Leaving back to Holland

Sunday Aug 7th 2022

And then it suddenly is the day we leave back to Holland. The past few weeks flew by so fast that I didn’t even have time to write about everything we did. I will try to catch up with that during our flight. We have ways to go as we will have a layover in Newark of 3,5 hours. And after that about 7,5 hour flight to Amsterdam. So I might even be able to write a book lol. Charging my laptop now so I can use it at the plane as well.

What a rollercoaster have the last 4 weeks been. But also what a wonderful 4 weeks. It feels as though it went by in a few days but also felt as if weve been here for 3 months, weird!

We have been so lucky to see and spend time with so many people we love. We spend extra special quality time with a few friends as they invited us to stay with them at their house. Which was so wonderful!

This week we were able to stay in our friends house while they were on vacation. That definitely helped reduce stress as we were able to have all our stuff together in one place. Also we feel so at home in this house as we have spend so much time here over the past years with them.

Looking back at this week, its hard for me to remember what we all did, so much fun stuff, but we also had to cancel some things. Some because we were a close contact friday a week ago, but also because it became a bit to much at one point. Off course it is all wonderful to see everyone and to do so much fun stuff. And how lucky were we with the beautiful weather that we have had for 4 weeks. But the emotional stuff is part of it too. We shouldn’t forget the “other” reason that we visited. Yes, we wanted to see everyone we love but we also “had” to take this trip.

As many of you know, the past year has been challenging to say the least. We all had very hard periods to get through. We are still struggling at times, all in our own individual way. Yes, we build our life back up, the kids are going to school and have made friends, we love the fact that we are closer to our family and our friends, Erik and I enjoy working again and we renovated our house which now feels like our home again. But that all doesn’t mean that we aren't still grieving about what we left behind in Amerika. Not just the people, but our life there and the lifestyle that fit us all like a glove. Adjusting to the Dutch lifestyle is still a struggle if we are really honest. We have realized during our time in Amerika that we need and want our own space. We don’t want to always “have to” show up to everything and we don’t want to plan months ahead if we want to see people. But it is hard as that is how lots of people do it in Holland. This often takes away from the time we have to spend with the four of us, or the time I need for myself and the time Erik wants to spend cycling. Also, the past year we needed the time for ourselves with our work, school and the emotional stuff and therapy that we have. This all together pretty much consumes all of our time and energy.

Being back in Raynham and seeing all our wonderful friends again, having the kids enjoy quality time with most of their friends and getting my coffee at Panera and go to all my favorite stores has been good. Driving around on roads that we can drive with our eyes closed. Realizing that it has been a whole year, with all the seasons passing, all the holidays celebrated, a whole schoolyear going by, has been insane. It felt as if no time had gone by at all. The main thing that showed the passing of time were all our friends children and our own that all have grown so much (both literally and figuratively speaking😊). It was so nice to feel that we were able to pick right up where we left off, everything felt so nice. We were able to see (almost) everyone that we wanted to see and I made sure we did everything that the kids had told me they wanted to do. Even up to having dinner at the Olive Garden and Pim going to Chic-fil-A with his friend Emma and Erik lol. And then even the Starbucks downtown Raynham (that was supposed to open last January) decided to open up especially for our visit😉.

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And now, fast forward 3 hours. We are now in the plane and were supposed to almost be in Newark. Unfortunately, the plane was a bit delayed. Now on the runway, stuck behind 1000 other planes that are waiting tot take off. No idea how long it will take. The good thing is that we have 3,5 hours overlap in Newark. So all the time we are standing here, is less waiting in Newark😊. Gotta try to think positive right. So we all took out our appliances to watch shows and me to type this. Good use of time!

As I can’t post this on my blog before having WiFi again, I will see if I can maybe start writing more about the past few weeks as well. Would be nice to have finished writing everything before being back in Holland😊. And maybe, just maybe, I will even be able to make a nice photobook of this fantastic vacation!!

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Again, fast forward…it is now 7.09 pm. We were supposed to leave Newark at 5:50 pm. The flight got delayed for 51 minutes soon after arriving at gate C98. After about 45 minutes we were redirected to gate C75, only to be send to gate C75 shortly after. About 40 minutes later we were send back to gate C98 again as our plane would leave from there. At least we get enough exercise during the long wait😉.

The wait itself is not the worst. The not knowing when you leave in combination with wining kids, not knowing when you should start drinking as you need to pee otherwise and the fact that all the appliances are draining their batteries before even getting on the plane is ugh. Especially if you consider the fact that there are plugs here EVERYWHERE, but you have to pay for them….WHAT?????? YES, You need to pay for charging your appliances here. Maybe that is normal in some places, but it is totally new for me. Thank goodness we will have entertainment on the plane (or at least, I assume lol). I sure hope so, otherwise we will have two very bored kids for 7,5 hours.

We just received a few vouchers for meals and as we hope to be boarding in about half an hour, Erik and the kids are now trying to find some food for them. I had a late lunch already, so I’m good for now. Lets see if I have any Wifi that I can use to upload this blogpost. The other weeks will follow soon I hope.

Before I would even be able to upload we got a message that the flight is now delayed until 8:30 pm. Lets hope this will be it!!!

XO

Lots of friends, fun and food

Thursday July 14th 2022

So different friends have different qualities, we picked our friends well (LOL) as Katies quality is hosting, nothing is crazy for her. Literally every little detail is covered, it’s amazing! Her cooking is phenomenal and her house is just the most beautiful house you’ve ever seen and could be in a magazine for real.

This morning we were invited to breakfast at Tristins. One of her qualities is making desserts and breakfast, we always new that (and have always enjoyed this). But maybe if you have easy access to it, you sort of take it for granted. It was all DELICIOUS, no kidding. There was French toast with all sorts of syrups and fresh berries and strawberries. And her apple pancakes are to die for.

After breakfast Erik left to go biking and Tristin and the kids and I went to do Pims favorite, minigolfing. It was so incredibly hot that the sweat was running of the kids and they were so flustered that we could easily spot those red little excited faces while we sat down to chat. Two days in a row 1 on 1 with one of my best friends, the perks about having bigger kids😊.

After lunch the 4 of us went to LaLiberte to go see my friend Holly. We can’t do everything all at once, but I must say it is hard to not drive around town to just go see everyone we would like to see all at once. Everyone is so close by. And Holly has literally been down the street the past few days. It was so so nice to see her again. We also saw Steve and Brian, the custodians, which was wonderful too.

Walking around school was the weirdest thing ever! It was the same weird as the past few days: “Weird that it doesn’t feel weird at all.”

Ordering my delish caramel latte with almond milk at Panera, and the person at the register recognizing me and calling his boss to come see who’s here😊. I could not feel more welcome than I do!

After chatting with Holly for a bit and making plans to see each other soon, Nynke and I drove to Panera to get coffee and lunch before we sat ourselves down for a pedicure. Our feet are ready for the beautiful summer weather here. We ran into one of the former teachers from Laliberte. It is so nice and fun to run into so many wonderful people after this long year away! After that we went shopping, again!😊. This time we visited our friend Marshall(s). I can honestly tell you he was very happy to see us as well. Later that day I told my husband that it was a good thing he didn’t get notifications on his phone about the usage of my TJ Maxx card hahahaha. But Nynkes schoolshopping is done, she is ready for a new year at school. She has been looking forward going shopping in Amerika, just like her momma!

When we were done, we got to experience the wonders of New England. It had just started to rain and we decided to wait a bit to get to the car as it came down hard. Well, after 15 minutes it seemed like the clouds broke and that all the water came down, like literally ALL-THE-WATER!!!!

I decided to run to the car, which got me soaked up to my underwear, I was a good momma as I told Nynke I would pick her up. Unfortunately, it was not worth it as it started raining so very hard that it was impossible to even drive so we had to wait for a bit. But then the clouds went away and the blue sky came back and we drove to Chattabox to go get Thai for dinner.

After dinner it was as if nothing had happened, still as hot out, sunny and we drove to Tristins for smores. We hang with Leslie, Katie and Tristin and all the kids. Even the guys joined, which was great! We had so much fun talking, playing funny games and celebrating Leslies birthday this time. What a wonderful night to spend with our wonderful friends!!! We are loving every bit of our stay so far!!!

Friday July 15th 2022

Today was hard. Def an off-day for me. I have been emotional and not been able to not cry I think. So we layed low for a bit. Which in the end helped for me but not for the kids as they got bored. Erik went biking and Katie and I sat on the porch, chatting and catching up.

When the kids really got to a point of no return, Katie offered to bring them all to Edgewood so I could run some errands. I wanted to go get food at the marketbasket as we were cooking tonight. I decided to drive by Alda and Kaseys new home to check it out and that was nice. How wonderful to be able to see their new house now we are here.

While there I looked out of the window and saw Nynkes 3rd grade teacher that we absolutely love in his front yard. They live across the street and I went to say hi. How wonderful to see them again as well!

After returning from the marketbasket I made dinner and after dinner Nynke had a very hard time as well. I decided to take her for a walk and we checked out to see if her friend Lily would be home. She turned out to be there and we had a wonderful evening there with her family.

Saturday July 16th 2022

Today was a Sunflower day. We got into the car to drive to and through our old neighborhood. We were very excited to see our neighbor Nora’s car in the driveway and went to see her. We have missed our neighbors. After a very nice chat and the kids being spoiled again by her, we went to see if Sandy was home. She wasn’t but saw us on the camera through her phone and came home soon after that. In the meantime we paid a visit to Buddy, the neighborhood dog. It is so funny how it works with dogs. Buddy remembered Nynke very well and knew exactly what to expect (which was a treat from Nynke.) It didn’t matter that a year went by, he remembered his special friend!!!!

After that Sandy was home and we were so happy to sit and chat with her! Missed her a ton!!!!

When we arrived to the states, one of the first things we did was go to a Play to K event from Pims new school. It was on the 12th of July in 2017 and it was a picnic. During that first picnic we met Tristin and Griffin. After a little bit Griffin had to go to T-ball and that was right there as well. Tristin invited Erik and Pim to come watch (I was still chatting with some other people). The funny thing was that Erik happened to wear a t-shirt that day that said: “Team Griffin” on it. So you can imagine how we literally hit it off with them. So today Griffin had a Baseball tournament and we decided to go watch as that was the way we met each other. The fun thing was that everything here is townwide, gradewide etc. Totally different from how it is in Holland. So that meant that there were a bunch of kids on the team that are friends with Pim and I loved to catch up with some of the moms there.

Sunday July 17th 2022

Sunday we left early morning to go to the beach in Mattapoiset with our friend Holly. The kids and I drove there while Erik rode his bike there. Best of two worlds, he gets to ride his bike and spend a bit of time with everyone here before he rides his bike back. There was a lovely craftfair which we strolled a bit. I am totally not a beach girl, but with temperatures like we have now, I must say being at the beach is probably the best thing to do😊.

Around 2:30 we picked up and drove back to Raynham. Afer that we dropped the kids of at Tristins for a sleepover. We have an appointment at the bank tomorrow morning and we don’t know how long that will take. So Tristin was able to take the kids and suggested to have them for a sleepover so that Erik and I could have datenight together. We were gonna go to a restaurant in Westport but in the end decided to not want to drive that far, so we ended up in the Riverhouse, which was so nice as well. Its in Taunton, so only about 10 minutes from Katies house. After having dinner we went home and it was still early so we decided to sit outside on their beautiful porch and enjoy watching some Netflix together.

Monday July 18th 2022

Oh boy, today was A DAY!!!! We had a bank appointment at 9:30 and I thought I was so prepared, I brought our passports and thought I had everything. Only to realize around the corner and 5 minutes before we had the appointment that I had forgotten my whole wallet with everything we needed in there. Erik dropped me of and drove back to go get it. The good thing is that everything is within 15 minutes in town here. So it wasn’t to bad. Also, we were in for a treat anyways as we weren’t finished until 11:15 am. Crazy crazy how long it all took. And then we thought we were all good. We took care of all the business that we had to take care of and went to pick up Pim and Nynke at Tristins. They were so lucky as Tristin took them to IHop, which they love!!!

We went back to Katies to grab some new clean clothes to take to the sleepover that they would have today. Nynke was able to have a sleepover at her friends Valentina’s house and after that we drove Pim to the Cottreau’s for a sleepover with Quinn. It was so fun as they hadn’t told Quinn we were coming. Quinn thought he wouldn’t see us until we would go to NH with them next week. He was so surprised and it was so fun to see! We ended up staying with the Cottreau’s until I had to leave as I had a date with Rachel for dinner.

Tuesday July 19th 2022

Today was a very busy day, but so so wonderful. My friend Katie asked me a while ago already what I would like her to organize, if anything. I told her that I would love to be able to plan a brunch like we had before school every year. It was wonderful, so many moms came to spend time! It was so nice to see them and catch up with them.

During the brunch Erik went biking. When on the road, I can’t reach him because he doesn’t have service on his Dutch phone. At one point I got an email saying: "Urgent regarding wire". I freaked out immediately as we already had a gut feeling about it all yesterday. The bank appointment didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped for. I didn’t know what went wrong but they asked us to come to the bank as soon as possible t work things out. I had to wait for Erik though. It kind of messed up our plans as we were moving out of Katies house and moving into Leslies. But friends to the rescue, Katie took Pim to Leslies to swim some and Nynke could stay longer at her sleepover with her friend Valentina. At the bank we found out that it wasn’t to bad, the wire was just cancelled due to an error in the bank. So we ended up doing it all again and two hours later it was wired to our Dutch account already. Pfffff….

After that we went to pick up all our stuff at Katies to move it to Leslies. Erik went to pick up Nynke and the kids played in the pool until we went to have dinner at our favorite place: Grand Slam. I had been holding of on eating the chicken Parm as I always love Beni’s chicken Parm. And I was not disappointed!!! While I am writing this I am actually thinking: mmmm, having leftover Chicken parm for breakfast (its 10:49) actually sounds delicious😊.

After dinner we grabbed our last things at Katies, Erik rode his bike to Leslies and I went to Alyssa for a little chat on the porch while being attacked by very weird beetle bugs. Those little basterds were onto something….they flew right upto our faces, in our shirts and they were scary. We still don’t know what they were though.

Wednesday July 20th 2022

Today we woke up in our new place at the Kola’s. After a nice morningchat with my friend Leslie I grabbed some fresh coffee and my laptop to work on my blog. I haven’t been writing since Friday so I have a lot of catching up to do. The past two days were very busy, with fun stuff and with some necessary, not so fun, stuff.

This afternoon we are gonna visit our friends Wayne & Michelle. We are very excited about that.

The weather here has been amazing for us Dutchies. Its been between 30-35 degrees celcius which we don’t often get in Holland. Funny detail though that yesterday it was actually almost 40 degrees in Holland which is very very uncommon. Erik and I were saying that we are happy to be in the states during that heat there. Reason being that we are not used to it so most houses don’t have AC and therefor its almost not doable. Also pools in the backyard are not very common either, as the backyards are often smaller then the average pools we see around here lol.

More to come

XO Wendy

First few days

Tuesday July 12th 2022

While the kids were at the pool with Erik this morning and I was reorganizing the suitcases, my friend Alyssa texted to let me know she was on the way for a quick hug on the parking lot. She had to go to work so we only had a 5-minute moment, but it was so nice!!! And it fit right into the way that we have been in touch over the past year. We had decided before we left that we would try to call whenever we would have a minute, not having to worry whether it would fit the others schedule. Rather have quick hello’s more often, then long talks that we had to plan. It worked out perfectly and so this quick hug was perfect!!!!

After the kids and Erik came back, we left the hotel and got on the road to Katie and John’s house. It sounds like quite the undertaking but it was something like: Get in the car with all kids and all suitcases, then enter the street, take a right, then another right, follow this road to the end, take a right, a left, another left and there they were….waiting for us on the porch. While writing this this blogpost my tears are creeping up in my throat again. I cannot describe how it feels to be here and see the people I love so much again. Its an insane ride that we are on, but I’m loving it!!!

After our first hellos, the tour through our bed & breakfast 😉, which I must say Katie has outdone herself, we had drinks and delicious lunch etc. The kids were so happy to see each other again!!! After lunch we went to see our friend Leslie. It is so weird to drive around town which we can do with our eyes closed still. After seeing those wonderful faces, we went back to Katies as our friends Alda and Alyssa would come over for appetizers. I cannot even tell you how full my heart is after seeing all these wonderful friends today. The kids just continued where they left of last year as if no time had passed. Boy, have I missed these playdates/gatherings. We had so much fun!!!

And then they came out with a BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW birthday cake for me!!! And they all sang “Lang zal ze leven” (Happy birthday in Dutch) for me! Talking about feeling the love!

It really was as if no time has passed! I got the question how I feel a lot, not only that night, but over text, on fb etc and to be honest….I don’t know. The best answer is probably that I feel everything, all the emotions mixed up, going up and down and more. Am I happy, sad, relieved??? Yes, but no….I don’t know. It is funny to write this as I know so many of you don’t really understand, but also so many of you (probably mostly the people that do or have done this kind of thing) know exactly what I mean.

When I am crying I don’t even know if it is happy tears or sad and all. It is so weird and I decided to just embrace it as I am sure not able to control it. What I can say is that my fear of how it will be when we leave in 4 weeks has not been going away, it only grew. But I am able to just put it aside, sometimes after venting it to Erik or to whoever is lucky enough to be around when it comes up lol.

The night was PERFECT! We ended it with fun shenanigans and some group pictures which I love and will share soon as well.

We slept really well from the beginning and had no issues at all with jetlag, which is awesome and so helpful!

Wednesday July 13th 2022

When I woke up this morning, I heard people downstairs and also a guys voice but I figured that was Katies dad who also lives in the house. When I went downstairs though it turned out to be our friend John who was away for work and we wouldn’t see him until end of July. But he had the day off and drove home as a surprise. Him and Nynke made a delicious real American breakfast of American pancakes and bacon and eggs. It was so nice!!

After breakfast and catching up Erik and I took the kids to run some very essential errands, we visited our friends TJ, Maxx and Target😊. The plan was to shop, which we did, only I am afraid that I will have to go back as the only stuff we bought had Pim and Nynkes name on it…(but isn’t that what moms do😊).

After shopping Erik dropped me off at Barrels & Boards to have lunch with Tristin who unexpectedly had the day off. So we enjoyed a delicious lunch with only the two of us. I missed catching up like this, even though we didn’t get to do a 1 on 1 that often even when living here. After lunch I grabbed my bathing suit to go to Edgewood (local pool where Katie has a membership). She had already gone there with all the kids and Erik and John decided to go ride their bikes together.

When I got there I saw Rachel and the kids and another friend Holly, it is so nice to see everyone and see how big all the kids have gotten.

When we almost wanted to leave, Erik and John showed up to take a swim after a very hot bike ride. The kids were so excited to have the guys show up.

After that we went home and John and Katie grilled out and made a delicious dinner. I sure can get used to this😉. After dinner Katie and I sneaked away to go run some errands. We went to the dollar tree which turns out to be the dollar and 25 cents store now lol. And we also went to the Walmart for a bit. It feels so familiar to walk around those stores. It even smells familiar.

After that my battery literally ran out and it was bedtime. How wonderful this day was, I got to spent quality time with both Tristin and Katie, what a treat!!!! Can’t wait for everything else that is coming our way the coming 4 weeks!

XO Wen

(Pictures to follow, or you can see them on my facebookpage)