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.