Saying Goodbye

Looking at these pictures has me in tears. Such wonderful memories. Such wonderful people.
I miss these people so much. I miss Holland so much.


Me and Ans (with a stroopwafel of course). I miss stroopwafels too.

Me and Pauli (she was one of the first to tutor me in Dutch).

Jimmy and Amber. Amber's Mom (Jennifer) and I became such close friends. I wish we would've met sooner. We bonded right away. I miss them so much. They are hoping to be able to move back to the states again some day.

Sweet Amber. Don't know why I didn't get a picture of her baby brother, Sam. Or of Jennifer. :(

Saying goodbye to Jimmy's school was sad as well. He started here when he was so little...just 4 years old. This picture is taken of the painting of Martin Luther King Jr, which was done by the students. This was such a great school. Such fond memories of walking to and from school several times each day.

Jimmy and his stool. Is it sad to admit that I cry when looking at this picture too? I'm heartbroken that Jimmy has already forgotten lots of his Dutch. When I speak to him in Dutch he asks me why I'm speaking like that.

juf Melanie

juf Angela

I hope to return and visit Holland again. I miss it so much. I never knew I'd fall so in love with a place and with so many people. What a blessing this opportunity was for our family.

London

We took one final vacation before moving back to the US. We went to London! We left the boys with some good friends and took Myra with us.


Gorgeous parks


Hamley's toy store was so cool! Of course we bought something for the boys. We wished they were there with us for this part of the trip.


Cupid and Jarom


Red telephone booths


Double decker buses (which we sadly didn't ride)


Westminster Abbey


St. Paul's Cathedral


We were surprised at how small the London Bridge was. In fact it took us a while to find it because we were looking for something spectacular!


Myra did a lot of snoozing during the day, all bundled up in her little cocoon. Too bad this meant she did little sleeping at night.


Tower Bridge...so cool! I loved all the colors and details (which are hard to see in this picture).


We went out to eat on Valentine's day and the waitor gave me a rose.


...or did he give it to Myra? She claimed it as hers.


Sleeping was awful. We did very little of it with the little munchkin snuggled in between us. The bed was pretty much the size of a twin. See that tiny space in between Myra and the wall? That's Jarom's. Yep, it was fun! Babies are a good form of birth control. :)


I had to snap a picture of Jarom carrying Myra and the stroller up a flight of stairs. He did lots of this seeing as there were hardly any elevators or escalators leading to the tube/metro.


Big Ben


Big Ben and the London Eye


The beginning of the changing of the guards.


Buckingham Palace




Big Ben from up in the London Eye. Myra got bored really fast. She was not a big fan!


But she was happy again once we were on the ground and she was snuggled up with Daddy.


In the Tower of London


Notice anything unusual about this picture? In London they don't only drive on opposite sides of the road!


Don't let this sweet face fool you, Myra was a little rascal on the long train rides to and from London. We had a great time and were so happy to get back and see the boys again! Thinking of London makes me want to eat fish and chips. :)

A Different Shopping Experience

Before leaving Holland I made sure to take some pictures of what my daily life was like. Things like grocery shopping and transportation were such a different experience for me in Holland than in America and I wanted to remember as many details as possible.

Sometimes I walked to the store with the stroller and sometimes I rode my bike. I usually had to go to the store every other day because I could only buy as much as I could carry in the stroller or the bike. I did most of my shopping at Albert Heijn which was about a 4 minute walk from my house and even quicker on my bike. I would usually go to the store after dropping Jimmy off at school so that I had one less kid with me and thus more room in the bike for groceries.

After locking up the bike I would get a cart for me and a small cart for Glade. He loved putting the coins in all by himself. If I came with the stroller instead of the bike then I wouldn't get a cart but would get a basket instead and just carry it, since I coudn't push both a stroller and a cart. Then I was limited to whatever groceries would fit in my little basket...and I usually filled it to the brim and my arm would be aching by the time I checked out. It got heavy once I loaded in the milk and juice. On the days I would buy diapers and wipes I had even less room to buy groceries because the diapers took up so much space.

You have to bag your own groceries and of course bring your own bags as well. I felt so wasteful coming back to the US and using plastic bags.

After done shopping I'd push the cart out to my bike and load it up with food and kids...put back the cart...unlock the bike and we were on our way.

All strapped in and ready to go!

It's strange to shop in the grocery stores in America because they are all SO much bigger! It's kind of annoying because it takes much longer to do shopping when the store is so big. But it is nice to be able to shop just once a week (or less) and be able to buy as much as I need and not worry about carrying it home. I have to say that I still feel lazy driving my car to the store though!

Here we are riding into the pathway that leads to our backyard.

I'd usually ride the bike right up to the house to make unloading easier.

I really do miss my bike, but I have to say it's nice to be able to drive when it's raining or cold.

Return to Normalcy

So much has happened since my last post. Things are finally returning to a sense of normalcy so I feel I may have time to play a little catch-up. The biggest thing that happened was that we moved from Holland back to America. There will be many posts about that to come. It was a very stressful thing, but I feel so blessed to be living close to family again. Part of my heart will always stay in Holland though.

While I sort through pictures for upcoming posts, here are a few random pictures to catch you up on some of the things we've been up to the past few months:

This is the best picture I have of my munchkins on Christmas day. We had a wonderful Christmas and surprised our families by telling them of our plans to move back to the US...lots of happy tears were shed!


Celebrating New Year's is the best in Holland. We kept the boys up, played games, ate junk food, and watched movies while enjoying fireworks right outside our front window.


Jimmy felt so grown up when I let him walk all the way across the street to his friend Roy's house by himself! He was so cute because he would stop at our curb and look both ways about ten times and then hurry across the road.


We went to the kinderboerderij (petting zoo) a few times with my friend, Jennifer, and her two kids, Amber and Sam. Jimmy and Amber were so cute holding hands while we walked to the farm.


Isn't it so pretty?


Myra has a thing for animals and she squeals so loud when she sees them. She had a great time at the petting zoo. I love her cute red nose!


Cute Jennifer and our clan of kids!