Remodeling and Demolition

Quite unfortunately we have written a summary of our experiences and what we learned living in Amsterdam for a year and a half, and we have lost the document.

It has just occurred to Erin that she wrote the summary right after moving back to the U.S., so we did not yet have this computer. The document must be on the old, extremely slow computer we were using until ours arrived from the Netherlands. Thankfully, John has not yet wiped the hard drive on that computer (or the other old computer mysteriously sitting in a closet in our house!), so the document is not really lost. It’s just unreachable until we hook that computer up again to find it. Once again, we have to say that the summary is forthcoming!

Since returning to our home in the U.S. we have ripped out carpet in the hallway and second bedroom, painted the hallway white and the second bedroom green, changed out three light fixtures, chopped down a big tree in the front yard and just recently finished demolishing the hall bathroom. The only usable item in the bathroom is the toilet since there is no sink and the bathtub is filled with peeled off wallpaper. Needless to say, our house has been in all kinds of disarray for the past month or more.

It’s funny how our physical surroundings seem to match life circumstances right now. Settling back into life in Texas is bringing new circumstances and feelings. Our lives have undergone reconstruction now that we have experiences living in Europe and Erin is trying desperately to determine what her life should be like now. Like our house, many old ways of living here in this country, in this city, have been cast aside. We are still figuring out what to put in the place of those old things. With the birth of our nephew almost four months early, stability, comfort, certainty, and peace have been ripped out from under us. Like the furniture scattered all over our house, our time, commitments and thoughts are scattered, messy and unpredictable right now. The difficulties, hard work and restructuring are ongoing…both in the house and in our own journey.

If anyone knows Erin, she has little tolerance for living in disorder. She likes things to be organized, clean and where they are supposed to be. However, the chaos of our house is not bothering her as much as usual. Perhaps it is because her whole life feels disordered right now. Maybe she’s learning that life goes on even amid messiness.

Is it just coincidence that we have decided to begin demolition and remodeling of our house at this particular point in time? Or maybe we are subconsciously reflecting physically what we feel on the inside.

Anybody out there?

We're not sure if anyone is even reading our blog anymore, especially since it's been a couple months since our last post! We've been a bit preoccupied the last month or so. Erin's sister gave birth to her first son at 24 weeks of pregnancy; that's about 15 weeks early. Our nephew was 1 pound, 9 ounces at birth and is still in the NICU at a hospital in Austin. Erin is able to go down to help her sister for a week at a time since she never got an internship. Obviously our thoughts, focus, and much of our time center around our nephew who is still in critical condition.

Our vacation to Colorado in June/July was interrupted the day after we arrived with the news of our nephew's birth. We stayed only two more days before driving back to Texas to be with Erin's family in Austin. The few days we were there were nice. We got to visit with John's family, went on one hike, Erin learned to knit, and we enjoyed some great food. Erin has promised John that she owes him about 7 days of vacation now.

That's right...Erin still has not found an internship (although the whole search has been put on hold since the end of June). We decided a few weeks ago that it is just not worth it to take an internship that is a volunteer position, work 40 hours/week for free, pay for the cost of gas driving to/from the location, and perhaps even pay $100/week or more for a supervisor. This all works out OK right now anyway, so Erin can pick up and go to Austin whenever she's needed. This family situation will most likely last at least a few more months. She is volunteering at a pregnancy center and determining how many and what kind of other volunteer opportunities she can commit to.

John is enjoying work right now. The hours are normal and there are lots of free dinners and parties with the interns right now. We guess since this time of year is not quite as busy for everyone, the company decides it's a perfect time to pile on the extracurricular activities, dinners, and parties. With all this free time, we've started remodeling the house little bits a time: taking out carpet, cleaning the wood floor underneath, painting, demolishing a bathroom and redoing it, cutting down trees, trimming bushes, etc.

This is not to say there are not lots of funny little stories that have taken place in the last two months: being forced to change phone service, shipping a keyboard via UPS, getting a free 2008 Ford Focus, Time Warner debacles, air conditioner wars, and the chaos that happens when John has to live by himself for a week. It's too much to catch up on. Life is not ever normal. Unexpected circumstances are making life a little stressful and different right now, but we are reminded how blessed we are to have such a caring, loving, present family in tough times.

We know we still owe everyone a post summarizing our time overseas. We promise it's coming...soon!

A Trip to Disney World with the Family

After being overseas for a year and a half, and since Erin’s younger sister is now pregnant with their first child, Erin’s parents decided this would be an opportune time for a mini family reunion. So, on May 5 we joined Erin’s parents and her sister and brother-in-law for a magical week at Disney World. We both decided after the trip that this vacation in Disney World was the best Disney World trip we’ve ever taken. Maybe because this is the first time we’ve gotten to have the experience together as a couple. Or maybe because we’re older and more used to travel so we did not get absolutely exhausted or tired of walking. Plus, we have no young children and judging by the fights, screaming, crying, and even cursing we decided Disney World is not “the happiest place on earth” for those with small members of the family.

The week we were at Disney World was really the perfect week to be there. Crowds were unbelievably small! We made a point to get to the parks in the morning when they opened, and this enabled us to ride all the major attractions with practically no waits all morning long! The weather was perfect (well, except for a 20-minute storm one afternoon complete with hurricane force winds and a drenching downpour) and the place we stayed was really very pretty. (For those of you who care or know about Disney World, we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside.)

We’ll spare everyone the details, but we thoroughly enjoyed almost all the attractions and shows (minus those only truly appreciated by preschoolers) in four of the Disney World parks. We did not go to either of the water parks, but apparently we have the best water park in the country right here in the state of Texas: Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels.

With Disney World park hopper passes, one day we managed to actually visit three parks. That was a tiring day and not recommended unless you are down to your final day on a week-long trip and realize you are still in need of that very specific postcard and some music from Disney World to take the magic back home with you. We didn’t find the postcard, but we have been listening to our Disney World CD at home all week. Having the music is both good and bad. It brings back fond memories of a fun family vacation, but of course it is making us both wish we were still on that fun family vacation.

The week was a great combination of being with family and getting time to ourselves. Erin’s parents are crazy about Walt Disney World and have visited more times than anyone else we know. It was perfect to just follow them around the first few days – no map needed! John got to see a Cirque du Soleil show for the first time in his life and was duly impressed. We had some great meals all together that provided plenty of opportunity for laughter and fun. We enjoyed a bus ride one night with a comedian bus driver who entertained the entire weary busload with jokes, interesting information, and trivia questions. One of the highlights of our week with just the two of us was a dinner at California Grill. Erin had called trying to get reservations a couple weeks ahead of time and there was no availability unless we wanted to eat at 10 p.m. This is fine for life in Spain, but it does not bode well at Disney World when we are waking up at 6:30 in the morning to start our magical day of fun. John called to try once again for a reservation after we had already arrived at Disney World. He scored a table for two at this place during the time when Magic Kingdom fireworks were going to be displayed and could be seen right from the restaurant balcony with piped-in music! Erin should not be so surprised when John can pull things off like this since it seems to be a regular occurrence, but she still is really impressed by her highly skilled husband!

Disney World really proved to be “the happiest place on earth” last week (except for the families with young children in tow). Family, food, fun…what more could you ask for?

Side Notes

We are still in the process of writing down our thoughts about living in a foreign country for 18 months: what we learned, how we’ve changed, and what difference the experience has made to us. While we continue to compile our thoughts, we’d like to update you on other happenings since our return to Dallas.

On Easter weekend we took a long weekend trip to Pennsylvania and Delaware. Mostly this was a trip to celebrate our fifth anniversary, but we are also in the habit of continuously planning trips and looking forward to going places so it will be a while (if ever!) before we let go of our need to travel. Easter weekend was a cold weekend almost everywhere in the U.S. There was no escaping snow, unless we had gone to, say, Miami. We heard it snowed in Dallas – quite a contrast to the weather they had at this time last year when it was already in the 100s! (This is second-hand information since we, of course, were in the Netherlands at this time last year and it was not in the 100s there.)

Despite the cold weather and snow flurries, we really enjoyed our weekend away from Dallas. Neither of us had ever been to Philadelphia, so we got to visit the National Historical Park in the center of the city (Constitution Hall, the Liberty Bell, etc.) and walked around the Arts district (where there is some excellent Indian food to be had) and Society Hill. We ventured back into Philadelphia Sunday before our flight back home to find some lunch and then discovered how horrible parking is in the city. We also discovered that finding a quick bite to eat on Easter Sunday is a challenge since so many places are closed, but we ended up having some tasty pizza (maybe it was tasty because we were starving, but we were satisfied nonetheless).

We stayed in Wilmington, Delaware in the Brandywine Valley area. Saturday was spent at Longwood Gardens, an estate established by Pierre Dupont that covers over 1000 acres. With so much late cold weather there weren’t too many flowers blooming outdoors, but the grounds were nice to hike around anyway with the lakes and fountains, and trees. There is, however, a huge conservatory overflowing with plants! It was a blessing that it took so long to go through the conservatory because it was a nice warm place to escape from the snow flurries and wind. Pierre Dupont originally built the conservatory so he could have fresh fruit in the winter. There are rooms where melons, grapes, citrus fruit, and strawberries are grown to meticulous standards so that the fruit turns out perfectly. We also enjoyed all the tulips, orchids, roses, rain forest room, cactus, and much, much more. We even got to hear a nice string quartet concert for free! The day ended with a fabulous Italian dinner at a tiny, tiny restaurant in Wilmington’s “Little Italy” called Pastabilities. It’s been showcased on the Food Network, and we really enjoyed it.

We made it to Valley Forge on Sunday morning before we had to head back to Dallas. After doing the driving tour, we hiked around the middle of the park where the roads were closed to cars. Washington and his men were camped there in the winter and we got a little taste of what it must have been like because it was extremely windy and cold when we were there. We were freezing without the snow and bundled up in our coats and gloves and sweaters. We can’t imagine what it must have been like for Washington’s army in their threadbare clothes with no indoor heating!

As an update, Erin is still looking for a job. It is difficult to find an internship position, and this will be the last that this subject is mentioned on the blog until she actually obtains a job because talking about it only increases the anxiety and depression. (All of you who have searched long and hard for a job will know exactly what she is talking about.)

Also, we have noticed that stair steps in the U.S. are very shallow after living in Europe. It feels awkward and slow taking such tiny, itty-bitty steps to go upstairs. Often we end up going up (or down) two at a time to correct the problem.

Toilet Paper

Erin has had to go shopping over the past week to try to stock our kitchen and obtain necessities such as paper towels, soap, and toilet paper. After only being in the country a couple weeks, she ventured to Wal-Mart while John was at work one day. Going very slowly and taking lots of deep breaths, Erin managed to get through the food section of the store rather well. Then she got to the toilet paper aisle.

Not only was a man stocking the shelves and moving things around while Erin searched the aisle, but there was toilet paper of every shape, size, thickness, and brand imaginable filling the shelves on both sides of the aisle. Erin tried hard to remember which kind she used to buy two years ago, but of course then she realized the packaging was probably different now anyway. This was no use. She actually almost had a panic attack right there in the toilet paper aisle. A few tears were definitely shed. Honestly, the toilet paper section in stores in Amsterdam is about 1/8 the size, and there are only two or three brands to choose from. Why on earth would anyone need 800 different kinds of toilet paper to choose from? I mean, come on, you wipe your behind with it! How fancy does it have to be?

When Erin first appeared in the aisle, the man stocking the shelves apologized for the inconvenience and asked if he could help. In hindsight Erin should have just asked him what kind of toilet paper she should buy! After the “almost panic attack” and tears, Erin finally just grabbed a pack and decided it wasn’t worth it to spend any more of her time in that aisle.

By the way, in the last couple years companies in the U.S. have come out with twice as many kinds of detergent and fabric softener, 10 more types of Cheerios, and we think the frozen food and chips sections of the grocery store have both doubled in size.

20 Days

Erin has now been back in the U.S. for 20 days. Well, 19 since the entire first day of March was spent in airplanes flying over the ocean. Time has gone by fast and in slow motion all at once. Since this is now the longest stretch of time we have been away from the Netherlands, our minds and hearts are pretty convinced of the permanence of this move back to Texas.

We moved back into the house a week ago today. By now most things are put away, organized, and clean. Of course, we’re still missing a lot of clothes and other items that should be on their way over here from Amsterdam. Amazingly there is apparently no way for the moving company to track our shipment of goods across the ocean, so it could be another couple weeks or another month before it all gets here. Why, we wonder, can’t this shipment be tracked when UPS tracks absolutely everything going anywhere all over the planet? The arrival of our effects will just have to be a surprise.

John is still enjoying his job, and now that he is out of the hotel he lived in for a month and back in the house, he describes his adjustment back to life here as “seamless.” Erin’s experience is much different. Fortunately she only had to live in a hotel for 1 ½ weeks. Even though she is living in a city she has lived in before, in a house she has lived in before, something seems weird. Just a little weird. She finally decided that things are weird because almost everything in her life is different now…except the environment, which is also not exactly the same now that she views things through eyes with 18 months of experience living on a different continent. Erin will have to find a new job, a new church, and new friends. She’ll have different colleagues, different volunteer opportunities, and a different schedule than she ever did when she lived here before. She’s even driving a different car. This is all not much different than we expected; the one thing we are certain of in life is that there will always be changes.

Moving Already

It just doesn't seem that long ago since we were writing blogs about figuring out how to use the washer and dryer and dealing with waterfalls in the bathroom. Now I'm already writing about packing up to move away! Tomorrow the movers come to pack and load up our belongings. And even 18 months later, we are still dealing with frustrating household mishaps.

This week, Erin has already had adventures in defrosting the freezer, breaking the kitchen ceiling light fixture, and trying to use up the money on our chip cards with little success. And it's only Monday.

So, really the only thing left in the freezer by Saturday night were some salmon fillets (after Erin threw away almost everything else). Our freezer is only three drawers, not very big. Erin figured it couldn't take that long to defrost the thing, so she wrapped the salmon in paper and towels to insulate it as well as possible and stuck it in the fridge while she defrosted the freezer. After a couple hours, it looked as if the freezer shelves might not all defrost as fast as she had first imagined. About half the freezer had thawed in the first 30 minutes, but the last 1 1/2 shelves seemed pretty solidly frozen. The salmon would not last all night in the fridge. Since it was already 11 p.m., Erin decided to take action. A hairdryer melted the rest of the freezer shelves in about 15 minutes flat, and the salmon was saved. In fact, Erin enjoyed some of the salmon for dinner last night since, after all, there isn't much time left to enjoy it anyway!

Erin didn't really break the kitchen ceiling light fixture...it just stopped working. The kitchen light switch turns on the ceiling fixture and some lights under the cabinets. Everything was turned on and Erin left the kitchen for a while. Then Erin returned later to the kitchen to find only the lights under the cabinets on. Hmmm. It's highly unlikely that all four bulbs went out at the same time (especially since they are all bulbs that should last for 2 years). Still, Erin ventured out today to find light bulbs (easier said than done). The stores nearest our apartment were out of the specific kind she was looking for. Erin felt pretty certain that none of the bulbs were really burned out anyway, so she only went to one other place. Thankfully, they had the bulbs. A few minutes ago, Erin tested the new light bulb theory. Sure enough...no luck. The lights still don't work. This adds a positive point to moving out this week: Erin will not have to find someone to come fix the lights, be home waiting for them to come for an entire day, and e-mail back and forth to the landlord figuring out who he wants to use to fix this problem and who pays for it.

The chip cards are another story. Our bank cards have chips in them that we load with money, so we can use it like cash. Erin has had a hard time getting the cards to work in the machines she tried to use, and not many stores actually take payment by chip (at least not the stores Erin frequents). And now that she is busy organizing things and getting ready to leave, she doesn't really have all that much time to go shopping. Guess we will have the delight of dealing with the bank here in the Netherlands for some time after we are back living in the U.S.

We're sure the next few days will hold more fun and surprises. Unfortunately, after the movers come, Erin will no longer have her computer. So, sadly, this is the final post coming to you from the Netherlands. After all the moving craziness, we will have time to post more on our reflections of the last 18 months. Suffice it to say for now that our European Adventures have definitely changed us. We look forward to the next great adventure!