We're Home, or are we?

After three flights and 23 hours, we were so excited to finally land in Salt Lake after a long but relatively smooth day of traveling. (Smooth if you don't mind running through the airport and hearing the final boarding call for your flight well before you see your gate.)We were amazed and grateful that all our luggage made it to Salt Lake with us.

We arrived in Providence at about 10 PM, after having stopped in to say hello to the parents, brothers and sisters and cousins. It was a strange feeling coming home - are we really home or really visitors? Did we really leave in such a hurry that we left a big mess or has the mess been accumulating since we left?? I'm sure we will acclimatize and even get use to having a couple of homes and not taking all our supplies back and forth each time but for this first time, it is a really strange feeling.

Andrew, with some help from Lindsay and Jessica, worked really hard to get the two upstairs bathrooms remodeled before we got home. They mostly got everything finished and now just need to do the final finish work and clean up. Andrew did a great job and they both look so much better and are much more functional.

A Fun Outing

This week I've been busy working on a quilt for Lisa. It is coming along fairly well, considering I've only had about a two weeks to work on it. (My sewing machine was damaged in the move here and between getting the parts ordered and getting all the other problems worked out it has been a long, patience promoting ordeal trying to get it up and running again. Dennis did most of the technical work on it and solved several of the major problems and we had to take it into a sewing machine shop here for them to fix another little problem.)The bonus of the whole deal was that I was able to find and buy and old Bernina machine that works perfectly and so now I have backup machine here.



On Wednesday, I took a break from the quilting business. Well maybe that's not quite true. My friend, Armanda Bos, and I went up north to Leewarden to a big quilt show. We had this little trip planned for about a month - long before the exhibit ever opened and were really excited, well at least I was. She enjoys quilting also and her mother is an extremely talented quilter so she knows quite a bit about quilting.


We arrived in Leewarden and got parked about 15 minutes before the museum opened. We had noticed an amazing hat shop across the street from the museum so we went to look at it and ended up talking to the owner for quite a while. She has a great business making hats for the Ascott horse races in England and she also makes all kinds of nice hats for cancer patients. She also teaches or hosts a knitting group. It was very interesting.



The quilt show was mostly quilts from all over Europe with a lot from Holland, and a few from the states. There were some really amazing ones and some really strange ones. Unfortunately, they didn't allow photography. I did get a couple of shots in before I realized that.

We also stopped on our way home at Staphorst. It is a beautiful little village, kind of like the Amish settlements in the states. The women still wear the skirts and vests and little hats and many of them still wear clompens. They do have cars and electricity and such but tourists are not allowed in on Sundays and on Sundays they aren't allowed to drive cars. Armanda told me that picture taking was not allowed but I got a quick picture of a house as we left town. We were able to spend some serious money there so that was fun. Hopefully, we will be able to spend a little more time there when some of our family come to visit.

Clompens

Today, we wanted to go look at a digital piano up in Appeldorn and thought since we were more than half way there, we may as well go on up to Enter (yes, that is the name of the town) to the Clompenmuseum . (It took Alyna a while to figure out why all the souvenirs in the gift shop said Enter on them.)The museum was just a little three room afair, with one of them being the gift shop, but it had an amazing collection of wooden shoes. We watched a video of how they were made by hand, although most of the shoes today are made with some sorts of electric machines. It was very interesting and fun to see all the different designs and styles.



Afterward, we stopped at a house with a big wooden shoe out front and even though it was late on a Saturday afternoon, the clompen master let us go into his work room and look around and then he took us up to the loft were all the finished shoes were kept and we bought a variety of shoes, scraping up all the cash the three of us had in our wallets. (Actually, Alyna forgot and left hers at home but luckily we had just enough with a few cents left over for how much they cost. It was so interesting to actually be in the work area where the shoes were made and painted.




I keep my eyes open for cute wooden shoes of all sizes. The only places I've seen them is in souvenir shops or farm stores. It's kind of funny to think of going into a Cal Ranch or IFA and find a big wall of wooden shoes but that's who wears them the most.


We made one another stop on the way home to the toy museum. We got there 10 minutes before closing time. They didn't want to let us in because they didn't think we could go through it in 10 minutes but we, did with a minute or two to spare! It was really fun to see because it brought back lots of old memories. There were a lot of toys and games I either remembered playing with when I was young. Who remember Tiddley Winks or Barbies first pink convertible car of the doll where you push the button on it's back and the hair grows? some of them also reminded me of games and toys that were at my grandparents homes. Alyna thought that maybe I hadn't ought to admit such things as it makes me seem really old.

Our $15 Christmas Tree

I debated whether or not it was worth it to put up a Christmas tree this year since trees are not suppose to be put up here till after Sinterklaas day (Dec. 5) and we would be leaving on the 18th. Well, it really wasn't much of a debate, just a 2 second pause to figure out how much I felt I had to spend to get the joy out of a little Christmas decoration. While Jessica was here we did some shopping and found this "great sale" on this tree. I don't know if we were just excited at finding such a good deal that we didn't really look at the display tree or what, but when we got it home and started setting it up, it was truly a $15 tree. Either some parts were missing or the wrong poles had been used becuse there was no way to connect the base piece to the top 2/3 of the tree. I ended having to go buy a dowel and shove it in so that everything would fit together. There were big gaps in some area and...well it just wasn't going to look anything other than what it was.
I then had to buy another $100 worth of stuff to decorate it. :) It was kind of fun to make some of the things I've been collecting since coming here, such as wooden shoe key rings and little delft blue plates into tree decorations and then find other Dutch themed stuff that would tie it all together. I stuck a large pair of wooden shoes filled with pepernotens (a special little gingerbread cookie sold only at Christmas time) in the biggest blank spot.
All in all, I think it turned out pretty cute and it is nice to have something up to help it feel like the holidays.

Castles and Palaces

Since coming to Holland, we've been able to see a few of the castles in the area. Some have been restored and are beautiful, in the castle sort of way.(Not to be confused with Palaces - which are usually where the really stunning architecture, furniture and art works are located.)

Since some date back many centuries, there are many in ruins and beyond hope of repair yet a few walls remain standing to remind people of the history of the area.



Recently, my visiting teacher sent me a bunch of information about all the castles in the area. (The two pictures above are ones she took a couple of years ago.) There are over 80 castles listed. All within a 2 hour drive from our home! I believe that Doorwerth Castle is in our ward boundaries. (http://www.castles.nl/doorw/doorw.html) Dennis has been wanting us to ride our bikes the 12 miles to it but there is always something that prevents us from having quite enough time.

While Jessica was here, we went to Duurstede Castle. It is not very large and they mostly use it now for special events like weddings, Christmas parties and such. There was a work Sinterklaas party going on there when we arrived so we didn't get to peak inside. We were able to walk all the way around it in about 25 minutes so it's not very big.

I'm excited to go see a few more of them, hopefully in the spring or summer when it is a little warmer.

Hollands big celebration - Sinterklaas

SINTERKLAAS

The Dutch celebrate Christmas on the 25th, but the giving and opening of gifts is celebrated on 5 December, which is also known as Sinterklaas. The story is that Sinterklaas lives in Spain and comes to the Netherlands by steamboat each year with his 'zwarte' (black) helpers to give gifts. For more information on the tradition, go to http://www.thehollandring.com/sinterklaas.shtml.

Food like pepernoten (small hard or chewy gingerbread type cookies), speculaas (a softer gingerbread cake-like food commonly with an almond paste in the middle), marzipan, and chocolate letters are popular holiday snacks.



*This photo is the traditional way Sint goes through the towns--on his white horse with Zwarte Pieten surrounding him.


You also write poems, as if written by Sinterklaas, for each of the people receiving gifts from you. The poems tend to tease the recipient, as well as give hints about the gift. The wrapping and giving of presents is a chore in itself since you don't usually just wrap each gift as is. It is common to incorporate some tricks in the packages, like putting the gift in multiple boxes, wrapping it several times, making the gift impossible to get into, making the box itself into some kind of object, writing clues on notes to where else the gift may be hidden, etc., etc. It's great fun and sure to make you chuckle.


Last night was our ward Sinterklaas party for all the young men, young women, young adults, their leaders and the missionaries. Several weeks prior to the event we had met after church and all drawn names for someone to give a gift to. We were all given $5 to spend on the gift. Buying the gift was a little challenging - where's Walmart or Target when you need one?! The only shopping options here are little Kings type stores so you have to be very creative. But the shopping wasn't the hardest part of the job. Wrapping the gifts cleverly took a little time but writing the poem was the real chore. I suppose it would have been easier if we had known our recipients better. I had a 12 year old boy and all I knew about him was he had a bunch of brothers, he loves soccer and graffiti.

Here's the poem I finally came up with for him:

Sinterklaas has been especially watchful this year,
To see if the rumors he was hearing caused fear.
Was Sem growing and behaving as good boys should?
Or was he making all of the mischief he possibly could?

School work and homework are always, ho-hum
But when a chance to play football you could be counted on to come.
Euro Cup matches made June full of fun,
Watching and cheering till each match was done.

Now the question is, did you cheer all the way through?
Or did you give up on football and practice that graffiti you drew?
But will your choice put your name next to naughty or to nice?
Open your gift and enjoy before it goes to the mice.

The gift was a small nerf type soccer ball and some chocolates wrapped in soccer ball foil.

The creative gift wrapping was pretty amazing. Some took real ingenuity to figure out how to even open the gift. Elder Allen got a beautiful pear he really had to slice into to find his gift.














Some of the gifts disguises had something to do with the person receiving the gift. For example, the bishops' gift was wrapped in something that looked like an iron because he hates to iron. One of the youngest boys got a gift that took a lot of trial and error and suggestions from the adults and finally a little muscle work from one of the young adult men. I was in a small crate with latches and such but even after opening the latches the crate wouldn't open. A screwdriver had been provided and it ended up that the top had to be pried off. Inside was a lot of dried grass and a chocolate letter.

Thanksgiving was Wonderful

It's now Monday morning and all is once again quiet here. We took Jessica to the airport early Sunday morning and it would have been very difficult to say goodbye to her except that we'll be seeing her again in 18 days so it wasn't bad. Dennis is off to another busy week at work and Alyna procrastinated getting up long enough that she had to get ready for school and out the door in ten minutes.

Before we get to the actual dinner, Dennis and I celebrated our 27th anniversary on Thanksgiving day. We were very spoiled with all kinds of wonderful floral gifts from his work and neighbors and friends. Dennis bought me/us some folding chairs - very timely and practical.

Thanksgiving dinner turned out really nice. I told the girls they were in charge of the table decor and they did a really nice job. It all looked very beautiful. We had to borrow big wooden tables and chairs (not the folding type) from the church as well as some from the neighbors so it was a lot bigger job just getting the tables set than it would have been at home.

Everyone brought lots of yummy food and the neighbors were kind enough to let me use their oven for the stuffing. I bought a chafing dish so I was able to get the turkey out of the oven at about 2:00 and get the ham in and by the time I had the turkey sliced and in the chafing dish, the ham was ready to come out and be sliced. Everything stayed nice and warm. Luckily, I had some great kitchen helpers who ended up making the gravy while I helped welcome people and help get their food things situated.

Men and the Need for Speed

Dennis has been looking forward to taking our new car to Germany and trying it out on the autoban. While we were here in June, Andrew got our little Ford rental car up to 206 kilometers per hour. I sat in the back seat, white knuckled and begging him to slow down. The rest of the family told me to go to sleep then I wouldn't know how fast he was going. Fat chance of that happening!!

Last Sunday, we went to pick Jessica up from the airport in Dusseldorf. It was early on a Sunday morning so there was minimal traffic. On the way home, Dennis got the car up to about 211 kph(131 mph). We did need to get to church at a reasonable time but I still think that there is no possible reason to need to go that fast. I can stay fairly comfortable till we get up to about 100 mph but after that I start getting anxious and encouraging him to slow down. It's always a relief to get to the Dutch border and have to drive at a more reasonable speed; reasonable being about 120 kph.

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving celebration started early on Sunday morning when we picked Jessica up from the airport. One of the things I always look forward to on Thanksgiving is having family come from near and far. In this case, it was very far but definitely got that holiday spirit started. We have had lots of laughs and fun and it is just nice to at least have a little more family here. In the future, if I ever complain about all the noise and work it is to get the family all together, punch me!

Tomorrow, Dennis has to go to work and Alyna has school but we have invited neighbors, friends and the missionaries to share a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with us. Dennis called around and found a poultier who ordered us a turkey. Jessica and I were going to have to ride the 6 miles each way to go pick it up on the bikes yesterday but it was still so cold and icy that I took Dennis to work and we had the car to use for the day. The turkey had better be really good because it cost $50 euros for a 15 pound bird. We also went to Makro, the local version of Sam's Club, and got most of the paper products and food we will need.

We have several vegetarians coming so I have been reading up on how to do gravy. If all goes well, we will have a vegetarian and non-vegetarian version of both gravy and stuffing.
So here is the menu:
Appetizers:
Cheese ball and Crackers
Three varieties of Tapinada and little bread dippers
Olives, pickles, cheese cubes, pickled onions

Main Course:
Turkey and Ham
Cranberry relish and cranberry jelly
Mashed Potatoes
Turkey or Veggie Gravy
Sweet Potatoes with peaches
Steamed broccoli
Corn pudding
Raspberry Jello
Rolls (unfortunately not homemade)
Butter
Jam

Dessert:
Pumpkin Pie
Banana Cream Pie
Fla Torte
Baked Pears

The biggest challenge with this meal it trying to figure out how to cook it all and have it all be warm at the same time. There is one small oven/micro unit and then a five burner stove. We looked around last week for a crock pot or some kind of warming unit and couldn't find anything so I bought a chafing tray. Today, we went into the specialty kitchen store here in town and I found a crock pot. It was $75 Euros! Hopefully we will be able to make do with what we have.

Today, Jessica and I got all the furniture moved around and tonight, Dennis will go get some tables and chairs from the church. It will be a whole night affair since the church is about 20 minutes away.

It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

It's Snowing!

It's feeling and looking a lot like home. We have had a good old winter storm for the past two days. There hasn't been a lot of accumulation of snow because it comes in little bursts but we've got a pretty good storm happening right now.

From what I've been told, this is a pretty rare occurrence for Holland. It does snow once in a while but usually not enough to cover the ground. Dennis remembers while serving his mission it snowed about 4 inches once and everyone was so amazed. We drove home from Dusseldorf late last night and it reminded me of the many trips we've made through Sardine Canyon at night in a snow storm. There were only a couple of times when we couldn't see the lines on the road.

It makes me want to put up some Christmas decorations but I'm told you don't do that here until after Sinterklaas day which is the 6th of December. I guess we'll have to settle for some good Christmas music.

Our Car

For the past four months we have been Sixt rent-a-cars best customers. We've had 5 or 6 different rental cars. I really loved the little Peugot we had for 3 weeks but we got a crack in the windshield on our trip to Copenhagen and had to turn it in. Anyway, we finally have a car of our own - well actually, it is a leased car and it belongs to the company but we will get to drive it for the time we are here.

It's a 2009 Mecedes C class wagon and it is pretty simple compared to all the bells and whistles that we could have gotten with it if we had wanted to wait another month or two. If I remember correctly, it had about 11 km on it when we picked it up. It seems strange to buy a station wagon shaped car but that's what about 70% of all passenger cars here are. It will be great for picking up people from the airport with all their luggage. Hint, hint. I got to drive it almost a mile but maybe Dennis will go on a business trip and I'll get to try it out some more.

What do we do in our spare time?

I'm often asked what we do with all our spare time. I guess it depends on which of us we are talking about. Dennis works long hours and often when he gets home, he will have several more phone calls to make or take from the states or other work or church related stuff to do. It's been hard to get him to slow down or relax. I finally found something that at least a partial distraction for him. Puzzles. I did a 500 piece Eric Dowdle puzzle I had shipped from home and it was fun so I decided to get a puzzle with a Dutch theme. It was only a 1000 pieces but it was tricky because the pieces were so similar that we were constantly finding pieces that were put in the wrong places. I would have given up on it after the first week but Dennis kept after it and we finally finished it yesterday. (We started it on Nov. 1st) We probably won't put out another one till after the holidays because although it provides a nice break for Dennis, I have other things I really need to work on.

Alyna usually has lots of homework and of course has to chat with friends but in her spare time she usually watches the Office or Psych. She keeps the missionaries here up to date on what is happening on the Office.

So what do I do? The bigger question is why haven't I done more? More reading. More sewing. More sightseeing. More blogging. More organizing of files on the computer. More paper filing. More studying Dutch. I've done a little of all those things but nothing to brag about. I'm still reading the book about Einstein that I started when we first got here. It still takes me a couple of weeks to get through reading any other book. My sewing machine is in the shop so I have an excuse there. So what are my passions of late?

Other than just the normal day to day living stuff, my biggest use of time has been spent studying and preparing little lessons on great Dutch artists. Alyna won't have a chance to take a humanities class and we are surrounded here by incredible works of art. So, I've been researching Dutch art history and artists. I tried to think of an easy way to present it so that she could learn as little or as much as she wanted without being burdensome for her. I decided that if I could put info and pictures up in the WC (our toilet room, which is seperate from the "bath" room) then we would be able to spend as little or as much time as was needed there and have some interesting reading material. Last week, I put up a little introduction and this week we are learning about Frans Hals. Eventually we will get to the more famous ones like Rembrant, Vermeer and Van Gogh but there are so many others that did amazing works that it will be fun to learn more about them.

This is one of my favorite Frans Hals paintings because the guys are possing with thier swords and other hardware along with their beautiful laces and scarfs. It reminds me of a favorite show - Scarlet Pimpernel which takes place about 200 years after this painting was painted.

First trip to Nijmegen

Today, I finally make it to Nijmegen. I have been planning on going over there for about a month now but never made it till now. It is only about 10 km away on the other side of the river. (Almost everything is across some river or other.)

Nijmegen is said to be the oldest and once the largest town in the Netherlands. Two thousand years ago the Romans settled there and later Emperor Charlemagne chose the Valkhof as the site to build a palace and it became one of the most important places in the empire. It's riverside location made the transportation of goods an attractive location. But because of it's strategic location, it has often been the center of many conflicts. During World War II the city was heavily damaged but careful rebuilding has kept the history alive.

In 1856, a cholera epidemid killed thousands and there was an urgent need for clean water. Kronenburgerpark became an was found to be highly suitable for supplying water and is still used today. (I tried to put a picture here of the water ways and the water tower - not like our water towers, more like castle towers.)




Nijmegen is not only a great place to go to view a little history, it also has a great shopping area. The Lange Hezelstraat was an important thoroughfare even back in Roman times so when you glance down little alley and up interesting stairs, there are surprising little glimpses of ancient architecture. This street and several surrounding streets are pedestrian only roads and have all kinds of interesting large and small shops along them. Alas, not having a car curtails an excessively large shopping sprees but I was able to find a few little things that didn't break the bank or my back. I can't wait to go back and explore further.

Ramblings on the Presidential Election 2008

Last night, Dennis, Alyna and I sat around the TV and watched the amazing American political election process. Living outside the US during a presidential election has forever changed my perspective on the importance of the democratic process and the role America playes in the world. Last night they showed election parties being held in Paris, Berlin, Kenya, and Japan.

There have been other things happening in the world; floods, political fighting, etc. but the two biggest news items have been the woes of the economy and the American presidential race. One African countrys' leader said something to the effect that "We need help but nobody will hear us until after the American election." The whole world was watching and waiting for what would happen in America. Most of the people that we have talked to here in the Europeon community wanted Obama to win.

I liked the statement the someone made to this effect - Rosa Parks sat on the bus so that Martin Luther King could march. Martin Luther King marched so that Barrack Obama could run for President.... It really shows how far our county has come in the last 100 years.

There hasn't been an election in my lifetime that has raised so much interest and participation. I tried to help Alyna understand what a monumental election this was, regardless of what way it went because we would either have the first woman in a Presidency or we would have a black president. We went to bed at about 1 AM and woke up just before 6 AM in time to hear Obama make his speech. I was impressed by his speech and watched in amazement all the parties and celebrations happening across the country and around the world.

It will be interesting to live and watch and participate in this next chapter of American history. Who knows were we will go and what changes we will see. Obama's campaign was based on building hope that America can be better, we can fix the things that have gone wrong, and we can all work together. We can hope that he can carry on that theme throughout the next four years.

Just Getting Started

We have now been in Holland for nearly three months. We have accomplished a lot in that time but still have a few hurdles to cross. We now feel like our home is livable. We have adequate furniture and some of the comforts from home so it is feeling a lot like home. Many of the ward members who have been here ask if this house is similar to our home in Utah. We have to answer yes because their homes are mostly all three to four story little town house type homes. Our home here is rather spacious and only two stories.

We have a bank account and last week we even had our first paycheck go in it. Before that, we had just been withdrawing cash from our bank account or credit cards at home to keep it at a positive balance. It was an exciting day. We still are still having some problems with completely accessing our account on line and every time I go in and talk to them at the bank, they say they will look into it but then all we get is the same original paperwork to start the whole process over again.

We received word today that our car will arrive at the dealership this week and then it will take them about a week to process it. We have had about 7 different rental cars since we've been here so we are really looking forward to having one that we can claim as our own for the rest of the time we are here.

We have been going around in circles with the immigration and insurance company about what paper work has to be done before the other can do their part of the paperwork. Hopefully, we will get that all straightened out and be on health insurance by the end of the month. The timing wouldn't be all that important except that I'm down to the last of one of my medications. I have decreased the dose by half hoping that a little bit is better than nothing till I can get into a doctor and get things going here.

Alyna seems to be doing well in school. It is a very different style of teaching and learning and it has taken her a while to get use to it. She is getting a wonderful education about different cultures, religions, traditions, etc. She has good friends from Brazil, Spain, and Holland but also has kids in her class from Egypt, Iran, China and many others.

We are beginning to love our ward. It is amazing how well it functions considering all its challenges. Like Alyna's school, it is a very cosmopolitan mixture. The three predominate languages you might hear in any lesson or sacrament talk are Dutch, Spanish or English. There are three or four other members who speak other languages and so it is quite a challenge to meet everyone's needs. The bi or tri lingual Dutch members are very gracious in helping out where needed. I am trying to listen carefully and pay attention and am starting to understand a few words and phrases. Alyna and I are working on learning the Young Women theme and we almost have the first sentence learned. It's amazingly hard work. We might be fairly competent at it by the time we get home, but luckily I have a few months longer than Alyna to learn it;)