My Life as an Au Pair

The End

2005-12-11T03:29:00.000+01:00

My time as an au pair is over... as is this blog. I'll be keeping all the posts up still but there will be no new posts here. If you want to read about my current adventures you can check out my new blog on LifeLoveTruth.com. *smile*

Kinda sad yet funny

2005-11-09T14:40:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm going back pretty soon and I thought these were pretty funny (p.s. I had to post both Chicago and Indiana since I'm so close to Chicago that they all pretty much apply to me)

~You Know You're From Chicago When...

You say "Wanna go with?" when you mean "Do you want to come with me?"

You know what Kennedy, Dan Ryan, Eisenhower, Edens, and Bishop Ford, have in common and curse one of them daily.

You know what Giordanos, Lou Malnati's, and Gino's have in common.

You know when the last time the Cubs won a pennant.

You don't pronounce the "s" at the end of Illinois. You become irate at people who do

You measure distance in minutes (especially "from the city"). And you swear everything is pretty much 15 minutes away

You know what goes on a Chicago Style Hot Dog

You know what Chicago Style Pizza REALLY is

You understand what "lake-effect" means

You know what the phone number is to Empire Carpet!*

You wear gym shoes, not sneakers.

~You Know You're From Indiana When...

You drive for three hours and the scenery outside doesn't change.

There's three feet of snow on the ground and school is still in session.

While driving all you see is corn.

People still have Christmas decorations up at Easter.

There really is more than corn in Indiana. There’s soybeans, too.

You're proud to be called a Hoosier, even if you don't know what one is.

You have no problem spelling or pronouncing "Terre Haute"

"Getting caught by a train" is a legitimate excuse for being late to school.

You know what FFA and 4H stand for.

There's actually a college near you named "Ball State."

* I actually do, how sad is that! lol (588)2300EMPIRE

Blogiversary

2005-11-06T20:04:00.000+01:00

I've been doing this blog for a year now, woo hoo! *smile* It's amazing to me how much I've done and how much my life has changed in the past year. I've visited several different countries. Become (basically) fluent in another language. Met tons of amazing, fun and interesting people and a couple that weren't so great, hehe. I've eaten all sorts of weird and delicious things and done some pretty crazy stuff...It's been an absolutely wonderful year and I wouldn't trade my experience for anything. In about a month from now my time as an au pair will end but I'm extremely excited about the coming year and the many fun blogs that will come out of it *smile*

December Ninth

2005-11-02T13:53:00.000+01:00

I bought my plane ticket last night. It's really official, I'm going back to the good ol' U.S. of A. I've had such a wonderfully amazing time here. I've met many new people, seen so many new things and learned an unbelievable amount of stuff about myself and the world. I've grown so much over the past year and a half and I wouldn't trade this experience I had for anything. I'm now moving on to the next phase of my life which I'm VERY excited about as well. So yeah, that's my big news. For all my Holland people, I will miss each and every one of you very much. Those state side, I can't wait to see you all. Look out here I come!

Play Place Fun

2005-10-25T19:23:00.000+02:00

Joel and I took the kids to an indoor place play the other day and had a blast.

grrr, tough guys!

The best thing about kids is you get to play like you are one and nobody thinks twice, *hehe*

I've moved

2005-10-12T17:56:00.000+02:00

My web address that is.

LifeLoveTruth.com

Check it out! *smile*

15 cents short

2005-10-12T17:41:00.000+02:00

I went to the good old Albert Heijn (AH) to pick up one of their fruit smoothie drinks (seriously sooo good!) and in front of me in line there was a man buying a can of beer. To pay for it he had a voucher that AH gives out in exchange for empty pop bottles. The lady rang him up and the voucher covered all but 15 cents of the price of the beer. He was surprised by the price and searched all his pockets for change but came up empty handed.

It was really sad to see. The man looked like he was pretty hard up for cash, he was pretty dirty and basically looked like your typical homeless man. He had nothing and was spending the few cents he had on a can of beer! I dunno. It was weird because if he had been trying to buy a sandwich or something I think anyone in line would've offered to make up the difference (there was a pretty decent line on both sides because the other cash register that was open was having some kind of price check issue) But I didn't feel like the right thing to do was pay for this man's beer and I think most everyone else in line felt the same way.

When the lady started to ask her manager how to refund the voucher a man behind me in line offered to just pay the difference so the homeless man got his beer and line moved on. And that was that. He left and everyone went on with their lives...it really made me think though...

Look what I can do

2005-10-10T18:41:00.000+02:00

I changed my template. The other one was getting old and yes I realize this isn't a big change...basically the same one with different colors...I know how to do it now though. Of course Joel helped me BUT I figured out where to put the code for my links all by myself *grin*. So yeah, the picture is temporary as well but the other was was getting old as well. So now that I know how to do it look for many more fun changes in the future *smile*

Oh the house...

2005-10-10T14:44:00.000+02:00

We are finally back in the house! woo hoo! ...ok so we have been back for awhile but honestly I haven't really felt like blogging. There isn't a whole lot for me to say really. I'm loving that I get to spend time with Joel, we have so much fun together. Other than him though things have been a bit blah and I've been pretty grumpy. There are several reasons why plus I've been kinda sick off and on lately. But hopefully all the stuff will resolve itself soon. My mood has improved over the last couple days actually anyway so things are starting to look up. Over all life is good and I will try to find interesting things to blog about more regularly. Until next time *smile*

Still in limbo

2005-09-21T12:37:00.000+02:00

Well, we're still in Den Haag. What can I say? I'm learning to appreciate the little things in life even more than normal. The house doesn't really smell bad anymore, the cleaners are actually done in it and we got all the mattresses and stuff back yesterday. Hopefully the builders started in the cellar today but the installation of the water heater and that will probably not happen until sometime early next week.

Some good things though...I am VERY grateful for warm showers (or relatively, the shower in Den Haag has the annoying habit of going from nice and warm to cold to scalding with no warning whatsoever...however it is seriously light years better than the so-cold-it-makes-your-head-ache shower I had at the Rotterdam house this weekend)

I am also beyond grateful to finally be able to do laundry again. We have extremely limited electricity at the house but thankfully one of the things that gets it is the washing machine. I never thought I would ever be so excited to do laundry in my life. I was literally jumping up and down happy, hehe. I've done about six loads of laundry (not just mine of course) in the past two days and I'm honestly so happy about it.

Hm, what else...I never realized how important personal space was to me. But living in basically one big room with five or six other people wears on you after awhile. Thankfully it's only temporary, it's not definite but if nothing goes wrong and there are not more delays we may be able to move back into the Rotterdam house a week from today *crosses fingers*

We'll see though. Three or four days has turned into three or four weeks so yeah...I guess with all the lessons in patience I've been getting in the past year I still haven't learned it well enough yet, lol. I feel like I've kept a pretty positive view throughout this whole thing though and it will be over soon so I can handle a little inconvenience for another week or two. I am really really looking forward to getting back to normal life! Sorry the updates won't be very frequent until we're back in the house again but I'll try and post something whenever I get a chance. *smile*

I'm back but not home...

2005-09-12T20:33:00.000+02:00

So Romania was fun, and I got home safely and had a nice uneventful flight. Since the house caught on fire we're living in Den Haag until the electricity's fixed and everything at our house. We're just in one big room at Ineke's sisiter's house and we don't have a computer or anything there. I'm on Joel's computer right now but after this I probably won't be able to update again until we're back in the house. So...pray that everything goes smoothly and quickly so things can start getting back to normal again. Until next time *smile*

A new side of things

2005-09-07T18:05:00.000+02:00

Today I went with the missionary couple from Canada to help deliver some supplies to the TB hospital here in Bacau and up into the mountains to get some information about the flood victims.

The hospital was like a step back in time.

The first place we went was the place they do laundry. Right now the motor on the washing machine was broken so they had a huge vat full of steaming hot water and a big stick to stir it around. Think Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971 version) where the mother is singing Cheer Up Charlie... However, the ladies that worked there were really excited to show me around and told me all about what they did. I didn't understand a word, but they told me, lol.

From there we delivered a few more supplies to the lab and then drove off towards the mountains. I'm sure most of you have heard about all the awful flooding in Europe recently and Romania got hit pretty hard by it as well. We drove around and saw things and then stopped at some town halls so that Don could get some information about the supplies the government was providing and what was still needed. The government is helping a bit but only enough to get people started on their houses. They'll supply the cement for the foundation and a few doors and windows and stuff but the rest the people have to do on their own. And a lot of them really have nothing left, no house, cattle, clothes etc it was all just washed away. I was able to take some pictures of the damage...it's really sad...

sand bags that didn't do a whole lot of good...

a makeshift bridge

another half gone house...

All the villages we drove through were like that, some houses half standing and others just piles of rock and debris, roads completely washed away...it was really awful and they've only just started digging things out. The process of rebuilding will probably takes months and months...

After all that it was time for lunch so we took a back little road and crossed this:

it looks pretty ok here but in reality it's world's scariest bridge to drive across. No joke, the boards were not nailed down and it creaked and a quarter of it was already partly detached! I've never been so close to plunging into an icy cold river in my life!!!

It was worth it though. We had a really nice picnic lunch at the top of the a hill overlooking a beautiful valley. Romania has several different sides, some very sad and poor and others beautiful, rich and colorful. But all the sides together make it a truly beautiful country.

Earthquakes, Fires and Colds

2005-09-06T20:02:00.000+02:00

Sorry for the lack of updates but Blogger gave me a hard time getting the pictures on the post below, plus I've been fighting a cold and stuff the past few days and simply haven't felt up to blogging. So here's what's been going on since Saturday.

Saturday my host family's cellar caught on fire. No one was hurt and there's not any unfixable damage to the house. You can read the full story on Joel and Ineke's blog. Please pray that the insurance decides to pay for everything and that the process is quick so that everyone can get back in the house and back to normal life.

Sunday I was in bed half the day with a killer headache so nothing to report there.

Yesterday we had a small earthquake! Kid you not, the whole house rattled for about three seconds or so. It was a small enough that we weren't exactly sure what had happened. It was like a really huge truck went by or something enormous fell downstairs in the house. No damage anywhere in the city I don't think, just enough for a little excitement.

Today we finished getting the birth certificate for Sam taken care of. There was a bit of a problem because Thea and Marcel don't have the same last name which is I guess unheard of here. So Thea had to memorize in Romanian and say in front of a notary that it's Marcel's baby and she wants Sam to have Marcel's last name. We then went on a little errand that I'll show you all pictures of once I get back to Holland and from there went shopping at the Metro which is a grocery store where you can buy things in bulk. We got a nice supply of Honey-Nut Cheerios and Crispy Milkyway bars for me since they don't sell them in Holland, woo hoo!

And yeah, that's about it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll join our Canadian neighbors who are missionaries here and help them out while they go to the hospital. I'll take pictures and let you know how it goes tomorrow. Until then *smile*

Transylvania

2005-09-04T11:02:00.000+02:00

Well, I had a great Saturday. Marcel, a colleague of Marcel's, Ella, Abel, and I (Thea stayed home with Sam and Job was away at Judo camp) left early in the morning around 6:15am and headed to Transylvania for the day. It was about a four or five hour drive west over the mountains from where I'm staying. We saw three different cities and I'll just let the pictures speak for the rest.

Bradsov

The city square, it's such a cute little city with a big old wall around it. And just about everything is in both Romanian and German.

The largest Gothlic church in Eastern Europe

The Inside of the church

A little old women selling flowers on the street

a view from the hill over looking the city

Bran

welcome to Dracula's castle

Dracula's castle

Dracula's front door

a view from inside

Risnov

the wall of the fort

view from the top of the fort

me!

So that was my day. We drove home that same night and were back around 8pm or so. It was so much fun! *smile*

Sam and Me

2005-08-30T20:39:00.000+02:00

Well, I thought I'd update real quick with a photo Thea took of me today with the baby. He's such a sweet little baby and every day he's doing more and is more alert. He's even lifting his head up a bit now.

Other than the excitement of new baby boy things are pretty relaxed around the house. Job is at a Judo camp for the whole week so there's one less person in the house. Today Ella and I went in search of conditioner for my hair at an itty bitty pharmacy about a ten minute walk from the house. They had some shampoo but no conditioner in sight so with my complete lack of Romanian it took me a while to make them understand what I wanted. I did get the message across eventually but unfortunately they didn't sell it :P So tomorrow Ella and I plan on biking into the actual city and finding some there. Should be an adventure. *smile*

It's a boy!

2005-08-27T17:25:00.000+02:00

Well, Thea had her baby at about 10:15am yesterday morning. He's a healthy, beautiful baby boy named Sam. I promised Ineke lots of pictures so here's some from his first day home:

Sam and proud mommy Thea at the hospital just before coming home

Itty bitty baby

muisjes...a traditional treat for when a baby is born

aw, sleeping baby

Isn't he beautiful?

His brothers and sister are super excited to see him and Thea is doing wonderfully. More pictures to come *smile*

I'm a millionaire!!!!

2005-08-24T19:56:00.000+02:00

Really I am, look!...

Unfortunately my "fortune" is in Lei...so this million lei bill I got is really worth about 25 Euros...Oh well, I still think it's fun to have a million of anything *smile*

Two monasteries and a castle

2005-08-23T20:03:00.000+02:00

Well it was another really nice day. The weather wasn't spectacular. It was kind of rainy and chilly but really not too bad. We left at about 9am and drove two hours north (do not ask me the name of the towns though because I couldn't pronounce these Romanian names for anything, lol!) and went to some ruins of a castle/fort:

The ruins

Me in front of the ruins

a view of the inside of the ruins

It was very neat to see. I'd never been to something like it before and we could climb all over the place. It was kind of too bad that the weather was so cloudy because there would've been a really amazing view otherwise. There still was a neat view but it was impossible to capture on camera.

From there we drove a bit further to see the monasteries. And along the way I got to use one of these...

I'd never used one before, or seen one for that matter and I thought it was so funny looking, hehe.

The first monastery was so cute. It was in a tiny little village filled with flowers!

The front inside

Some of the flowers that were everywhere

The inside of the church at the first monastery. Everything is so elaborate, it's all covered in beautiful paintings and gold and silver. It's really amazing.

Before leaving we let the dogs out of the car for a little bit and met this nun. She actually spoke very good English and thought Gijs was the most amazing thing. Turns out her parents live in the same city as Thea *smile*

We drove to the second and final destination of the day. This monastery was quite different than the last one. It was (and I believe still is) a place where they print a lot of Bibles. It was neat to see the old printing presses and copies of Bibles there.

monastery number two

From there we drove home....

And that was my day...Until next time *smile*

Romania Pictures

2005-08-21T16:48:00.000+02:00

I'm here :-) I'm having a great time too. The weather was much colder than I expected it to be the day I got here and yesterday but it warmed up nicely today, yea! Here's some pictures of my last couple days here:

It was a very long car ride from Bucharest airport to Bacau but we made it just fine

Here's the house I'm staying in. Beautiful isn't it?

This is their seriously big Great Dane with Abel (5). That thing is literally bigger than I am, luckily he's sweet.

Saturday we played inside because of the weather. I hadn't played Twister in ages, hehe

The weather improved long enough for us to take the dogs out for a walk behind the house

A shepherd with his sheep and goats not far behind the house

Today we went to the market

a lady selling her apples

a gypsy with her baby at the market

And we also went to a kind of indoor zoo, they called it an animal museum...

a big old fish at the "animal museum"

Then after lunch we took the dogs for a walk in the forest outside the city, it was really pretty but we didn't stay long because there were way too many mosquitoes

Thea picking wild flowers in the forest that we took the dogs for a walk in

So yeah, everything is going well and it looks like I'll be able to post pictures and updates every couple of days here. Until next time *smile*

Goin' on a trip :-)

2005-08-18T12:36:00.000+02:00

Dames and Heren, I am off to Romania, the land of Dracula and O-Zone, for three weeks, woo hoo! I am excited. Unfortunately for you all that means I probably won't be updating here on any kind of regular basis. I will do my best to post some pictures from time to time, otherwise I will see you all after 10 September. *smile*

What's next?

2005-08-17T16:18:00.000+02:00

Found this while I was going through Intermediair today and had to post it. Enjoy *smile*

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2005-08-16T21:37:00.000+02:00

"Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables."

What is going on?!

2005-08-13T20:39:00.000+02:00

Blogger, you are seriously fired! *sigh* what is up with my pictures not showing up anymore? Is anybody else having this problem? Because ever since they changed the way you can put pictures up it's given me nothing but trouble...not cool :P

On a happier note, I went to the dance parade in Rotterdam today. It was fun and I got to meet a really fun new girl from the Czech Republic. The stupid thing is, she's leaving in a month and considering I'm going to be in Romania for the next three weeks this is probably the only time I'm going to see her *sigh* So much for that. The parade itself was interesting. I took some fun pictures but I'm not going to even try to post them now because Blogger is fired, it's just not worth the frustration. Basically it was dozens of semis full of dancing people, each one trying to out-blast the semi in front and behind them with their own dance music and beats. Honestly it was a bit overwhelming. You couldn't hear anything at all except the music. Seriously nothing, talking was just not an option. Once I got used to the changing and overlapping music I enjoyed it though.

We didn't end up watching the entire parade, mostly because after about thirty or forty five minutes the loudness of everything gave me a headache. We decided to get something to eat and along the way I ran into way too many sales. I ended up buying some clothes that it's debatable whether I needed or not and some really fun boots that I definitely did need (Twenty seven euros for boots I've wanted for about a year, people! How could I resist? *smile*). The rest of the afternoon we spent just walking around and talking. We're thinking about meeting up tomorrow for Romantic Music day at the park. I went last year with my family and it was really beautiful. We'll see what the weather's going to do though I guess.

So yeah, that was my day. I'm sorry that I'm a little frustrated with technology today since both Blogger and MySpace are decided to act stupid. That's life though and on a whole I had a really nice day. *smile*

Note: pictures are back up so whatever was wrong is fixed now, thank goodness. hopefully they can keep their act together...

The Adventures of...

2005-08-12T15:55:00.000+02:00

Morten the Super Strong!

Timo the Super Smart!

Caroline the Super Little!
(originally the Super Strong but when she couldn't even get the front door open we all decided she needed a new name, hehe)

With me of course as their faithful leader *smile*

Yes, I had an extra lot of fun with the kids today. We went to the zoo again and since I was in a silly mood I told the kids that we were spies and we had a special mission to find certain animals at the zoo. Timo had an extra special power (because he was so Super Smart) where if he used this:

he could become invisible

Here's a picture of Timo when he's invisible. (I took it right before he got into the frame and you should've seen his face when I showed him how the picture didn't work because he was invisible, too cute!)

We had a lot of fun going around the zoo all James Bond like and finding and watching different animals. Unfortunately our adventure was cut a bit short by rain so we headed home.

Since there was no bread at the house I put the boys in front of the TV and took Caroline to the Albert Hein. The weather wasn't too bad and even as we left it was still fine outside. About halfway home however the entire sky opened up and it rained harder than I've seen in a long time. I picked Caroline up, put her on my back and ran for cover.

We were soaked!

We stood under a covered walkway and watched the sheets of rain come down. It was so cold that we were invited into a little car rental place to wait out the storm. It rained so hard that the roads had about three inches of water covering them and the bike paths were like little rivers. It even hailed for about five minutes! Seriously a crazy storm. Finally it let up enough for us to make a run for it and get home. Ten minutes afer arriving home the sky was blue and sunny again. That's Dutch weather for you! lol.

And so ended another exciting day in the life of ME! *smile*

Listen to music while you work...

2005-08-09T15:43:00.000+02:00

Robbert's glasses got broken the other day while playing with the kids (and as a result he's had to wear glasses that have made the kids point, laugh and call him an owl the past few days, lol) So his new ones were finally in and since he had to pick them up in Sassenheim where the his mom lives he took the kids to visit her. I stayed home of course and have been listening to Launchcast and ironing pretty much the whole day. Now, I like ironing but there are seriously like a years worth of clothes here! lol. Ok, maybe not that many but there are a lot. The boys are still on holiday from school so I've just been focusing on them until today so it's really built up. So yeah, I've had fun and the hours have really flown by because it's a relatively brainless activity so I just sing and kinda dance around and whatever while I'm doing it. The funny thing is though, I've ironed so much I seriously have a blister on my hand from it! And no, I didn't burn my hand it's just from the stupid handle, lol. I think it's pretty funny, I didn't even know it was possible. Anyway, that was pretty much my day. Tomorrow I get to meet with a new Au Pair from Lithuania which will hopefully be fun. She lives in Rotterdam too, yea! Until next time *smile*

Muscles!

2005-08-08T17:53:00.000+02:00

I started doing pilates again finally. It's one of the best whole body workouts that I've found that I actually enjoy. Anna Maria (miss you chica!) got me started on it and we used to do it together. Now that she's gone and my vacation is over I have to start doing it again by myself. My plan was to start getting up an hour earlier than usual so I can get it done before I have to start my day...well that didn't happen this morning, oh well.

Instead of just skipping doing it altogether though I decided to let the boys join me while I did it. It was so cute. They both got really into following what I was doing. Morten was very attentive to make sure that he was doing "exactly" what I was doing. Timo did at first but after awhile he would get bored with what we were doing and start doing his own thing. He then of course wanted me to watch what he was doing and tell him how good it was. Also both of the boys would stop every once in awhile, flex their arms and have me check and see how strong their muscles were getting, lol.

It made my workout so much fun and while I'm still going to try and get into the habit of getting up early and doing my workout, I now know if I don't it's just as much fun letting the kids join in. *smile*

Dancing and Giant Playgrounds

2005-08-03T19:30:00.000+02:00

I love having the boys home from school. I get to spend so much more time with them and we tend to make it a point to go out and do fun things. One of the things the kids love doing is coming into my room, putting some fun music on (think Aqua) and dancing around until we're all completely exhausted. It is so cute and so much fun. Here's some pictures of them enjoying themselves-

Morten-ballet is so cool!

Aw, such loving siblings

Timo "helping" Caroline

Timo doing some of his "cool" moves

Another thing we all enjoy doing together when they're off school is going to the zoo. This year they built a whole new playground that is just amazing. The first level is about 9 feet in the air and as you can see in the picture there are three layers altogether. I am seriously going back without the kids so I can actually just play on it...it is that cool, hehe.

Seriously...isn't that great?!

Caroline sure loved it. There didn't use to be a part for kids her size but now there is, yea!

All three of them playing in the sand box

Sand is just too much fun :-)

So that's that. The boys are still off school for the next couple weeks so you can expect more fun stories and pictures soon *smile*

"Knock!"

2005-07-30T23:02:00.000+02:00

It's good to be back.

Caroline missed me a bunch I can tell. She just comes up to my room and wants to hang out and cuddle. I'm so glad. Actually it was pretty funny, she used to be really good about not just walking into my room without knocking...or maybe it was just that she wasn't big enough to open the door. In any case, the past few times she came up she just walked right in. Now, even though the times she did that it wasn't a big deal, it still needed to change so I attempted to teach her to knock and then wait for me to say come in. I began my lesson by telling her that she needs to always knock on my door before coming in and then knocked on the door myself to show her how to do it. I then did a practice time and said "Now I'm gonna shut the door, you knock, I'll say come in and THEN you come in" So I shut the door and said "okay, knock." to which she responded by yelling "KNOCK!". I tried two or three times to get her to actually use her hand to knock and then decided that her saying the word accomplished the exact same thing as actual knocking so I just gave up...

On a whole different note I am suffering from the worst jet lag EVER *sigh* Seriously, I'm up until up like 4.30 or 5.00 in the morning and then can't wake up until 13.00 or 14.00 the next afternoon. More than a little frustrating let me tell ya. It's getting slowly better I think and once I start working next week and actually have to be up at a normal time my body should fully adjust.

Hm what else...the weather is nice and cool (mid 60's low 70's) which is a pleasant change from the 102 degree weather I left in Indiana. It was nice to have but I've had enough steamy hot weather for one summer thank you very much. Most of the year I like the weather here, it's almost never too hot or cold and yes it rains a lot but I like rain so that works out well.

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with my life here. The only huge bummer (besides being so far away from people I love) is that all my friends so far are au pairs which means half of them left this summer. I miss Anna like crazy and I just saw Bea for the last time before she goes back to Hungary to start school today...Oh well, I guess that's just life as an au pair. I already have a list of people that I want to meet up with in the next couple of weeks and my wonderful host mom's super cool website will also help me meet some cool new people hopefully.

So yeah, I guess that's about it for now. Until next time *smile*

My trip to the States

2005-07-29T23:45:00.000+02:00

I had a wonderful trip back to the States. It was so nice seeing everyone again. Sorry to everyone that I didn't end up getting together with. I was a little distracted...

Here's some pictures from my trip. I didn't take very many (which for those of you who know me tells you just how distracted I really was, hehe) but there's enough to give you an idea of what I did-

I flew into Chicago O'hare Airport. It's one of my favorites because of these fun lights that they have over the moving walkways.

Lana and Nathen while we were hanging out at my house one night

Joel and Hunter...*smile*

Sunset over the lake at Cornerstone, great a view for a campsite isn't it?

Millennium Park in Chicago, Joel and I went to see the orchestra under the stars one night.

A view of the other people enjoying the beautiful summer evening

4th of July in the rain, we still had a lot of fun and saw some pretty fireworks though.

One of our game nights

A cute little movie theater in Hobart where Joel and I saw Madagascar

Joel sleeping on the way home from Ohio

And so ended a great trip. It was nice to go but it's also good to be back and I look forward to another exciting year filled with lots of fun, friendships and many new things learned. *smile*

Yes, I am still alive

2005-07-08T19:13:00.000+02:00

I know I know, I've been seriously slacking when it comes to blogging, I'm sorry. I'm back in the states right now and having a wonderful time. I don't get much of a chance to get in front of a computer while I'm here so I may or may not post any pictures of my time here while I'm still here. I promise things will get back to normal after the 28th of this month though. I hope you all are having half as good of a summer as I am. I miss all of my holland buddies and look forward to seeing you all in a couple weeks. Until next time *smile*

Happy Birthday Helana!

2005-06-17T14:03:00.000+02:00

"It's the friends you can call up at 4am that matter."
- Marlene Dietrick

Mmmm, lekker!

2005-06-16T23:07:00.000+02:00

Hello, my name is Abi and I'm a chocoholic.

lol. Ok, maybe not quite but I do loooove good chocolate. So, Ineke and I went to De Bonte Koe and took a class on how to make bonbons. It was so much fun and much easier than I thought :)

Our instructor

Decorating the bonbons

Here Ineke and I are with the finished products

Isn't it pretty?

I had such a great time and we even got a booklet at the end of the class with instructions on everything we did so I can do it again. It'll be my little secret though because it's all in Dutch, hehe *wink*

Boeven Feest

2005-06-15T20:37:00.000+02:00

So, Morten had his 6th birthday party. His actual birthday isn't until next month but, since he'll be on vacation then, he got to have a party with all his school friends now. It was absolutely adorable. The theme was boeven (or thieves) and Ineke took them through this adventure where they get mistaken for thieves and got thrown in jail and all kinds of things. Absolutely adorable, let me tell you. Here are some pictures:

Ineke reading the story to the boys

Here's the cake, cute hé?

The house was decorated "like a jail cell" with cob webs and creepy stuff

They got fingerprinted

and mug shots taken

then there was a "prison break"! (a game they played, ankles tied together they had a race around the back garden)

Eventually the boys decided to play with Morten's new toys and then it was time to go home. I think it was absolutely adorable and went extremely well. In Morten's words "It was the best party of my entire life!"

Number 4,000

2005-06-14T17:26:00.000+02:00

Sweet aren't they? This is the 4,000th picture I took with my camera that I bought in December. One of the best investments I've ever made. *smile*

Sometimes all that's needed

2005-06-08T23:03:00.000+02:00

is a good cry...

This sucks :(

2005-06-04T20:22:00.000+02:00

A good friend of mine is getting married. Today. In the States. And I'm here....*sigh* I'm so bummed I don't even have words...This is the second friend of mine (my age anyway) to get married. About a year ago my old best friend from elementary/middle school got married. In Florida. I wasn't there for that either. Geeze, what kind of friend am I? Both weddings I planned to attend but ended up not being able to because the dates got moved up. The most upsetting part with this one though is I'll be back in the States in three weeks. I'm missing it by three stinkin' weeks! I could cry about it...but I already did that. So yeah...I hope I get to see pictures. I asked Laurie to take some for me but I don't know if she will or not. If she doesn't maybe someone else will. I dunno...

So anyway, I decided not to go out tonight. I'm just not in the mood at all. Maybe I can go get a movie and some chocolate. I really need chocolate right now! lol. Mint chocolate chip ice cream would be the best, but I don't know if that'll happen. Anything would do at this point though.

Sorry this is such a bummer post, I don't do them very often but today I just needed to whine for a minute. Jenny, if you read this: I love you, Girl! I wish you and Mike all the best and all the happiness in the world. I can't wait to see you! *hug*

Just real quick

2005-06-03T23:43:00.000+02:00

Today in Media Markt "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani came on the radio and Caroline, being the little dancer that she is, started bouncing/dancing to it and I of course joined her (kids are great for that, you can act like a dork and not look so rediculous because you're just "playing with the kid"). Later on the train, Caroline proceeded to try and sing the song and it came out something like "I msgnhd Hollaback Girl!". Of course I joined her in that too and we sang and were silly the whole train ride home. She is such a joy.

Getting over myself!

2005-06-02T20:30:00.000+02:00

Well, my Dutch is actually pretty good now. I have been here for a long time so it ought to be (it'll be ten months on Sunday...woah! lol) I understand pretty much everything around me. Every once in awhile there will be a word I don't know or whatever but for the most part I really understand things very well. My problem is talking. Ok, all you who actually know me stop laughing, I can hear you from here! I know that the problem is usually getting me to shut up, but that's when I'm speaking English. Speaking Dutch, however is a whole different thing for me. In my head I'm almost fluent and even when I'm speaking to the kids I do pretty well. For some reason though when I talk to adults I get so nervous! It's strange I know, I think it's another part of my perfectionism...or something. But now I'm going to have to get over it...

See, what we've decided to do is to rotate languages. One day we'll speak only Dutch (for me to improve) and the next only English (for the kids to improve). We started with all Dutch this evening...and I just didn't say much, lol. But I did talk a couple times, mostly to the kids (which I always do no problem) but even to Robbert and Ineke which is new. It's funny because they've always been so encouraging and everything about my Dutch so I can't understand why I'm nervous...who knows. I'm excited though, I think this is really going to help me.

Tomorrow should be interesting too because it's English day. Actually, the kids have been doing really well with English. They can understand me if I have them concentrate and I speak slowly to them. Plus, they can say basic stuff like "Can you hang my jacket up, please?" or "May I have a drink, please?" etc. They're really a lot more open to it than they ever were before but they still kind of fight it sometimes.

Like today, Ineke brought home a puzzle with English words on it and Morten and Timo's reaction was something like: "Yea! oh, is an English puzzle?" Ineke:"Yes." boys: "ooooh...*frown*". Ineke then asked them if she should take it back, to which Morten quickly responded no. Timo however adamantly vowed that he would "Never, never, never play with it!" Of course after seeing Morten working on it for two minutes he wanted to join in as well. They react that way sometimes when Ineke, Robbert and I have a conversation in English at the table too. They really get frustrated when they have to think hard to understand everything (and I don't blame them, I know the feeling!) So, for those reasons I can see tomorrow being a bit of a challenge. However, I think if we really stick to it they'll learn in no time.

So yeah, wish us all luck. And lets hope I can just swallow my pride, get over myself and really finally learn...

Amsterdam

2005-05-31T23:17:00.000+02:00

Well, I took Caroline and went to Amsterdam for the morning to get my passport renewed. She was so excited cuz we were "going on the train!!!" lol. She loved it. She was super good too. Just the perfect little angel and a pleasure to have around. Here we are-

On the train on the way to Amsterdam, she was being silly and she just loves having her picture taken! hehe

There's the good old American Consulate

Museum Plein where we ate lunch. I have so many good memories there...*grin*

The pigeons there are so tame they eat right out of your hand!

Caroline wasn't totally sure how she felt about them

Us on the train ride home. She was so sleepy :-)

Third time's the charm

2005-05-30T20:32:00.000+02:00

Have you ever tried to do something and it just didn't click? No matter how hard you tried you just couldn't get the hang of it? Well that's how driving stick was for me. I had a couple people try to teach me and it kind of went like this...*vrrroommm jerk putter die*...Almost every time I tried to get out of first gear! The couple times I managed to get beyond first gear it went ok but those times were few and far between. It really frustrated me.

Anyway, there are certain circumstances coming up in my life that are most likely going to require me to drive stick so....off I went with Ineke to try once again. I admit I was actually dreading it. First of all, it's been pretty much a year since I've been behind the wheel of ANY car so I'm a little rusty at driving period. Plus, I'm a perfectionist, the kind where if I think I may not do something perfect I just avoid doing it. Not good, I know. But this was inevitable so I just sucked it up and prepared to fail miserably once again...

Only, this time I didn't! Somehow, I don't know if it was how Ineke explained it or what, but for some reason this time it just clicked. I was able to start and get all the way up to 3rd gear without problems. I killed the engine probably three time the entire lesson (which is a huge improvement, honest, the last few times I could've said I DIDN'T kill the engine three times the whole lesson and been proud of that! lol) But yeah, I'm so excited! I really felt comfortable, I honestly think I have this whole manual transmission thing down. Yea!

Just thought I'd share with all of you *big smile*

I love weekends

2005-05-29T23:35:00.000+02:00

I had a nice weekend. We had a couple days of hot weather, as in like 30 C, and it was soooo nice!!! Unfortunately it's now back to being cold and rainy, blech :P Oh well, at least it was nice for a couple days right?
Friday, I got to meet up with a new girl, Denisa, from the Slovak Republic. She just moved to Rotterdam, about 10 mins from where I live, so I'm excited. She's really nice. We hung out, did some shopping, had apple pie at Dudok and then saw House of Wax (horrible, horrible movie by the way, don't waste your money. And had I known before hand that it had Paris Hilton in it I would NEVER have watched it...don't even get me started on her, lol) Saturday, a group of us got together because Anna had a couple friends from the States visiting. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and dancing. Here's the crew from the evening (I didn't end up getting a decent picture of Julian sorry...):

Anna Maria, Caitlin and I

Carrie and Erik

Chris

and Jamie and her boyfriend Matt (he doesn't like having his picture taken...)

So yeah, that was the group of us. Fun stuff :)

Fears

2005-05-25T23:50:00.000+02:00

I was looking for a word today and stumbled upon a list of phobias. Here's some of the ones I found most humorous (note: all real words according to "The Phobia List")...

Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
(don't ever give a dog peanut butter by the way, this happens to them and they freak out! *guilty look* what? I never did that...)

Eisoptrophobia- Fear of mirrors or of seeing oneself in a mirror.
(I've had some very frightening experiences looking into mirrors first thing in the morning...)

Dutchphobia- Fear of the Dutch.
(had to include it, although I can't imagine why anyone would have this one, hehe)

Pantophobia- Fear of everything.
(who can tell me where that's from? *wink*)

and my personal favorite...

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- Fear of long words.
(now come on, that's just cruel!)

It's just amazing what frightens people...

2 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (NKJV)

Little taste of heaven

2005-05-25T00:27:00.000+02:00

Strawberries and whipped cream...mmmmmm!

Good times, good times...

2005-05-24T12:35:00.000+02:00

Sunday afternoon was just so nice. It was one of the most pleasant afternoons I've had in a long time. I met up with Anna, Caitlin, Bea and Camilla and we headed out to Wijk aan Zee, a cute little Dutch beach town, and saw Illicit (a hip hop band that Kathrin's boyfriend plays in).

Here's the whole band

Pieter during his solo

They were good actually, I had a really fun time watching them play. So yeah, it was just a good day. Nothing too terribly exciting about it, we just chilled and I got to hang out with my friends and be silly and smile and laugh a lot. We also took some really nice pictures of us girls on the beach but unfortunately they're on Caitlin's camera so I can't post them right now. Caitlin, you gotta send me those! *wink*

So apparently I'm a liar now...

2005-05-23T00:02:00.000+02:00

Or at least according to "anonymous commenter" on this post... I've never been called a liar in my life (well, since I was a kid anyways. I can remember my sisters chanting "liar, liar, pants on fire" a time or two but that's a whole different story, hehe). It surprised me and actually made me a little mad (which you will probably be able to tell if you read my response to the comment) but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter and actually it's kind of amusing when you think about it. So yeah, I'm going to chose to laugh this one off and actually I had a really great day aside from that. I'll post about it more tomorrow since I have some fun pictures (which I actually took) from the show (that I actually went to) that I'd like to post along with it. But for now I need to catch up on my sleep so, g'night everyone! *smile*

Night Stuff

2005-05-22T03:51:00.000+02:00

Boy, I hate traveling at night here. Not because I feel like it's dangerous or anything (although I definitely would not advise spending any more time than necessary at Centraal Station) most of the time I get home with no problems at all. The reason I hate it so much is because it takes soooo looooong to get everywhere. Normally it takes me about fourty-five minutes to an hour to get from my house to Anna's house in Scheveningen. Tonight however, because of having to wait for and take two night busses and a night train, it took me almost two and a half hours to get home. blech!

We had a good time going out and stuff though. We played a card game and just hung out at Anna's house for a few hours and then went out and ended up at a little Australian bar called Kangaroos. We had fun and laughed a lot. I'm so grateful that I have such a fun group of friends now. There was a period of a couple months when I first got here that I had no one at all to hang out with, that sucked! But now it's all good. My friends are great and I'm so glad most of them are sticking around for awhile. Except Anna who's moving to Spain in July :( Well I'm happy for her but it sure is going to be a bummer not having her around any more. *sigh* Such is life I guess...

So yeah, my evening was great, I just need to make sure I leave earlier next time or spend the night!

oh deer...

2005-05-19T20:06:00.000+02:00

I just want to say that I watched Bambi today and cried like a small child when the mother died...again. I have seen that movie 87 thousand times (and that's probably not too big of an exaggeration) and it still gets to me. Caroline was very concerned and was like "it's ok, look the daddy deer is there", hehe. She's such a sweetheart. But yeah, I just love classic Disney *smile*

Pinkpop 2005

2005-05-18T13:53:00.000+02:00

This past weekend I went to Pinkpop, a music festival in Limburg, and had an absolute blast! I'll let the pictures tell the story :)

Saturday 14 May-

We got up at 5am and had three hours of trains and busses (well, four hours really since we missed one of our trains and had to wait an hour)

When we finally arrived we set up our tent (in the rain) and explored things a little bit

Heineken, the official sponsor of, oh, just about every major event in the Netherlands, lol

The first night the best act definitely was The Chemical Brothers, they did euro dance mix stuff, it was great

and for good reason, I watched a girl almost break her neck crowd surfing during the Chemical Brothers :S

Sunday 15 May-

It rained until almost 3pm...so the ground was pretty wet and muddy, not to mention covered in trash :P

Beef, it's not just what's for dinner *wink* it's also a really fun Dutch band

The Prodigy put on a really great show

getting close to the fans

I enjoyed them a lot! It was great, we were right on the bar and I have the bruise across my ribs to prove it, hehe

After that show we called it a night and went to bed, notice I didn't say went to sleep. It was freezing cold (honest, I was wearing four shirts and three pairs of socks!) and every time we'd fall asleep we were awakened by some drunk tripping over our tent, *sigh* Oh well..

Monday 16 May-

The weather finally improved, no more rain, yea!

Everyone was enjoying the nice weather and just acting crazy

Wir sind Helden, a band from Germany and probably my favorite band from the festival. They were really good!

Bloc Party, another good band this time from the UK. We watched the show and then got their autographs afterwards, fun fun

Faithless, the last band of the festival

After them we headed home, we both couldn't stand the thought of another cold night in the tent, hehe

Notice all the confused looks and pink hats? Nobody really knew what was going on as far as the extra trains went. It worked out though and we made it home by about 2am Tuesday morning.

It was such a great weekend. Going into it I was unsure about how it would go simply because I only knew one band that was playing but now I'm so glad that I went. I heard so much great music and had a really, really fun time *smile*

Country Getaway

2005-05-17T14:23:00.000+02:00

Last week I went on holiday with my host family to a little town called Oosterhout. It was a good time. The weather was pretty bad unfortunately but we still did plenty of fun stuff :) Here are some pictures from my week:

On the farm:

A real Dutch experience

with ponies

and chickens

Day trip to Breda:

Little Dutch street

buying shoes

The Efteling:

Caroline saying hello to the park's mascot

Timo, Caroline and Me on one of the rides

I'm such a little kid, I just love carousels :)

In the "Sprookjes Bos" (Fairy Tale Forest) a sign pointing to where we could see the story of Little Red Riding Hood

Our boat ride

It was a good week :)

Now THAT was an adventure!

2005-05-13T23:06:00.000+02:00

*note: extremely long post...but it's a fun story :)*

About a week ago I got an e-mail from Ineke informing me that President Bush was coming to Limburg and the town was going to give away tickets to see him. On a whim I decided to e-mail the town and inquire about it, not really expecting much at all. I didn't hear from them for a few days so I had just about decided to forget about until Wednesday I got an e-mail from them telling me when and where I could pick up my ticket. Well, even though I had a ticket I had no idea how I was ever going to get there. The e-mail said that I needed to pick up my ticket between 5am and 6am Sunday morning in Margraten ie. nowheresville, Holland...I had no idea and so I asked Ineke and Robbert for help. Since no trains ran that early (or to that town for that matter!) I had to stay there overnight. We called around and for a long time it looked like I was fresh out of luck because everywhere was booked. Finally we stumbled across the website for a camp ground called Kamperen bij de boer (camping with the farmer) and even though at first they said they were also booked the mother overheard and said "Just one person? Oh there's always room for one person!" So...I was going! I was a bit nervous about going by myself simply because I still wasn't totally clear about how to get everywhere I needed to be but I figured I'd regret not taking this chance. So here's how it went...

Saturday, 7 May 2005-

8:15am: Finished up a bowl of Corn Flakes and Ineke gave me a ride to the train station so I could catch my first train.

8:45am: Caught my first train which would take me to Eindhoven.

9:59am: Caught second train to Sittard

10:55am: NS is doing construction between Sittard and Maastricht all weekend so I caught a bus to some itty bitty town where I then got on a stop train that took me the rest of the way to Maastricht

11:46am: Wonderful train ran late so I "ran" to the bus stop just in time to see my bus pull away. (What I was doing probably couldn't technically be called running since I was lugging a, I kid you not, 53lb bag along behind me!!! Honestly I wish I had a video of me hauling that thing up and down all the stairs and in and out of the trains and busses, it really had to have been a funny sight, lol) Checked the bus schedule and the next one was in an hour...:P

12:46pm: Caught the bus for my final leg of the trip into Margraten

1:03pm: I got off the bus because this was the time I was supposed to be at my stop (the signs where covered in orange plastic announcing the busses wouldn't be running due to President Bush's visit) I should've just asked, it was not the right stop...

1:08pm: Found a sign "Margraten 2 kilometers"! *sigh* Note: at this moment, as if on cue a nice little drizzle starts...I thought "man, my luck better not be this good the whole trip" I started walking (still dragging around that 53lb bag) and giving every car that passes the most pathetic look I could muster up.

1:20pm: An extremely nice man with a sleeping child in his back seat (so I figured that made him safe) pulled over and offered me a ride. I gladly accepted and he asked me where I was going. I reached in my pocket to pull out the paper with the address and name of the place and it was no longer there. I sheepishly told him I didn't know but it was the camping place by the cemetery (I am just oh so slick aren't I? lol) He was really cool, stopped at a bike shop and got directions and then drove me the rest of the way there.

1:35pm: The family that owns the farm/campground greats me and showed me the camping spot. The younger son offered to help me put up my tent which I accepted. Just as we were about to start the mother comes out and said, since it was raining I could set my tent up inside a shed they had so it wouldn't get wet and dirty (yea!)

not bad hé?

2:00pm: All set up...now what? lol

I'll just see how many times I can bounce this ping pong ball ( I got to 191...)

Then it stopped raining so I went outside and took some pictures of the farm

Beautiful isn't it?

After that I went back inside and met a little girl. We played inside for awhile.

7:30pm: Since I had to leave to pick up my ticket at about 4am (I needed to be there by 5am and I had to walk 3 kilometers to get there) I'm went to bed. Unfortunately I was without dinner. I didn't think about the fact that I'm in the middle of the country and there are no cafes around! Just another glowing example of my genius, lol

12:00am: I heard "are you asleep?". After an initial moment of panic that I'd slept in and missed the whole thing I opened my tent to see the farmers wife and his son outside my tent. They told me that they had a ticket for me already so instead of me having to leave at 4am I could ride with them at 6:30am. Yea!

Sunday, 8 May 2005-

6:25am: Down by the cars ready to go and after about 10 mins we were off. Since the farm is directly behind the cemetery we got stopped two different times, once by a police car and once by an army truck, and had to show id's and tell them where we were headed.

7:15am: We had finally cleared security and were loaded on a bus to the cemetery (we weren't allowed to drive there ourselves)

There were 10,000 people there...and all of them had to come by bus!

8,300 American soldiers from WWII are buried in here. Most of the crosses had the soldier's name and the state they were from on it...

but sadly there were a few like this:

"Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God"

We got to the cemetery and had found our seats by about 8:00am (Bush wasn't going to speak till 10am!) I was a little worried about how late we were leaving because the ticket said "first come first seated" and that the first bus left at 5am...I figured it was a much better idea to get a ride with them than to walk on a narrow country road in the dark though. When we arrived we found out that the tickets were according to sections with the green ticket being the farthest back, then the red and then the blue. We had red tickets so we ended up with front row seats in the red section. Not bad hé?

Me in one of the little rain jackets they passed out waiting for things to get started.

My new friends that helped me sooo much!

8:30am: The son got a call on his cell phone from the nephew who gave us the tickets asking how we were and where we were sitting

8:35am: The director of the cemetery came up to us and told us that we're sitting in the wrong place. He lead away from the red section and all the to the front of the blue section to a sectioned off area! The only people in front of us were the WWII veterans and dignitaries! God is so good isn't He?!

9:00am: The ceremony began with different local groups doing some songs and things

10:20am: Finally, President Bush arrived!

The Prime Minister of The Netherlands, President George W. Bush, Queen Beatrix and Laura Bush during the playing of the national anthem

President Bush giving his speech

It was a good speech. Afterwards we walked around the cemetery and little bit and then headed back to the farm. I went inside and had pie and coffee with the family and then packed up my stuff. The son gave me a ride to the station and my trip back was fairly uneventful. It was such a great trip! I had a wonderful time, met wonderful people and now have a great story to tell *smile* I hope you enjoyed the story. Sorry about the length. This weekend I'm off to a music festival with Caitlin so after that I will post about my vacation with the family and everything. Have a great weekend!

Well...

2005-05-09T14:23:00.000+02:00

While I know there are some of you who really want to hear about/see pics of my weekend, I'm sorry but it's just going to have to wait. I'm going on vacation with my family for a week and will probably not have internet access during that time. I tried to finish it but I just couldn't. Anyway, I'll do my best to have it up by next Tuesday evening. Have a great week everyone and I will see you all later *smile*

Daughters of Soul

2005-05-05T23:47:00.000+02:00

What a fun night I had. Ineke and I, along with a couple of her friends, went to Het Paard in Den Haag to see Daughters of Soul (really click on that one, it gives you a little taste of what I saw...) It was a great show. Basically, it was three daughters of famous soul singers: Simone-daughter of Nina Simone, Lalah Hathaway-daughter of Donny Hathaway and Indira Khan-daughter of Chaka Khan. Plus three other soul singers: Joyce Kennedy, Nona Hendryx and Sandra St. Victor. It was a very fun concert. Soul music is something that I would probably never just stick in my cd player and listen to during the day but when you're at a concert and the music is loud and you can just dance and get into the music I love it! *smile*

Simone

Sandra St. Victor and Indira Khan (note: Indira sweetie, before you announce how much you love a town, make sure that's the one your performing in! You're in Den Haag not Amsterdam, lol *wink*)

Lalah Hathaway

Passing down a love of soul from one generation to the next.
A true "daughter of soul"

Koninginne Dag

2005-04-30T23:21:00.000+02:00

Queen Beatrix

Saturday was Queen's Day and it was so much fun! We were going to go to Amsterdam but after Koninginne Nach and how crowded it was we decided not to go there where it was going to be 50x more crowded with tourists! So instead we decided to go to Scheveningen where the queen was going to be and spend the day on the beach. I'm so glad that we decided to do that because it was so nice and so Dutch. All the tourists were in Amsterdam mostly so we got to experience the holiday the way it was supposed to be. :)

Look it's the queen!...What? You can't see her?...Neither could we there were way too many people, lol. Oh well.

The beach at Scheveningen

There's a club called Crazy Pianos that we've been to a time or two it's a really fun place. They have live piano music and you can request songs and everything. It's just kinda fun and different. Anyway, they had a stage set up outside so after getting a bite to eat we went over there to check it out. It was a lot of fun! We stayed there for a couple hours probably just singing, dancing, getting into the music and having an all around good time.

Caitlin, Mili and I dancing and just being silly

They even got a conga line going at one point

The best by far though was the cute old couple that really got into the music for awhile and danced together. That's how I will be someday, hehe :)

After we were done with that Anna Maria, Mili and I sat on the beach for awhile and just enjoyed the nice weather and the view.

It was soooo beautiful!

We then went back to Anna's house and waited for the fireworks to start.

Us girls watching the fireworks

A perfect end to a perfect day

Koninginne Nach

2005-04-29T23:53:00.000+02:00

My weekend was great! It started out with Koninginne Nach (Queen's Night) in Den Haag. Basically they blocked off the entire city center and set up stages and different bands played through out the night. It was pretty nice. Here's some pictures of the evening.

Dutch flags over a street in Den Haag

Good times, good times...

It was very crowded!

It's a small world, Carrie's from Indiana too! lol

One of the main stages of the night. It's all about orange!

So it was a pretty good time. It got a little overcrowded as the night wore on and our group began to lose each other so I called it a night pretty early. Over all it was a great experience though. The Dutch really know how to party!

My current favorite

2005-04-28T14:35:00.000+02:00

Worship CD right now:

If you don't have it yet I highly recommend adding it to your collection.*smile*

I love lay overs!

2005-04-26T13:40:00.000+02:00

...at least when other people have them, hehe. This morning Pastor Dan, the director of Fuel International, and his family were on their way home from Africa and they had a lay over at Schiphol Airport so I decided to stop by and see them. Their plane got in at 6:15am which meant that I had to leave my house at 5am. It was totally worth the loss of sleep though. We got to hang out for a couple of hours and talk and stuff. They're so great! Anyway, it was super nice getting to see them. And hey, if any of you happen to travel internationally and have a stop at Schiphol don't hesitate to let me know *wink*

Seth and Alyzsa wanted me to take a picture, they've grown up so much!

Bloemencorso 2005

2005-04-23T17:46:00.000+02:00

Well, spring is officially here. Today Ineke, the kids and I went to Sassenheim where Robbert's mother, Toos lives and saw Bloemencorso (the flower parade). It was so pretty! Everyone decorated their transportation with flowers,

The Bikes

The trucks

And even the Police Cars

But the best by far were the floats in the actual parade, here are some of my favorites

A flower made from flowers!

Yep, that's a purple cat, hehe

That's me in front of the clown float :)

This one is supposed to be the queen's golden carriage. I actually saw her riding in the real one last fall (that one was really neat to see...but this one smelled better, *giggle*)

Well there's no question about it, we're in Holland. There's Sinter Klaas made out of flowers!

Ok, well there's bunches more but I won't bore you with them all *wink* Everything was very beautiful and put me in a very "springy" mood. However, the most wonderful thing about the parade I can't transfer onto Blogger. That is the smell. It was the best smelling parade I've ever been to in my life! I wish I could've bottled it and taken it home with me, mmmmm! Oh well. So, that was my fun for the day. After the parade was over we spent a little time at Too's house and then headed home because everyone was very tired.

A good day, but we were all ready to get home...

Duck, Duck, Killer Goose!

2005-04-21T17:47:00.000+02:00

The weather has been beautiful all day today, the sun is shining and it's nice and warm. Since it's been rainy for what feels like forever and I was stuck in bed for three days, I had to take Caroline out of the house. We decided to go to our favorite spot, which is the lake close to the house where the ducks live.

Look at it, isn't it pleasant?

The ducks were there and we spent some nice time relaxing by the side of the lake and picking daises

My pretty little girl

We made our way down the lake so that we could find our "friend" geese. We'd visited them before and had given them bread. The mommy goose had a nest the last time we were there so we decided to check on her. Unfortunately for us, by this time we'd run out of bread...

Daddy goose decided that since we couldn't feed him we were no longer friends and charged at us. I had to scoop Caroline up into my arms and run as fast as I could onto a bridge in order to escape a painful attack. We would've just called it a day and moved on except that he found our stroller and decided to hold it ransom!

apparently he was really hungry :S

After poking, biting, and pulling at it for five minutes he decided that it wasn't going to hurt him or feed him. So, just to prove he was boss he strutted around it threateningly for another five minutes or so before he finally got bored and wandered off. We quickly got the stroller back and continued our way.

So, our moral for today is: Beware of fair weather friends because when the going gets tough, they just might turn on you and steal your stroller.

Dress Up Day

2005-04-21T15:07:00.000+02:00

The boys were allowed to dress up for school today. Timo went as a pirate and Morten went as a knight. I snapped this photo when we got home and I couldn't resist posting it. They're just so much fun, aren't they?

Feeling better, yea!

2005-04-18T18:20:00.000+02:00

Well I was pretty sick over the weekend. I'm a very healthy person in general so this was probably the sickest I've been in years, no fun. I went to the doctor which was an interesting experience in itself, lol. The doctor was much more comfortable speaking Dutch than English and even though normally my Dutch is pretty good, when I'm running a fever my brain doesn't work as well. Luckily Ineke was there with me and served as kind of a translator. Still, the doctor couldn't really figure out what was wrong with me, oh well. Anyway I just wanted to explain why I've been pretty much MIA over the past few days and hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things in no time at all *smile*

Spiritus

2005-04-03T23:00:00.000+02:00

Today the weather was even prettier than yesterday! It was so warm that I finally wore my flip-flops for the first time this year. Yea!!

*does a little dance*
*falls flat on face because i've forgotten i'm still wearing my flip-flops*

hehe, ok seriously though...for a good part of the day all I really did was relax in the sun. Sometime in the afternoon I decided I had better do something productive with my day, so I decided to go to Ineke's office and clean the outside windows, they were in desperate need of it. When Ineke asked me to do it she also said that I needed to buy something to put in the water called Spiritus. It's almost completely alcohol and it keeps the windows from streaking and stuff, I guess. They didn't sell it at the store across the street from the office so I walked down the street to a little Turkish shop to see if they had it there...no luck there either. Oh well. The Albert Hein and Blokker are just a few minutes extra down the road and at least one of them was sure to have it so I walked down there. They were closed! I mean, ok it's sunday, day of rest, blah blah blah, but the sign on the door said they were supposed to be open on sundays from 08.00 till 20.00, so what in the world is it doing closed at 15.30 in the afternoon?! I miss Wal-Mart *sigh*

At that point I was pretty much at a loss as to what to do. I needed to get the windows clean which meant I needed to get that darn Spiritus but I really didn't have a clue as to where they would sell house hold cleaning products. So I started walking kind of aimlessly towards more stores. I didn't see anything promising and since there was a tram stop right there I figured my chances of actually finding somewhere that sells it AND is open would be in the center.

After about ten minutes I was at Centraal station and again began a somewhat aimless walk into all the promising looking shops (let me just add at this point that I was dressed for cleaning so I had on capris, a grubby tank-top, a zip up sweatshirt and absolutely no make-up, yikes! At least I didn't make any small children cry...that I noticed anyway, hehe)

First shop, no luck. Second shop, no luck. Third shop, again no luck (ok, so this one was a clothing store but still). FINALLY, I went into the fourth shop that looked halfway promising and they had a decent selection of cleaning products. I looked up and down the aisle and still didn't see it. At this point I was just about to give up. My feet were sore from the darn flip-flops (I always forget how they make that little blister in between your toes the first few times you wear them, ouch!) and I was simply getting frustrated. I decided to make one last sweep of the shelves, reading every bottle, when I saw it, BrandSpiritus. YEA!!! I grabbed it and paid (only €.90 not bad) and then headed back to the office. I didn't even have to wait for the bus cuz it was sitting there when I got to the stop. God loves me *smile*

Five minutes later I was at the office. I poured the stuff into a bucket and was greeted by quite possibly the worst chemical smell I've ever smelled in my life! UGH! It was truly wretched. I managed to fill the bucket without passing out and got it outside. Once outside the smell wasn't quite as bad and cleaning the windows was actually pretty enjoyable.

I finished with all the outside windows and grabbed my stuff, walked to the door...and realized that my purse and the keys to get in the office were sitting safely inside! *sigh* So I walked home and found out that was the only set of keys besides the set Thea, the lady who works with Ineke, had. Luckily, everyone was really nice about it and Thea came and unlocked the door and everything was fine.

So yeah, that was my adventure for the day. At least it was a beautiful day and walking around the city was enjoyable once my mission was accomplished. Who knew that cleaning windows could be so complicated!

Hair

2005-04-02T17:30:00.000+02:00

Caroline and I have so much fun together every day. One of the things I enjoy doing with her is playing with her hair. Here's some of the fun styles I've done.

a simple pony tail

piggy tails, always cute on little girls

half up

two little braids

a french braid

and the proof that she loves having her hair done! All these braids took me about an hour and a half to do and she loved every minute of it

Ok so technically this isn't a hair style but when she put this hat on I thought it was too funny.

So, there's the styles I've tried so far. What a cutie hé? :)

1 April

2005-04-01T22:45:00.000+02:00

één April
kikker in je bil...

lol. That's what I heard all day long. Luckily my kids aren't old enough to really understand the idea behind April Fools Day and so I wasn't met with any unpleasant surprises, hehe.

The weather is becoming daily more springy which I am extremely happy about. I took the kids to the park and spent about 3 hours with them there, they're growing up so much. It's amazing to me how much they've really grown even in the short time that I've been here. I got to spend some extra time with the boys this week because they had holiday from school so that was nice. I enjoy having all the kids at once. I feel like Caroline gets all my time but that's only because the boys have to be in school. I don't think about it usually but weeks like this remind me how much I miss being able to play with Morten and Timo too. They're just great kids and a pleasure to spend time with *smile*

Tea

2005-03-30T23:55:00.000+02:00

I drank a lot of tea today. I never used to be a fan of tea. It's not that I hated it, I just didn't prefer it...then I moved to The Netherlands. You see here they drink a LOT of tea and coffee. It's just what they do to be social. They don't say, "let's visit", it's "let's have coffee".

Well, I started with asking for coffee all the time because I enjoy coffee a lot but unfortunately, if I drink it at night time I tend to have a hard time falling asleep and that's the main time they sit down to drink it. So I had to adjust. And what I discovered is tea is great. It has so much variety. Just today I had three different kinds (orange, strawberry and spice) It's so much fun to try out the different flavors. I think my favorite so far is spice.

Plus, somehow tea seems healthier to me than coffee. I don't have any scientific facts to back it up, I just don't feel as "ick" when I drink tea. Don't get me wrong, coffee is wonderful in it's own right. My goodness, I wouldn't remember a bit of London the first time around with out it! But there's also that awful after taste and semi-headache that comes with drinking too much of it at the wrong time. Tea doesn't have that.

Although I'm now finding out (at 11:30pm) that it contains enough caffeine that after 6 cups in one day it can have a coffee like effect on my sleep. darn! Oh well. Another annoying disadvantage to all this tea is, my teeth have lost a lot of there Crest-Night-Affect-ness. boo! But other than that I've really learned to appreciate tea and all it's variety. Now all I have to do is learn how to limit it enough to get some sleep!

The blahs...

2005-03-29T20:45:00.000+02:00

regen regen
ga toch weg
kom pas terug
als ik het seg...

I'm so ready for summer! It's been grey and not really cold but not really warm for a few days now. I got my bike back though which I'm happy about. Rotterdam has this new thing where if you park your bike anywhere other than on a black parking place they take it away and you have to pay €15 to get it back! The dumb thing is, they're doing construction and pulled up most of the parking places so there are not enough places to park! *sigh* Oh well...at least it wasn't stolen. But I was without it for almost a week because of Good Friday and then the two Easter days. Plus, I have to buy a new lock for it because they cut mine, so that will be expensive. Oh well...like I said, at least I have the bike back safe and sound. But all that aside, Easter was nice and spring is here! woo hoo!

Baby Pictures

2005-03-27T23:10:00.000+02:00

I finally got a couple pictures of Liz's baby so here they are *smile*

Isn't he beautiful? Definitely a Staub :)

Happy Easter everyone!

Italy

2005-03-22T20:12:00.000+01:00

Well, I had an amazing weekend. I took a trip with my friend Anna Maria to Italy. We flew into Pisa and spent the day there

Here's me in front of the tower.

A city street in Pisa.

The weather was beautiful and we lounged around on the grass around the tower for awhile and just soaked up the sun.

I then went up to the top of the tower. That was so crazy because you could actually feel the lean as you were walking up the spiral staircase!

When we'd seen all we wanted to see in Pisa we took the train to Florence. Isn't it a beautiful city?

One of the first things we visited was the Cathedral. I honestly think, from the outside, this cathedral was the most spectacular building I've ever seen in my life. This picture doesn't come close to doing it justice...it really took my breath away.

This is the ceiling of the dome of the cathedral. Absolutely amazing as well.

This is me at the top of the dome.

Later we went to the Accadamia and saw The David by Michelangelo. The detail of this work of art is unreal especially because it's huge. Something you definitely never forget.

This is a bridge in Florence. It actually has little shops on it, very cute.

Sunday we took the bus to a little beautiful little town on a hill outside Florence called Fiesole.

We sat on the top of a hill with a gorgeous view of the houses and hills below for most of the afternoon. It was so wonderful and relaxing.

It was a good trip and I look forward to returning again in the future.

Yea!

2005-03-16T19:36:00.000+01:00

I have a new nephew! *big smile* Hunter Mitchel Staub. He was born around 6am (U.S. time)7lbs, 6oz. and 20" long. Everything went really well and my sister Liz and the baby are resting now. I'll post pictures of him when I get some. Praise God!!

London!

2005-03-01T21:55:00.000+01:00

Well, London was wonderful. It was very different being there by myself, but I had a good time. I flew in late Friday night. The flight was super short (about 40 mins) which was very nice. Once I got there it was too late to do anything though so I just found my hostel and went to bed.

I got up Saturday and did a little shopping on my way to The National Gallery. I got to spend a couple hours there which was very nice. Plus, it's free of admission so even though it was a weekend it didn't feel at all crowded because there were no lines.

This was a storyteller I happened upon while I was inside the museum. She was very interesting and animated. I would love to do something like what she was doing!

This is me in front of the Gallery

After I was done there I made my way to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I did have to pay for that but it was worth it to me. It was a very neat tour and it made me want to definitely come back sometime in the summer to actually see a show there.

You can see The Globe in the background.

Then I went next door to the Tate Modern museum. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I never thought of myself as a real "fan" of modern art but this museum gave me a whole new perspective on it. I loved that there were so many hidden messages and meanings behind each piece. My favorite piece was Hyena Stomp by Frank Stella and the reason is because the artist was thinking about syncopation when he painted it. I just thought it was the perfect image of syncopation.

This was a man outside the museum, you'd think he was a statue if you didn't know better. Very fun.

After I was done there I went across the river to St. Paul's Cathedral and there happened to be a mass going on so I sat in for that. It was very neat. I'm not catholic, but I think their services are absolutely beautiful.

There's St. Paul's behind me.

Sunday I mostly just wandered around the Subway system, lol.

Which is a lot easier than trying to figure out which way the cars are coming from!

I did manage to make it the whole weekend without so much as a close call. I was only able to do that by looking back and forth about six times both ways before crossing the street as my brain simply doesn't comprehend the cars driving on the left side of the road! lol.

I visited Harrods only to find out they're closed on Sundays. Oh well, it's probably for the best since I would've been tempted to spend more money than I needed to, hehe. I then headed out to the airport and back home.

There's my plane. I actually got to use stairs on and off the plane for the first time! I've always wanted to do that.

I really enjoyed myself. London is a wonderful city and I can't wait to go back again.

Nog een keer!

2005-02-25T13:15:00.000+01:00

I'm going to London again for the weekend. I'll be going by myself so it should be interesting, it'll be my first "real" trip alone. I'm excited though. The weather is supposed to be rainy the whole time but that's ok, I plan on visiting a lot of the museums and stuff so that's all indoors. Besides, I've lived in Holland for almost seven months so I'm used to a little rain, lol. I'll try and take a bunch of pictures and I'll post them when I get back. Have a great weekend everyone!

Day at the Zoo

2005-02-24T16:02:00.000+01:00

This week the boys are on holiday from school. I'm enjoying it because it means I get to spend the whole day with them instead of just a couple hours in the afternoon. It also means that we get to go out and do fun stuff. Monday I took the boys to see the Spongebob movie. Spongebob is definitely not my favorite cartoon character but it was fun just going out to the movies with the boys. Today I took all three of the kids to the zoo. We had a good time. It was a bit cold so we spent a lot of the time inside but it was still nice.

Me and the kids

"kijk, een gekke penguin!" *wink* (sorry, that's for Lana and Joel, if you want to know just ask me)

Au Pairs

2005-02-23T23:54:00.000+01:00

Kathrin, Anna Maria and I out for an evening in Den Haag.

Good friends = Good times

A bike story

2005-02-19T20:05:00.000+01:00

That is my wonderful bike. It's a typical city bike, known as an "Oma fiets" (Grandma bike) and it's gotten me just about everywhere in heat, cold, rain and wind. I love it. Unfortunately, yesterday it had a flat tire and since I was already running late I decided to take Ineke's bike and that's where my story begins... I was peddling along at a decent pace, trying to make it to Centraal Station on time so I didn't miss my train, when I saw that I was coming up to an intersection. The light was flashing green which indicates that it's going to turn red in a matter of seconds, so naturally I speed up in order to make the light. However, while I was still a ways back it turned completely red and I knew I wasn't going to make it. I "slammed on my brakes" and remembered at that moment that I was riding Ineke's bike and hers doesn't have the brakes in the pedals like mine, it has hand brakes. Well, it only took me a split second of peddling backwards to realize my mistake but I was still approaching a busy intersection at a rather brisk pace and was no closer to stopping. I quickly corrected my mistake and pulled my hand brake as hard as I could. Now, correct me if I'm wrong but on most bikes with hand brakes the brake for the front tire is on the left, and the brake for the back tire is on the right, isn't it? Well, unfortunately it's opposite on Ineke's bike and since her front brake works very well, the front of the bike stopped dead, the back of the bike flew up in the air and I sailed over the handle bars and landed on the ground! I wish I had a video tape of it because it had to have been incredibly funny to see. Luckily, I managed to kind of keep my feet and ended up without a scratch on me. The three or four people waiting at the intersection all asked me if I was ok and I was not only ok but I could not stop laughing. I still managed to make it to Centraal Station in time for my train so all is good. I just wanted to share that story with you all so you can have a little chuckle at my expense. Have a great day everyone!

A Dutch Wedding

2005-02-18T22:30:00.000+01:00

Today I went to a Dutch wedding. It was for Leendert and Mariëtte; Leendert is a friend I met a few weeks ago at the Bible study I attend. It was very nice. It was surprisingly different than an American wedding but I suppose that's to be expected since it's a different country. The major difference was they were technically already married because Dutch law requires you to be married in the City Hall before you're allowed to get married in a church. They had done that last Tuesday so, this was basically a church service where they resaid their wedding vows. The rest of the service was singing and even a sermon. It was of course entirely in Dutch and so I ended up serving as a quasi-translator for the other girls there from the Bible study who didn't understand a word. I more just gave them a general idea of what was going on since it's a bit difficult to listen and translate at the same time. It was neat that I could do it though *smile*
A little bit of Dutch trivia: Most Dutch people wear their rings on their left hand when they're engaged and then move it to their right hand when they get married, interesting hé?

This is de Kruiskerk in Dordrecht where the wedding was held.

The bride and groom singing together after they said their vows.

Congratulations Leendert and Mariëtte!

how is it possible...

2005-02-15T09:35:00.000+01:00

...that every time I do laundry I end up with an odd number of white socks? Every single time! You would think at the very least I'd come out even every other time. It just doesn't seem logical to me because I never wear just ONE sock! Yet somehow, when it's all said and done I'm one white sock short....strange hé?

smiling

2005-02-13T21:58:00.000+01:00

Have you ever been so happy about something you couldn't stop smiling? And then every time you thought about why you were smiling you smiled even bigger. And by the end of the day your cheeks kinda hurt from smiling so much but thinking about why they hurt makes you smile all the more...lol Today was just a great day! *happy sigh*

Lekker!

2005-02-12T11:46:00.000+01:00

This morning I made Americans pancakes and I even found real maple syrup to put on them. They were so yummy!

The whole family really liked them a lot. Morten even said that he thinks they're " the yummiest pancakes in the world!" Thank you Dad for the recipe :)

hugs

2005-02-09T17:54:00.000+01:00

I was in such a bummer mood last night. I'm not really sure why, I think I was a little homesick or something...all I knew is I just wanted a hug. I'm a big hugger and so living way over here with no one to hug (they do kisses over here, very "cool" and European but not the same) can be hard for me sometimes. Anyway, I pretty much slept it off and woke up in a much better mood. I still really wanted a hug but I was ok without it. I worked at the office all day today, which I enjoyed. Then when I got home, I walked in the door, took off my coat and set my stuff down and stuff. Then Caroline saw I was home and from across the room yelled "Abigail!!!" and ran over to greet me. She then wanted me to pick her up and hold her and we snuggled and danced to the music that was on for a good five minutes (which is impressive for any two year old *giggle*). God is so good isn't He? He knew just what I needed. I love that little girl so much, she really made my day.

Judo

2005-02-07T16:40:00.000+01:00

It was Timo's first day of Judo and so Ineke and I got to stay and watch. Morten has been going for a couple weeks now but Robbert was the one that took him. It was so cute! There was probably 20 little kids or so, mostly little boys but a couple girls too. At the start of the class, when the Teacher took role the kids had to answer to their name with "Ja, Meester"(master) it was adorable. Anyway, both of them really enjoyed it so this is something they'll both be doing every monday now.

Timo listening to the instructions

The Meester explaining a game to the kids

Morten and Timo practicing a move

Look what I found...

2005-02-06T10:05:00.000+01:00

...in Rotterdam!

Isn't that a great combination? An Easy Internet Cafe and a Subway together! Unfortunately this Subway doesn't sell Mountain Dew...oh well, I'll still be eating there quite often *smile*

Nice relaxing day

2005-02-05T20:22:00.000+01:00

I had a very pleasant day today. I didn't do much other than sleep and finish this book:

It was a really well written book actually. It was a bit hard to read at first but once I got used to the style it was very good. I highly recommend it *smile*

My first time...

2005-02-04T22:23:00.000+01:00

....putting Caroline's hair in a french braid *smile*

I love my job!

2005-02-04T10:06:00.000+01:00

Look at the wonderful kids I get to take care of!

Morten, 5

Timo, 4

Caroline, 2

They're all great and I love them so much! *smile*

Mama Mia!

2005-02-02T01:46:00.000+01:00

I went to see this today with Ineke and some of her friends. It was a lot of fun. It was in Dutch so I was a bit concerned about understanding it before I went but I ended up having no problems. Yea!

A picture of our group at the Asian restaurant we ate at before the show.

Finally!

2005-01-24T23:48:00.000+01:00

Look what I woke up to this morning!

Ok, so it isn't much but it's the most we've had this year and I am way excited :)

Snails

2005-01-17T10:37:00.000+01:00

Well it's my 19th birthday today...how crazy is that? I don't feel overwhelmingly old like I did when I turned 18. That's actually funny because I've grown up so much over the past year and am way more mature now then I was then. Oh well. I had a good, kind of, pre-birthday day with my host family. They were really sweet and Robbert and Ineke took me out to dinner at this really wonderful place in Schiedam. It was called Hossman Frérres and it was some of the best food I've ever eaten at a restaurant. I got to try snails too which was exciting. They were actually delicious. It took me forever to try the first one though, simply because of the idea
and the fact that it actually looked like a slug. But now I know that I like them so that's exciting.

I also visited a church here in Rotterdam and that was nice. I don't know if I want to attend it on a regular basis but the worship was nice and the people were really friendly so that was good. Saturday evening I also met up with a group of students involved in the group Friends Rotterdam. It's a meet up organization for Christian students living here. They were all really nice and we had a great time. This Wednesday I plan on attending a Bible study run by the same group so I'm excited about that. Woo hoo!

Why?

2005-01-10T04:53:00.000+01:00

I had a really nice day today. I had the best time of worship that I've had in a long time, mostly because I haven't moved the table back into my room and so I could really dance while I worshiped. It was great. During my time with God today I was thinking, why are temptations so tempting? Really, when God makes rules it's never because He's mean or doesn't want us to have any fun, it's always for our own good and will make our life easier. When God says not to get drunk we think he just doesn't want us to have any fun but alcohol is a poison, it just kills you a lot slower than others. Even still, you wake up with a horrible headache because of what the stuff did to your body, but that's fun right?! Or smoking. Take away the risk of cancer and emphysema and it still makes your teeth yellow, your clothes stink and gives you wrinkles. Or sex outside of marriage. You run the risk of all kinds of irritating and even fatal diseases, not to mention just plain old getting your heart broken. And yet, I still find these things tempting...I don't understand myself sometimes. I can have so much fun with out all that junk and yet there's still times when I want to throw all that into the mix. God is so loving and good to warn us about these things and to tell us not to do them. Why am I still tempted when I know what I know? By God's grace I still haven't given into any of these temptations so far, and I don't expect to, and I suppose that no matter what these things are going to look fun. However, I know that there's so much better to be had and I just need to keep my focus right and always remember that God's given me boundaries to make my life better and not worse.

Better

2005-01-08T03:00:00.000+01:00

I'm a lot better now. I got sad a couple times today but no tears. Actually I really didn't have time to cry because I had all three kids today and the boys fought almost constantly...It seemed like every time I'd finally get them playing nicely one of them would start something again. Even giving them a rest time in front of the television didn't work today! Oh well. It kept me busy, but I'm really glad that I'm going out tonight. I'll try and take some pictures of our evening and post them later. Actually, I'm not really sure what we're going to be doing. I know tomorrow we're supposed to go ice skating but other than that I'm not really sure. It'll be nice to see the girls (and guys?) again. I haven't seen a lot of them in almost a month. Anyway, it should be a good time and it'll get my mind on other things...*smile*

Keep moving

2005-01-06T22:35:00.000+01:00

I think this is the first time I've really sat down all day. I'm so restless, I don't know what to do with myself. Luckily, I'm working today so it gives me something to focus on. I've taken down my Christmas tree and lights, done a couple loads of laundry....anything to keep me busy. Toos took the boys to the circus today so I only had Caroline which was very nice. She's such a sweetie.

I've been thinking a lot today and yesterday. I'm coming to a point where I have to make some major decisions that are really going to effect my life. I really want to make the right ones and so, I've been praying and reading my Bible a lot. It's really hard to know what to do. I'm really glad that I have people who love and care about me and who are willing to pray for me and help me make these decisions because I don't know if I'd make the right ones by myself. No matter what I decide it isn't going to be easy. I love it here and I love this family and the kids; to leave them would break my heart. At the same time I do miss home and I want to be where I'm supposed to be...I don't know that I've ever had to make this hard of a decision before, at least I can't remember one.
Also, I need to get connected with a good group of Christian friends and a church for the remainder of my time here. I really like the group of friends that I have but I also need some people to encourage me in Godly things.
One other thing is that I'd like to get a second job ASAP. It wouldn't be anything big, just a part time job in the evenings but I could really use the extra € for travel and to save for when I do decide to go home. Once I go home I'll need an apartment, phone, car etc and all that costs $. *sigh*

I know that God's going to show me the right thing to do, I'm just realizing that I'm not as patient as I once thought. I used to think of myself as an incredibly patient person but I'm realizing more and more that that part of my character needs work as well. That and my faith...I have a really hard time being sure that I've heard God and trusting God to do what He says He will in the proper time. Everything will work out though. I'm actually pretty excited that I'm getting the opportunity to grow spiritually and improve my character. I want to be a woman of great faith and patience and these next few months are going to bring me that much closer to being one. That's something to get excited about isn't it?

You ever watch Pollyanna? I really love that movie. In that movie Pollyanna plays "the glad game". It's a really great game. I try to live my life that way. Granted, I don't usually use the word "glad", but in every situation there is something to be happy about and grateful for. Things are never as bad as they could possibly be and therefore there's always something that's good about a situation. I'm so glad, for instance, that Joel and Helana got to come see me. I enjoyed that so much and we now have a bunch of really great memories and stories to laugh about forever. Sure, I'm really sad and miss them right now but I think you can always judge how happy you've been by the level of your pain and sadness. And I was really, really happy. The exciting thing is, after not too long I'll go back to being happy again, only now I'll be a better person and appreciate the happiness way more because of how sad I've been. It's like when you've had a really bad migrane and you wake up in the morning and it's gone. Even though really you've just gone back to feeling normal again, you feel like a million dollars because of how bad you felt the day before. Anyway, I could ramble on forever...I kind of already have :-) So those are my thoughts for the day.

By the way, please keep me in your prayers as I start to make these big decisions. Also, if you have anything that you think God's told you on my behalf I'm always open to suggestions. ;-)Thanks so much!

They left :'(

2005-01-06T00:47:00.000+01:00

Well, now I have to quit being lazy and actually update my blogger instead of just letting you look at Joel's, lol. Joel and Helana left today at about 11am. My host mom Ineke dropped the three of us off at the airport a little after 7am and I hung out with them until it was time for them to go through passport control.

I'm so bummed. I didn't cry on the train on the way back to Rotterdam, actually I slept which is very weird for me. I have a thing about sleeping on trains...long story. Anyway, I was still ok until I got home and Ineke asked me if they got off ok. Then I burst into tears! It was rather embarrassing. Luckily today's my day off so I can mope around and rearrange my room and stuff. It's such a bummer that they're gone. I never really felt homesick until now. It was so comfortable and natural having them here. Once they got here it was like I'd never left, or like they'd been with me the whole time. There wasn't any awkward, get reacquainted junk. Now they're gone and I'm so sad to be here alone. I just want a big hug...

Well, I'm pretty sure I'll be coming home at least to visit this summer and possibly go on the music festival tour so I can get a hug then. That's only five months or so, right? *sigh*
I'm sorry. I'm not usually the depressed, complaining type but today is just a really hard day for me. I know I'll be back to my happy self in a few days and everything will be all good. At least this time Helana's not in Guatemala where I can't get a hold of her. That'll make things so much easier than last time. And if I come back for the summer then I'm at the half way point. I've been here for five months today and the festival tour's in five months. The time went by pretty fast. A lot happened but looking back it seems like it flew by.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to readjusting again and getting back in the swing of things. It was really great having them visit and now it's time for me to focus on what I want to do for the remainder of my time here. I'm excited. So much has happened and so much more is bound to be in store.

Where I've been

2004-12-29T13:09:00.000+01:00

Hey the reason I haven't been posting lately is because Joel and Helana got here a couple weeks ago and Joel's been keeping a pretty neat account on his own blogger so I figure why do the same thing twice?! Anyways, check out Joel's blogger to see all kinds of pictures and stuff about what we've been up to since they got here.

De Kat met de Hoed

2004-12-09T07:54:00.000+01:00

Today was Timo's birthday. He was so excited about it. He turned 4 today so he's still at the age where birthdays are super exciting. I got him De Kat met de Hoed (The Cat in the Hat) which he was super excited about. We read it in Romania and both the boys thought it was hilarious. It's really interesting how different it is in Dutch than it is in English. The general meaning is there but they make it rhyme so some of it's very different. I like it though, I think it's funny.
I also went Christmas shopping again today which was a lot of fun. I've never really shopped this much before, that I can remember. I usually have a big problem spending money, but since it's for other people it's really easy, and I actually enjoy it! Plus, all the Christmas lights are out now and it's still the beginning of December so I don't feel rushed. It's really pleasant. Well, I know this one was short but I'm really tired so I'm going to finish with that. Have a wonderful Christmas season everyone!

Sinterklaas

2004-12-06T05:47:00.000+01:00

Happy Sinterklaas everyone! Ok, so if you don't live in Holland you probably don't know what I'm talking about. In Dutch tradition, today is Sinterklaas's (Santa Clause) birthday. It was so cute. My host mom hired a Sinterklaas to come to the house with his Swarte Pieten (black helpers) and talk to the kids and give them their presents. I can't even explain how cute it was how the kids reacted. The Swarte Pieten are so silly and we sang lientjes (little songs) about Sinterklaas. They were pretty proud of me that I knew the songs since they knew that I was American. I also got a picture taken with Sinterklaas and his Pieten so as soon as I figure out how I'll post it. After Sinterklaas left we opened the presents that "he" brought. There were so many! I don't think I've ever seen children get so many presents before. The good thing though was all the presents were things that really help them exercise their imaginations, like dress up clothes (ie. Pirate costumes, train conductor hats and whistles, Indian bows and arrows etc.) legos, books, blocks etc. It wasn't like what most kids in America get for Christmas where all you have to do is press a button and everything else is done for you. Also, since it's imagination toys they're a lot quieter, no electronic noises going on and on! It was a lot of fun. Another fun tradition that we did is everyone has to write a poem in Dutch about the person whom the gift is for. I didn't write one because I didn't know about it ahead of time but they had me read mine out loud. It was a bit embarrasing but a lot of fun too.
The rest of my weekend was really great too. I went out to Amsterdam with the Au Pairs on Saturday. Anna, Bea and Kathrin were there and I met some new people too. There was Caitlin from Northern California, Kate from Tasmania, Sürï from Finland, Ross who works with Anna and is also from Northern California and another guy Au Pair from Spain who's name I can't remember. It was a really fun group. We basically bar-hopped until almost 11pm when the club we wanted to go to opened. I was also told that I'm the most fun sober person that this person had ever met so that made me feel good. I'm getting really comfortable not drinking and it gets easier and easier to say no thank you. Actually, the only person who has ever pressured me to drink was a bar tender last night. I finally just told him that I was allergic to alcohol. I know, it's a really horrible lie but it was the only thing I could say to get him to shut up! lol. I also had an interesting train ride home involving thinking that I was not going to be able to get back to Rotterdam several times. But it all worked out just fine.
So, now the Christmas season actually starts here. I'm so excited. I'm having such a great time and it just keeps getting better!

Finally

2004-11-30T10:21:00.000+01:00

Well I've tried to post like five times now and every time it gets deleted somehow. It's a little frustrating. Anyway, I had a great weekend. Saturday evening I went out with Anna, the Au Pair I went to the Reggea concert with and she brought a couple of Au Pairs that she knows, Bea from Hungary and Katherine from Germany. We started out at a little cafe and just talked for awhile. Then Katherine had to leave and Bea, Anna and I went to a really cool club called The Water Front. It was so much fun. Most of the people didn't even get to the club until almost 1am so we ended up staying out really late. I didn't get to bed until almost 6am! I love dancing though and that's what I did the whole night so it really was a blast. We're planning on going out in Amsterdam next weekend too so that's exciting. I'm so glad that I'm finally getting some friends. It's such a relief. A person can only go so long with out friends and these girls are really nice. First of all we have a lot in common just from being Au Pairs. Trust me, we're like mini-mothers and never get sick of talking about our kids or hearing about someone elses. Plus, we have other stuff in common as well. Also, the fact that I don't drink isn't an issue and I never feel pressure from them. I really think I may have found my group.

Ironing

2004-11-27T08:21:00.000+01:00

Today was such a great day. After I came back from taking Caroline to preschool, Robbert said that he was going out shopping or something, he was taking Timo with him and could I do some laundry? Interestingly enough, that had already been my plan and I had actually thrown a load into the washing machine earlier that morning. So, in the absence of any children, I decided to do the incredible amount of ironing that had been piling up over the last couple of weeks. See, here most people hang dry their laundry and so you have to iron everything. That ended up taking me the entire day! (it had been awhile since I'd done any ironing, I guess). Well I'm sure you're wondering why an entire day of ironing other people's clothes qualifies as a great day. The reason it was so wonderful is because, it's the day after Thanksgiving and my rule is I don't listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. So, the whole day was spent doing the mindless chore of ironing and singing and dancing to music I only get to listen to once a year. It put me in such a great mood! For those of you who know me, you would be so proud of me. I'm the opposite of Scrooge this year, I'm actually looking forward to Christmas! Tomorrow I plan on doing a little Christmas shopping, actually I have a few Christmas presents already purchased. Today was just a plain wonderful day and I expect tomorrow to be just as great.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2004-11-25T11:31:00.000+01:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone is having a great time today and that you're able to spend the holiday with those that you love. Obviously it's a bit different here since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving. To be honest it makes me pretty sad because Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday and it's usually the only time of year that I get to see certain parts of my family. I was going to try to make a Thanksgiving dinner for my host family but unfortunately most of the traditional food you can't buy here. What's a Thanksgiving dinner with out turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie?! With out all those it's just dinner. So I abandoned the idea. I was actually looking forward to making it too. I made Thanksgiving dinner one year for my mom and the Brunnette family because the rest of my family went down to see my Oma but my mom was sick and couldn't go. That was one of my favorite things I've ever done. It felt so great to sit down to a dinner that I made all myself. I think Amanda made the turkey actually but I made pretty much everything else. Anyway it was a great year. Every Thanksgiving holds great memories for me and so this Thanksgiving that's what I can be thankful for. Even though I'm on the other side of the world from the people I love the most and can't have the yummy stuff I usually have, I still have so many great memories from Thanksgivings past. Plus, I'm on pretty much the biggest adventure of my life so far and the family that I'm with is so good to me. The kids are great, I love them to death and I think they love me too now. It's a beautiful day and things could not be much better.

E-Cards

2004-11-25T07:16:00.000+01:00

Today was a nice day. It was my day off and since I'm trying to save money, not spend it, I stayed at home most of the day. The nice thing is, now we have internet at the house so I got a chance to kind of play on-line. I haven't done that in awhile. There's this fun little site I signed up for, www.sugarqube.com, and it's got a bunch of really great e-cards. The ones for Thanksgiving are mostly games and so I really had a blast playing on them. Then Morton and Timo came up and I let them take a shot at the games. It was really more fun watching them play the games and laugh at the cards then it was doing it myself. Kids really are great, they bring a whole simple, innocent perspective to things that sometimes I find myself losing. Hopefully I will never fully lose the ability to look at things with a childlike wonder. Things are so much better when you get excited about them.

Belgium

2004-11-23T23:05:00.000+01:00

Yet another trip has gone by. This one was great although it couldn't have been more opposite from my Paris trip. I went with my host family and they and three other families rented a little hotel for the weekend. It was a beautiful place. Everyone had there own room, which were very cozy, with their own bathroom (trust me, over here, being used to hostels, that was a big luxury!). There was also a living area with a bunch of extremely comfortable couches, a dining area, a huge kitchen and a bar. Basically what we did all weekend was sit around, drink tea and talk. Very "Gezellig" as the Dutch would say. I was actually pretty proud of myself, I had a whole entire conversation with someone about my Paris trip in Dutch! I think it was the first adult conversation that I've had. Sure I can talk to the kids in Dutch no problem but when it comes to adults it's a bit more embarrassing because the Dutch speak English so well that they're just not used to hearing Dutch with an accent and they tend to laugh. Not so good for your self confidence. But the adults this weekend were very encouraging and helpful so I was comfortable trying to speak Dutch with them.
Outside was much colder than here but it was still very green. We were in Brussels so it was very hilly and there were lots of trees. I always forget how much I love mountains until I see them again. The hill in Brussels I wouldn't necessarily qualify as mountains but it's a far cry from the pancake flatness of The Netherlands. On Sunday we also visited a nice little place that I think would be great in the summer time. There's a river that you can kyak down and places to hike and things like that. It'd actually be a great place for a youth group trip if it wouldn't cost so much to get there. Oh well. Then on Monday we spent the day in Maastricht which is a nice old Dutch town. We ate lunch and did a bit of shopping and then headed back home so that I could be in time for my Dutch lesson.
It was a very relaxing, enjoyable weekend. Something that's good to have every once and a while. Now back to reality.

Happy Birthday Joel!

2004-11-17T22:54:00.000+01:00

Well today's Joel's birthday. So Happy Birthday Joel! Sorry I can't be there to celebrate with you.
Other than there wasn't much going on today. It was my day off and since it was rainy and cold (typical Dutch weather) I stayed in most of the day. I did have my Dutch lesson this evening which I always enjoy. I feel like I'm actually getting good at it. It's amazing what you can do when you have to do it. All lot of the people in my class have been here for months or even a few up to 5 years and they are at the same level as I am! I've been here the least amount of time of anyone in the class. Everyone else in my class is working here and is quite a bit older than me which is ok but a bit of a bummer as well. We don't have a whole lot in common. It's really hard to be here and have the values of not smoking or drinking because it seems like everyone else here goes out and drinks and smokes all the time. I struggled with it a bit when I first got here, whether or not it was ok for me to have a drink or two in a social setting. Smoking was never a temptation because I think it's gross but it's really hard to be out and say that you don't drink. In the end I decided that it really was my value not to drink and I even made up some personal "rules". It's very different being all alone in a foreign country and suddenly realizing that there is absolutely nobody to tell you what to do. Then what you were brought up with your whole life becomes real or disappears. I guess it's something you technically know but you don't really realize until you actually are on your own. Luckily I had good parents and they raised me with the right values. It really gives a whole new meaning to the verse "Train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it." Well I'm "old" now and the values I've been raised with are good and they stuck. The only thing I really need is to find a good church here and while it's important to me, I think it's almost good that I haven't yet because I've been doing what I'm doing because it's right and not because someone is going to check up on me. In other words, I think my life is more real now than it's ever been and that's definitely a good thing.

Paris

2004-11-17T01:53:00.000+01:00

Well I went to Paris over the past weekend. It was absolutely wonderful! It was so surreal seeing all those famous sites that most people only dream of ever seeing. I went with another Au Pair I met through my host mom. Her name's Nicole, she's from Florida and she's working for an American family near Amsterdam.
We left Friday evening around 6pm. We took the train which was a new experience, sort of, I've never taken an international train before. It was pretty sweet as well because we got to be in first class because of an student deal that Nicole found. We arrived in Paris at around 9pm and got a bit lost while trying to figure out how the whole metro and bus system worked. We ended up wandering up and down the streets of Paris for way too long trying to find our hostel and although the people we asked were very nice they were all absolutely horrible at trying to give us directions. Anyway, we did eventually make it and roomed with two Australian girls who had been back-packing around Europe for the last two months. It was very interesting hearing their stories.
The next morning we started out at the Eiffel Tower. We got there just slightly after it opened but it was already pretty busy. We of course went all the way to the top; it was an excellent view of Paris. Paris is much bigger than all the cities I've gotten used to in The Netherlands. After that we hopped a bus and took a look around Notre Dame.
By the time we were done with that both of us were pretty hungry so we stopped for some famous French crepes and they definitely did not disappoint, hmmmm. The weather had been beautiful so far all day, a little cold but what do you expect in November? Suddenly however, it decided to rain so we took a break from outside and did a bit of shopping.
When we were all shopped out, it was still raining so we gave in and bought umbrellas, so of course it stopped raining five minutes later and didn't rain again the rest of the trip! Oh well, I have a nice umbrella now. We walked over to The Louvre and I went in and saw the Mona Lisa. It cost €8.50 so Nicole opted out. I would've loved to spend an entire day or two there it's so huge and there's so many magnificent works there but we didn't have that. Seeing the Mona Lisa was totally worth every penny though.
From there we took the metro over to Arc de Triomphe. There was some type of ceremony going on there with the police, I'm assuming it had something to do with remembrance day but I'm not sure. By then it was almost 6pm and dark so we went back to the Eiffel Tower and saw it all lit up. During the day the Eiffel Tower is an interesting structure but at night it's very nearly breathtaking and on the hour it has lights that sparkle for ten minutes which makes it even more spectacular.
From there we hopped another bus and went back to our hostel to put our stuff down. We relaxed for about ten minutes and then went back out to see Sacre Coeur and The Moulin Rouge. On the way we ate another delicious crepe and I got my portrait done by a street artist.
Finally we went back to the hostel for the night and Nicole went to bed. I however, went downstairs and met a bunch of really nice people, most of them from Seattle. Around 2am I decided it was time for bed.
Sunday we woke up early and took a train over to Versailles and saw a bit of the chateau. I didn't know someone's house could be so huge and extravagant. With most of the rest of France starving it's no wonder there was a revolution! We didn't have much time there because we had to head back to Paris and catch our 3pm train back home.
So, it was a short but amazing trip. I definitely want to return and be able to spend a bit more time there but I am happy for the little time I had. I know how blessed I am to have such a great job that I can just head out Paris for the weekend. I plan on doing plenty more fun little trips like that during my stay here. Just one of the benefits of being an Au Pair!