the ways they do things, we are certainly going to learn how to make a smaller footprint...a nice lesson.Check out the dial...letters as cycle options...seriously! Which would you choose? A, B, C, D? or N???? Ha! And temp in Celsius...a whole new world. Its interesting and much more efficient to just put a load in and when you take it out 3 hours later its washed and dry, but the mystery of which load to choose, I just don't get the thought behind that design.

More interesting finds to come. Next time perhaps ...the microwave/oven combo that we are still trying to figure out how to use! :) Again, the manual is in Dutch. I might be asking the lady downstairs that took me to the grocery store the first day. I am sure she could tell me quickly how to get the oven on. :)

Few more notes at first landing

The toilet is flushed by pushing the center silver thing above the toilet on the wall...and the toilet paper is much more like sand paper than plush cottonelle. 

More soon. Thank goodness the oldest is feeling better, or so he and his appetite say. We will see what the night brings. Pray, please pray for us to be on the mend. :)

too many bodily fluids for the first two days!

This is a quick, unedited post...just a couple quick notes about the start so that I don't forget to share them. They include way to many bodily fluids being all over the place. way to many for any day, but especially the first couple of this kind of journey across the world!

1) 15 min after we boarded the flight, just as we were pushing back to get in line to take off, our little lady said she needed to go potty. The flight attendant wouldn't let her get up. Well as soon as the "seat belt sign" was turned off, what seemed to be like 20 min later, I took her to go potty only to discover she wet. not just wet, but thoroughly soaked, her pants, skirt, socks, everything on her. ugh! Big mistake people. when a little kid says they need to go potty, its usually at the last min and they are usually quick, so for goodness sakes let them go! thank the Lord that I was smart enough to pack an extra set of clothes for her including a pull up. Not sure why I packed it, but thankful! I put the new clothes on her and made her wear the pull up just incase

the rest of the flight was ok. kids wouldn't sleep for the first 9 hours...but the loved the business class seats and thoroughly enjoyed the extra amenities, snack and movies at their demand. we landed, got our bags, found our ride to the temp housing and took a deep breath.

the lady downstairs is a god send. she knew our car wasnt being delivered until later int he day (we arrived in the early am) so she said she could run me up the grocery store (about 10 min drive) and let me get some food for the kiddos. What a saint. I am so grateful for her. she even went inside the store and helped me navigate the isles and descifer between product.s I could not have asked for more!

Ok, better get to the other part of the story of fluids before I have to get of the computer. This morning the kids woke up at 2am screaming. (never happened before) they said they miss our old house, or something. we calmed them down and got the settled back to sleep. all seemed well, except that we couldn't go back to sleep. but who cares about that. anyway hours later..Then our oldest threw up all over his bed and now has been throwing up every 10-15 min. He is super sad and just wants to go "home." poor guy. what a start to the adventure. We told it is was sure to only get better, but now we have to go back to the store (which I can not drive to alone despite the fact that we have our car, because the delivers a manual transmission car and I am not a good manual transmission driver!) So now I might make the hubs go...but he hasnt ever been there, and regular stores in the states we fine, but this could be interesting. Wonder what he will come back with? Please God. Let this be a simple bump in the road. We had plans for today, plans to explore before our house hunt on Monday, but now we shall sit around and that is just fine as long as it helps my kid feel better.

more later

night before we depart

Its the night before we depart. we are almost packed. I picked up some Euros from the bank so that we can buy things when we get there, before our bank account is set up. Word on the street is that credit cards are not as popular or as widely accepted as they are in the states. Cash is king over there. :)

We still don't know if our car is going to be at the temp housing when we get there, but we do know we will just figure it out. Stay calm, carry on and enjoy the ride. The kids are stoked for the flight (because they have no clue how long it really is!) movies, snacks, treats and games/books. I am excited to just get on the plane and be one step closer to getting there. Packing is exhausting and feels never ending, someone always wants something out of a bag....go figure. :)

ok well, time for a glass (or two) of wine to unwind and some adult conversation with the hubs before we sleep our last night in the united states, (as our oldest told me tonight when I tucked him in bed) at least for a while. How weird is that!

Next time I blog, it will be from the Holland! Maybe by then I can say something in Dutch! :)

one week!

One week.....seriously how are we going to be ready in one week. I do not know, but I know we are leaving in one week, ready or not! :/ They have stores there...right? I might forget something, or worse, not be able to fit everything into our 8 bags. Deep breath, go outside, play with the kids enjoy the sun and just stop worrying.

Both kids are done with school, we are trying to decompress and just exist a bit before we take another huge step in this adventure. Finishing school and saying "see you soon" to our friends was very hard and very emotional. We did it though. Both kids got sweet and thoughtful going away cards and books signed by their classmates. They look at them almost daily and its helped them talk through their feelings and they feel so loved. Its hard to leave a place that you are so happy and where you have made such good friends. Its nice to feel that connection too, like we really belong and don't want to leave. I hope we find that over in Holland. I want to feel settled for the time we are there, like we felt here. Its probably going to be much harder because we know its not forever, like we thought it might be here...but I hope we can find a sense of belonging and contentment.

Oh, too emotional...back to the less intense things. We moved last week (or the week before that, I cant keep track) to a new temp housing due to noise... and why the heck not, right? This IS an adventure and being flexible and rolling with change is what its all about. We are learning that attitude is everything. A positive attitude about change,  affects everyone's reaction. Note taken. :)

Check out the new view!