Pack out Day

December 4, 2009

My sewing room all ready to be boxed up.

As soon as Thanksgiving was over and cleaned up, we started preparing to move home. We spent days trying to make some sense of what should go home and what should stay here, sorting and organizing. We ended up with piles of stuff everywhere. Finally we got all the things that will stay here into a room and invited friends and neighbors to come see what they wanted. Much of the big furniture items where taken and a lot of the little stuff so now we are left with just a couple of boxes of things to take to the local second hand store.

With all the trips home, we brought quite a bit of stuff back with us and we have made a lot of Americans happy as we have shared our extra food (like Orvillereddenbacher Popcorn, Muffin mixes and cake mixes, baking soda, Fruit Loops, Twizzlers.....) and items like Ziplock bags.

The couches were all wrapped in cardboard- not an easy or quick job.

Kitchens always take so many boxes! It's a good reminder
for me to be grateful for cupboards, pantries, etc.

My friend, Marga, came over and spent the day with me to keep me company while
the packers were busy. We looked at perspective colleges for our daughters
google maps of places and things that we thought were interesting, etc.

Our container and packers.

We came here with 25 - 30 boxes and it took 16 weeks to get here. We are heading home with 85 pieces (2/3 full container) and we're hoping that it will take 6-8 weeks.

Such a happy and sad day. It was a good thing Marga was here of I might have sat down and had a good cry as the truck pulled away but it is nice to have the piles out of the way.

Now - just cleaning and final travel packing to do. One week from today, we will be at home, enjoying being with family and friends at Mandy's wedding. It's good to have a happy thing to look forward to because saying goodbye is so hard. I like these quotes:

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. ~Carol Sobieski and Thomas Meehan, Annie


Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need to know of hell. ~Emily Dickinson, "Parting"


Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye? ~Author Unknown

Happy Anniversary

We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find
someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up
with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
~Author Unknown

On Friday, we celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary. It was a very busy and somewhat stressful day for Dennis. We celebrated by attending a Vital Scientific farewell party and then went to dinner with the management team. Our wonderful France and Rome trip was our anniversary celebration.

I have been so blessed to have a married a good man who is patient with me and is constantly encouraging me to learn and develop my talents.

A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance
and tenacity. The order varies for any given year. ~Paul Sweeney

Thanksgiving 2009

We had another wonderful Thanksgiving dinner here in Holland. We had about 20 people here for dinner. We did the whole big typical "American" dinner. It was so fun to have one last big event with our dear friends. Every one seemed to find enough to eat and enjoyed visiting. It was a tender sweet evening since we will be heading back to the US.

Alyna was able to come spend a week with us. It was wonderful to have her here. She was responsible for the pictures.



Elders Burton and Morrow - making apple pie. Yum!

The Tall Thin Man Who Rarely Smiles

Many years ago, Mindy did a school assignment where she had to describe her family. While we don't remember most of the descriptions she gave us, one really stuck. She described her father as a tall, thin man who rarely smiles. We were quite surprised at that description and although he is usually a rather serious guy, we never noticed that his smile was missing. Through the years we've joked and chuckled about that description. So this last weekend I just happened to get a great picture to prove that, yes - he can and does smile.

Alyna's Home

On Friday we picked Alyna up at the airport in Dusseldorf. We are so happy she is here.


We took her friend Suzanne with us so that if I needed to do business stuff with Dennis for Medica, Alyna would still have someone to hang out with. After picking Alyna up, we drove to the big convention center where the Medica conference is always held. Dennis came and helped us get train tickets so we could go into the city and then he headed into his day of business and work and the girls and I headed for our day of sight seeing, shopping and eating. We got into the center at about 9:30 so killed a little time drinking hot chocolate at Starbucks while we waited for stores to open and such. We spent a lot of time wandering the city, looking at the Christmas markets, the old buildings and statues and of course the stores.

(Although Alyna is actually sitting up in this picture, I liked it this way because I didn't get a good picture of her when jet lag finally
kicked in and everytime we sat down, she fell asleep. She was a trooper to go all day after having traveled for 24 hours.)

That evening, the girls and I stayed at Krienbaums while Dennis went with them to dinner. I could have gone also but I was so exhausted and the girls were all very tired so we were all asleep by 10:00.

Saturday morning we drove down to the Rhein River Valley. We went to St. Goar and the Reinfels castle. Here is a little information about it:

The castles which are today such an unmistakable feature of the Rhein landscape date back to the Middle Ages. Their founders were feudal overloards, who, so far from cherishing any romantic notions, built them with one simple aim in mind: to protect their lands from marauders and predatory neighbours.
Since Roman times the Rhein valley has been a line of communication of vital strategic importance. In the Middle Ages the German emperors used it for their frequent progresses into Italy, and rich merchants sent their goods to and fro along it. Obviously anyone owning a castle overlooking the valley was in a powerful position, since he was able to survey and regulate the flow of traffic across this particular territory and levy tolls on merchants. This accounts for the large number of castles along the Rhein from Mainz to Bonn, particularly in the narrow gorge connecting Bingen and Koblenz. Along this stretch of river, which has a length of only thirty-five miles, there are more castles than in any other river valley in the world.

Rheinfels Castle was built above St Goar in 1245 by Count Dieter von Katzenelbogen. Thanks to the Landgraves of Hesse, it underwent conversion in the 16th century into an impressive Renaissance mansion, and again in the 17th and 18th centuries into the most formidable fortress on the Rhein against which all enemy attacks failed. Not untill 1794 was Rheinfels captured by the French troops and blown up. But even in its destruction, the huge mass of ruins covering the top of the hill is still one of the most noteworthy sites along the Rhein.



We had a wonderful time and it was a fun area to see.

Missionary Opportunities

Kathy, Wendy, Cheree and a lady from Englang that joined us for the day.

A week or so ago, I went to the Nijmegen market and to lunch with my American sewing group friends. It was right after we had gotten home from Rome so I had lots of questions for a couple of them. (There is a lot about the Catholic church I don't know much about. While in Rome, we had spent quite a bit of time seeing various famous churches and then did the whole Vatican tour thing. We sat in on several masses and a vesper service and on our tour the ladies were all excited about the plethora of rosary beads at the Vatican gift shop.) My friends are all "regular" church attenders andvery religious. (As opposed to those who maybe attend Easter and Christmas services.) Two are catholic and the other is Methodist so we've had some interesting brief conversations in the past about religion and I have had several opportunities to share a little info about the gospel and some of our beliefs. This is really a first in a long time for me so it was very exciting and scary. I am not very good at doing it and I get really nervous because I want them to understand what a wonderful religion it is and why they should want to know more.

Cheree having hot chocolate on her front porch.

My friend Cheree and I have had several opportunities to talk about religion and so a couple of weeks ago I got an English Book of Mormon from the missionaries. Several weeks ago, I had given away a bunch of novels in English to the group and I just happened to pull out The Peacegiver by James L. Ferrel, thinking Cheree might find some comfort or councel to some struggles she is dealing with. Cheree loved the book and read it in a day. In the back there is a whole page of scripture references that the book uses, including some scriptures that "weren't in her bible." This last Thursday, I went and we spent the day together and had a great time. She took me out to little places in the eastern part of Holland that I hadn't been to, like Broekhurst - the smallest town in the country. Anyway, we had lots of great opportunities to talk and before leaving her that day I gave her the Book of Mormon. She is planning on coming to Thanksgiving dinner so it will be fun to see if she has had a chance to read any of it or not.

I have one more Book of Mormon in Dutch that I need to give to another friend. I'm a little worried that there won't be a really great opportunity to give it to her since our time is running short here but I'm sure if I pray about it then it will happen.

Trying to Make Each Other Happy

This past week, we took two trips. The first half of the week, Dennis had meetings down along the French Riviera. We left on Saturday so that we could have a couple of days to see the sights in and around Monaco and Nice. We flew from Eindhoven to Marsaille where we rented a car and then drove out to Monaco. With Lisa's help we had booked a room at the Marriot that is just over the border from Monaco so we drove in and were going to try to find the hotel and drop our things off before going out for the evening to see the sights. We couldn't find the hotel and ended up on the big touristy area of Monaco so we spent the evening walking around town and seeing the sights.

The famous Monte Carlo Casino with the sky ball.

Some of the luxury cars outside of the Casino - not a VW, Peugot or Mercedes among them.

The sunrise view from our Marriot hotel room just outside of Monaco.

On Sunday morning, we got up at drove into Nice for church. The church there was really beautiful and in a perfect location. It was fun to attend a large ward and see the diversity that they had.

LDS Church in Nice, France

We spent the afternoon walking along the beach boardwalk and taking the little tourist train around to see all the sights. That evening we drove down the coast to a small city just over the boarder into Italy. We saw some amazing scenery - between the blue of the Mediterranean and the houses and large villas built on the sides of steep mountains and the many long tunnels, it made for an interesting drive.

One of the statues in Nice situated in a beautiful park across from the boardwalk.

The boardwalk, beach and city of Nice.


One of the Bays along the coast line. It was really beautiful. Two big cruise ships are anchored in the bay

A quiet street and church in the town of Ventimiglia, Italy.

Monday, we checked out of our hotel and drove to Toulon were we spent the next several days. Dennis left me at the hotel while he went up to his meetings. Although his meetings were up in the hills a half-an-hour drive from Toulon, he thought I would enjoy being down near the beach and a town more. It was so sweet of him. I took a nap and then went out and explored the beaches and the town - probably walked 4-5 miles.

The beach and park in Toulon.

I ate lunch at a harbor cafe and had this beautiful view to look at.

The next day, I took the little tourist train around to the main sites in town and did some shopping. I bought a really cute little coat which was an experience in and of itself. The shop girls didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any French but we finally managed to find the perfect coat that was the right size.

The coat

When Dennis got back from work, we walked back into the town and explored some more and had dinner at a harbor restaurant.

The Tower Royale at sunset in Toulon

Wednesday morning we headed back to the airport and arrived just as they were making the final boarding call for our flight. We arrived back in Eindhoven, drove the hour home, spent a couple of hours unpacking and reloading our suitcase and then headed back to the airport.

We flew into Rome and got to our hotel at 11 PM. The next morning, Dennis had a business call to make and after that, we headed into town. We took a tour of town on the double-decker bus to get the lay of the land. Then we walked and walked and walked. It wasn't ever very boring - there are more ruins and old buildings around the center part of town than the Romans know what to do with. We had heard a lot about the pick pocketers but didn't have any problems.

The Colosseum

On Friday, we spent the day in Vatican City with a very knowledgeable and interesting tour guide. I learned more about the Catholic church than I had ever known before and more than I wanted to know about the early popes bad behavior. It made me extremely grateful to our founding fathers who realized the importance of separating church and state. I was intrigued by the mosaic floor of the Vatican but I won't put up most of the pictures that I took. They reminded me of some really great quilt block patterns.

A Ceiling

One of the paintings on the walls

Several of the floors - Marble mosaics

Vespers in St. Peters Basillica

Saturday we went to the Borghese Museum which has some of the finest Rubens paintings and Banini statues. We went to the astronomy exhibit in the Vatican museum where I learned more about Galileo and other great Italian astronomers and their instruments and discoveries. We spent the rest of the day just seeing all the rest of the sights that we wanted to see.

Trevi Fountain - such a beautiful place and very popular.

The Pantheon

Sunday morning, we went back to the airport and flew home. It was so nice to be home. That evening Dennis and I were talking and we came to find out that we took this trip to Rome because we thought the other person wanted to. I had said I wanted to go to Italy but I had never really ever wanted to go the Rome but I thought that Dennis really wanted to go to Rome so I went along to make him happy. He thought that when I said I wanted to go to Italy that naturally meant Rome so he planned the whole trip for me even though he had a lot of things going on at work and it wasn't really a convenient time for him. So - we got a trip to Rome that neither of us particularly wanted but thought we were making the other person happy. After the initial frustration of the discovery we were finally able to chuckle about it. Ahh, the joys of love and marriage. All in all, it wasn't that much of a hardship or sacrifice at least on my part.
We may not look really happy in this picture but this was about the 7th try to take a picture of ourselves in this beautiful location. We actually had a lot of laughs trying to get a decent picture.

Thoughts on Returning Home

(I wrote the first part of this several weeks ago and couldn't decide whether or not to post it. I finally decided to post it , even though it is boring. I hope it will be a bit of a review of our time here.)

We have our plane tickets bought for our return home. We will be arriving the evening on Dec. 11th. For weeks now I've thought that when we finally have the plane tickets, I would be so excited to share the news with everyone. But for some reason, I've been feeling a little reticent at telling people. I guess that's because now it finally seems real and while I'm excited to get back to Providence and be with family and friends, I also am feeling sad that this experience is coming to an end. It has been so good for me in so many ways. It was not always easy or fun but now I can say that I'm glad I had the opportunity and I have learned a lot.

I have met some wonderful people. Some of my dear friends are other American women who are here in much the same situation as I am only on a much longer basis. Several, have children who attended the same school Alyna did. So that added another link to our bond. The friends from the ward have taught me a lot. They are amazing in their dedication to the gospel even when it isn't the popular thing to do and they have to sacrifice a lot. Many of the strong members do several key things each Sunday in able to make the ward run smoothly. I hope I can remember and learn from their example and not mumble when I have several assignments to do for church in a day.

I remember how hard everything seemed when we first got here, probably because it was. We came with what we could fit in our suitcases and it was almost 3 months before our shipment arrived. I don't think I ever started setting up a house with so liittle. We immedieately went shopping at Ikea and Makro (a little like Sams Club). We bought bedding, towels, dishes, pots and pans and some of the necessities for setting up the kitchen and being able to prepare simple meals and such. I remember one of the frustrating things in those first few weeks was having nothing but the outside garbage can to throw things away in - no grocery bags, boxes or other such things to use. (Here you buy large grocery bags every time you forget to take your to the store with you. ) It took a month or so to have the house set up so that we could function efficciently. It was a happy day when we got a clothes dryer. We found out that when the air is rather humid, clothes don't dry very quickly.

Another challenge in the beginning was money. In order to open a bank account here, you have to have a citizenship permit card. It took several months to work through all that paperwork and finally get bank account opened. They don't use checks here so we couldn't even start getting a paycheck for almost 4 months. We survived by using our US credit cards and getting cash from an ATM. It was really a big change from how we functioned at home.

We have had the opportunity to explore many new places throughout Holland as well as some other areas of Europe. I love so many things about Holland: the green fields and pastures , the many lakes and rivers, the trees in rows along the roads and in the freeway cloverleafs, roundabouts, bike lanes, the friendly people, and all the different equipment they have for maintaining the roads, bike paths and green space. It is nice to be in a nice quiet part of the world and still be able to get to amazing places in a relatively short time period - Paris is 6 hours drive, London is an 8 hour drive (plus some ferry time), Black Forest area of Germany - 5 hours... So many castles, palaces, museums, windmills, and water ways to see. It has been wonderful!

Now: After working with moving companies for a month or so, we finally have one selected and decided the type of move we will make. We had offers in from two different companies. We had each give us two bids - one for moving just our personal belongings with no furniture, the second for moving almost all our belongings including large items such as furniture, bike, etc. Until we decided which bid we were going to accept, I couldn't really make many plans on what things we needed to get rid of and what things we would be able to take. With that decision made now we can get on with the plans for heading home.

The calendar is filling up quickly and before we know it, we will be home celebrating the holidays with our family. It will help leaving here to have some fun things to look forward to at home.

Latest Sight Seeing Adventures

The old church in Leiden

Several weekends ago, Dennis needed to meet with law student in Leiden. It just happened to be Leiden's big annual celebration commemorating their independence from Spain so there was a lot going on in town that day. We had a nice "business" lunch and then walked around through the town. There was every kind of imaginable carnival game and ride, food stalls, vendors, all kinds of music, and lots of beer. The streets were so packed with people that a lot of times all we could do was shuffle along and try to weave our way through the crowds of drinking people standing around listening to different entertainers. It was all a little much and not really my kind of thing so I was so glad when we were able to leave the crowds and get back on the train to ride out to our car.

Leiden City crest.

A break in the crowd allowed me to take a picture of Dennis near the vendor
selling cotton candy. (Especially for Alyna.)

This week, I got the car one day and I went in search of fabric stores that were around the area where Dennis works. When I say around, that is used very loosely - I should say within 40 minutes in every direction. It took me into cities and countrysides that I haven't seen before. I had fun not only finding the fabric stores - which were challenging to find as they were tucked into little shops in out of the way locations - but also in checking out the other stores and shops along the way. I visited Deventer, Zutphen, Doetinchem, and Huissen.

The fountain in Deventer centrum.

I find it interesting when buildings are built right up against other buildings . In this instance the buildings jutting out from the central building are at least complimentary in design.

Part of the old original city wall that has been fortified.

The clouds were really quite interesting and beautiful although this picture does not do them justice. The sky gradually darkened and we had a huge rain storm later in the afternoon. I belive that this was taken somewhere between the villages of Vorden and Velswijk.