January - All projects on target - well almost!

(Painting is all done and we are ready for carpet.)

This has been a busy month. The goals for this month were to get Christmas put away and to get the 3rd apartment updated before our shipment arrived. The third apartment has never been completely tackled before so now that it's tenants had moved out and we were re-arranging a lot of the house anyway, it was the perfect time to tackle that project. It involved -

*Removing all remaining detritus

*Repairing and patching walls (we had a painter come in and bid the job at $1,000. It was a BIG job.)

*Painting - Thanks to Darlene and Alyna , we were able to get it all done in 1 week

*Ripping out old carpet, removing all tacks and staples from the floor and screwing down the squeaky and/or loose boards - Thanks to Andrew, Alyna and Dennis for all their hard work

*Getting new carpet installed

*Moving furniture in and setting up the new sewing room - Again thanks to Andrew and Lindsay, also Lisa

*Replacing old light fixtures - not a simple job since it involved crawling up in the attic and replacing old wiring and in one case, putting a cross beam in to hand the light box on. -Big Thanks to Dennis who spent a day and a half on this project when he had many other things he should have been working on.

We got the carpet installed and furniture moved in on Friday the 22nd and our shipment arrived on Tuesday the 26th. So that all worked out perfectly.

I still have a few little Christmas things I've noticed here and there that need to be put away. There are still boxes of things in the parlor, bedroom and bathroom that need to be unpacked and put away. The old sewing closet needs to be cleaned out and refitted for an office. Finish organizing/setting up the new sewing room. I'm hoping that I will be able to get most of those done this next week so I can dig into February's projects, which are: finish work on the 2nd apt. and clean out the loft. I think I will need lots of encouragement and maybe even some help or I might wimp out on the loft. It will be another big job and I am tired.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We made the move home and are finally feeling a bit settled. It was a much more difficult transition than I had anticipated but I think we are finally feeling like this is home and not just a visit or vacation. I think it helped to have Mandy and Dan's wedding and Senior Ball the day after we got home and then all the Christmas parties and events.

It was soooooo cold as we all stood around outside waiting for the bride and groom to come out.

Mandy was the bravest one, or maybe the most in love. Everyone else had coats, and she was in short sleeves.

Alyna and Tina with their dates for Senior Ball.

The kids had worked hard and the house was nice and clean when we got home. It lasted until we had to open our suitcases and start digging through the garage and loft for dressers, hangers, and such so that we could put all the things from our suitcases away. (Remember, our house had a little flood in June and so everything from the front half of the house had to be moved to the loft or the garage so that all the walls and floors could be repainted and recarpeted.) So, for the next two weeks, the house was a disaster. We had to go through a huge pile of stuff - sorting out what things we wanted to keep and what things to give away and then putting the rest away. At one point, we had one side of the garge full of stuff waiting to go to the DI and the other side of the garage had furniture and boxes that still had to be brought in or sorted through.

Jessica and I took a morning and made some fun fresh floral arrangements.

While all this was going on, we also got to celebrate Christmas on the 19th with Lisa and Cameron and the kids. We spent most of that morning arranging a new cell phone plan and buying new phones. It took forever and most of the time it was really boring.
Our theme this Christmas was regifting and the kids did a good job and had some fun coming up with gifts to re-gift.

Alyna gave Dennis his cordless screwdriver back along with some cute little stuffed animals.

We had a Christmas party at the Van Natters for that side of the family.

Shaynie and her family came down and we had a party with them.

We had a Briscoe family Christmas party at Izzys. We had a fun gift exchange and played "In the manner of the Adverb" and Psychiatrist and Spluff. It was really fun.


The High School and College age kids welcomed in the New Year with a big party at our house and Izzy's. They had around 40-50 kids here at some point.

All the married folks and young kids celebrated at Bonnie's. We ate great food and played "Three on a couch" and then did a 550 piece puzzle in just over an hour.

In between all that, we made some big purchases. We bought two 2010 Honda vehicles, a Crosstour and an Odessy which we drove home on the 31st. (That gave us a big incentive to get our garage cleaned out enough so that we could to put the cars in it.)

We also ordered a whole new living room furniture set. It won't be here till sometime in late January or February. That's okay. It will give us something exciting to look forward to. Our shipment should also arrive sometime in the next couple of months so we will have a lot more sorting and rearranging to do in the coming months.

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.