Our Final Days in Holland

Sadly, our last few days in Holland were quite stressful. I had no idea how much work we were getting ourselves into! Thankfully we had so many generous people help us out. I listed our things online for several months and sold things little by little. That took way more time than I thought it would. Here are some pictures of the last few days when we were living with no couches, no beds, no washer/dryer, etc.

The boys loved sleeping on an air mattress in the family room. I, on the other hand, was glad when we got to sleep on a real bed again.

We had an indoor yard sale where we sold everything else off that we hadn't sold in the weeks prior. We ended up giving away lots of things too (including our nice entertainment center). It was a little discouraging to get rid of things we were planning on buying again as soon as we returned, but it was too expensive to ship everything.


Even the light fixtures were starting to disappear. We even had to rip out most of the flooring before leaving. Such a headache!


Thankfully our neighbors brought over some toys for the kids to borrow. We had already sold or packed all of their toys.

Dishwasher gone, boxes everywhere! Packing was so stressful because we had a certain number of bags we were taking, a certain number of boxes we were shipping, and everything had to fit in just right AND be a certain weight. We spent hours moving stuff from bag to bag or box to box, weighing them again, and then moving more things until everything was just right. I believe all of our bags were right on the weight limit!

This is what our bedroom looked like for the last few days. The piles of clothes by the window are the clothes we wore the last few days. I picked clothes we weren't going to take with us so that after we wore them each day we could just toss them or donate them (since we didn't have a washer any more). I'm so glad these moving days are behind us!

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.