The land of no refills, no tips & $1 ketchup

Well here we are...
we have been in the Netherlands since Sunday am. The plane ride was...well, miserable! I don't think miserable even cuts it. It was worse than that. We left our house at 4:45 am on Saturday and arrived Sunday at 6:30 am (the Netherlands is 8 hrs ahead of UT). We had all had it. I only had 2 hours of sleep Friday night because even though I started to pack one week prior to this vacation I still was up late preparing and then Glade got up to eat at 3 am and we had to be up at 3:45 am to get ready. Of course having Glade refuse the bottle (he went 13 hrs without eating and I finally gave in) put a loop hole in things and I had to repack for him since he was coming with us and not staying as we had hoped.

There was a lady on the plane sitting next to us who had her two little kids with her. She was traveling alone with them (ages 3 and 10 mos) and going twice as far as us. I felt so bad for her. I was beyond exhausted so I knew she must be totally spent. I tried to entertain her little boy and comfort her little girl when she was dealing with the other one. Sometimes it worked. Others around us were very helpful and understanding.

When we got off the plane it took awhile to get out of the airport and find our tram. Then the tram ride was an hour long and then we had to find the metro to take us to our hotel. We hadn't exchanged any money yet so we didn't have a way to pay for the metro. Jarom left me with all the luggage and a SCREAMING baby for 25 minutes while he tried to find a way to pay. Finally they had pity on us and allowed us to ride for free. We sat on the metro and I began to cry. I was so exhausted and I just thought of that poor lady that was about to board her next plane and I cried for her too.

After eating and sleeping we all felt much better, although Glade is still trying to get used to the time change and wakes up from 1:30-3:00 am each morning. We've discovered so many neat things about the people here, the culture, the land. It's all so interesting to me. Just a few...there are no refills (that's an American thing), most people don't tip here because the servers are paid at least minimum wage, oh and if you want ketchup with your french fries at McDonald's it'll cost you ,60 which is about $1. Needless to say, we will carry around that extra ketchup packet until we use it because we paid $1 for it!

Hah, and one more thing, my taxi driver yesterday looked like Wormtail! What a fun and interesting place!

Boys in my house

"There are boys in my house – and Spiderman shoes
And 200 papers in various blues.
There's dirt on a face and a smudge on a nose;
Grass stains on knees and sand between toes.
There's bathtime at night with bodies to scrub,
And when we're all done there is dirt in the tub!
There's odors most icky; there's boogers so green
There's more yucky things than I'll ever get clean.
There's piles of laundry; there's stories at night;
There's bedtime and bathtime and dinnertime fights.
There are cute little vests and darling neckties
Dragged right through the mud – oh what a surprise!
There's running and climbing and jumping and falling
And laughing and crying and hugging and brawling
There's tantrums and time outs and extra loud noise –
There's love in my house shaped like two little boys."
-Erin Jo Kilmer

Twilight

How many of you are excited for this...

Twilight


I LOVED the books but I'm trying to not get too excited about the movie. I don't want to be disappointed. Usually the books are better than the movies.

Phew, a nice guy discount.

We had an exciting excursion Tuesday night. We went to the Bees baseball game with Kali & Isaac. If everything would have gone as planned the night would have been probably slightly forgettable (but still fun). However, a few twists and turns made it into one to remember...

After dropping off the kiddos we drove to SLC and then attempted to find a parking place. Well, there were plenty but they all cost money...what's up with SLC anyway?! Who wants to pay $5 just to park? But we outsmarted them - we remembered that we saw a Lowe's as we got off the freeway with TONS of parking and still close to the game. We saw that as our best option.

Our seats were really close and I was surprised how much fun I had. I always considered baseball to be the boring sport. This still doesn't mean I'll watch it on tv though. We decided to leave early. Jarom admitted he hadn't enjoyed much of the game because he had been worried about the car the whole time. $5 would have been worth the peace of mind. As we walked to where our car should have been we noticed there were NO cars there. Yup, they had been towed. It was then that we noticed the millions of signs plastered all over that parking lot. I swear before the game there was only one small easily unseen one.

Thankfully there was a # to call and they were still open (although they did charge an after hours fee). They only took cash so we first had to walk to an ATM machine (2 blocks in the opposite direction). Then we walked for about an hour (poor 8 mos prego Kali). Once we finally got to the tow place we were prepared to pay the $244 to get our car back. The guy then said that since DH didn't swear at him he would give us a $4 discount. WOW, now that's generosity! Good thing I married a nice guy!

On a side note, we really did have a lot of fun. The weather was perfect, we got a break from our adorable kiddos, had plenty of time to chat and even got a nice workout in (yes, I do consider leisure walking to be a workout). I'm just glad I had on comfortable shoes.

Boob on a Tube

I have been trying to get Glade to take a bottle. I've tried practically EVERY bottle out there and he just refuses to take them. Saturday I bought this bottle that looks and feels like a boob! Well even this is not fooling him. He knows what he likes and this is not it. So I need help...


Have any of you had good luck with certain bottles? What are the tricks to getting a breastfed baby to take a bottle? I've tried having other people give it to him, different bottles, different locations, sippy cups...nada works. I don't want to stop nursing. I just want to be able to leave him for longer than 3-4 hours.


Oh and here's the exciting sidenote...Jarom is going on a business trip to the Netherlands and I get to go. We're leaving some time the week of the 19th...THIS MONTH! I've already applied for a passport for Glade in case he keeps refusing the bottle, but I would really rather leave him here. Just picturing a 24 hour flight with a baby gives me a headache!


(The small one looks even more life-like!)

Girl Time

My mom, Lara, Renae, Mia (Lar's friend), and Melanie (Nae's friend) came to visit us last weekend. Wait, the weekend before that...wow, I am behind! We had lots of fun and lots of "girl time". We started with homemade pedicures. Jimmy loved the foot soak... Too bad I made the water SO stinkin' hot that it seriously took like 20 minutes before we could put our feet in without scalding them. Fun, huh?!

Jimmy then spoiled us each with leg rubs complete with yummy smelling lotion.

Jimmy's foot soak turned into a mini-pool. I suppose my carpet did need to be cleaned.

Jimmy wanted polish again so this time I "tricked" him by painting his toenails with clear polish. They now have a healthy shine to them, okay so there was some sparkles in the polish too.

We stayed up late watching movies and eating popcorn. The next day we played games all day and ate junk. Oooh, and check out the peaches 'n cream waffles we had for breakfast. I'm really quite the chef!

It was even warm enough that we got to go outside and play extreme spoons. Never heard of it? Same rules as spoons but you place the spoons across the room/yard and then have to run for them (tackling and pushing allowed). Let's just say that after a few rounds I could tell that I need to work out more! We all had fun and I miss all my girls. Thanks for coming. Love you.