When it Rains.....

Summer 2010, wow! While there have been a few bright moments (the wedding, getting to see Holly, getting to go back to the US for the aforementioned wedding) it's overall been one full of those life lessons I'd just as soon not repeat:














1) No matter how hard you work, you're never irreplaceable.
2) The 6 month nest egg "just in case" is more important than anything you want now. (see point 1 above)
3) Even great and loving families go through rough patches.
4) Losing someone who you love makes you take stock of your own life.
5) Sometimes you have to get way past something before you can see the way things happen for a reason.
6) Whenever you're not there to witness it, some kind of milestone with your child will happen.

Right now I still have the feeling I'm at a crossroads....I can't see yet how things are going to turn out, which path is the right one to take (or if I'll even have a choice.) I hope that whatever the next few months hold, Kevin will know I've done my best - for both of us. It's sometimes pretty awe-inspiring to think that whatever I do now affects more than just me - I'm responsible for this amazing little man who I love so very much. It's as humbling as it is terrifying.

Mostly, this post is just to let everyone know we're still hanging in there, waiting for life lesson 5 to make itself known.

Summer Vacation Update - Our US visit in photos

As many of you know, this summer has been an interesting one. Firstly, our vacation got off to an early start this year due to Andrea and Eric's wedding. They had a beautiful ceremony at a great location on a wonderful day, and we were very lucky to be a part of it - Kevin as a ring bearer and I as a bridesmaid.

Leaving before the official end of the school year meant behind the scenes manouvering for the last 6 months to get permission from Kevin's School (the easy part) the School Board and the ultimately the city hall/council. Our offical permisson came through at the beginning of May, which might have been after the airlines tickets were already purchased........

Two days before we were due to leave, I got called into the office and was greeted with awful news - I wouldn't have a job when we came back from vacation. It cast a pallor over the final preparations and there was a lot of pressure to get things sorted out for myself in the less than 48 we had before we caught our flight to the US.

We arrived on Wednesday night after almost 24 hours of door to door travel. Once there, the first few days were a whirlwind of pre-wedding activity - final fittings, secuirty tags on the ring bearer suit that were missed in a post christmas clearance sale and now needed to be remomved.....a rehearsal dinner to meet the rest of the wedding party and see the location - which while beautiful, was a little remote and took a lot of back and forth driving......

....and before we knew it it was Saturday, the day of the wedding. I can't wait to have some pictures to share, becuase it really was beautiful in every way. Saturday night we all had the opportunity to stay at the venue and not travel back to Roseburg until Sunday.

The week following the wedding we tried to fill with family excursions....We got to catch up with Holly, there was the Enchanted Forest trip, the visit and small hike to Toketee Falls to see the impressive 120 foot waterfall as well as Crater Lake on the Friday before the 4th of July weekend. We did as much of the rim drive as was open, and even in early July we got hit with a snow/hale/ice storm during our picnic lunch at approx 7,000 feet up.





We wrapped up our visit with fireworks and a small birthday gathering on the 5th before it was time to pack up and hit the road before 7am on Wedensday morning to catch our flight back home out of Portland.

Even though it was two weeks and you think before you leave home you'll have enough time to do all the things you want, and see everyone you want, there will still items left on both the to do and to see list this time. It was such a whirlwind of activity our whole visit - it went by so fast!

Summer Travels & 5 year old logic

Little Man has been looking forward to getting on an airplane and going to 'Amerika' for months. Exactly why the prospect of such a long plane ride would be so thrilling, I'm not exactly sure. So, a few days before we flew, I finally asked him and he told me it was because he could watch all the movies he wanted to - plus he wanted to sit at the window and look outside while we were really high up.

So, when we flew on the 23rd of June, I let him sit at the window in the row of 2 where we were seated. As soon as we'd leveled off, he looked out the window - and he didn't like what he saw at all! He declared we were too high up, and he was scared...Mom had to lean over and shut his window shade - and so it remained for the rest of the flight.

For the next 10 hours or so, he would occasionally sneak a peek, only to lower the shade again........By the time of our return flight 2 weeks later, the idea of being on a plane for 10 hours was no longer exciting. Welcome to how the rest of us feel, Little Man!

Over the next few posts, I'll be posting pics and sharing stories from our visit -we covered a lot of ground this time!

• Andrea's Wedding @ The Big K Ranch, Elkton


• Visit with Holly and Robbie (and a girls nite!)


• Feeding the ducks at the duck pond (by Fred Meyer, of course!)


• Trip to the Enchanted Forest (Salem)


• Walk to Toktee Falls


• Visit to Crater Lake


• 4th of July


• My 32nd B-day (complete with sunflower cake!)

This has to be the earliest summer vacation I've had since my own wedding, and it feels a bit strange to come back and still have the whole summer ahead......but looking forward to it, and hopefully some extra time with Little Man during his 6 week vacation that started Friday afternoon.

I hope everyone else is having a great summer!

Kevin "Picasso" Fels

This past week, 2 things having to do with Little Man's artistic abilities have come about.....Even for his (always) busy mom, that's a post-worthy happening. On this gorgeous, sunny, tail end of the working week, I'd like to take this moment to appreciate and brag - as is a Mother's right! :-)
This school year, Kevin's school has had an 'art menu' with all kinds of activities. They have linked these activities to fundraising to support a Dutch based charity that helps children in 130 countries all over the world. One of these activities was an art action, and each student painted their own canvas. The proceeds of the sale went to the charity. (Dad bought Kevin's canvas to enjoy and show off).

After the art auction, each class chose one student's artwork to represent their class and be shown on a postcard. The set of postcards, with one image per class, is then given (6 sets per student) to sell to neighbors, relatives, people at work, etc.

I received my 6 sets of postcards this week to sell, and when I was looking through them, I found this and thought " I know that signature!":

And when I looked on the back of the card for the credit, there it was.....My Little Man - his artwork - on a postcard!

And then, this same week, while mom was still basking in the postcard glory (and selling the cards to his father, my mother, poor co-workers, etc).........he comes home with this drawing: :

And I knew what it was...no squinting, no 3 guesses, no 'you tell me what I'm going to guess it is'......I recognized it right away as his playmobil fire truck with extendible ladder and extra wheels and sirens and......it was awesome!

It's been a good week to be a mommy! I'm off now to enjoy the weekend, some 'mommy time' and to dream of a retirement funded by art sales and autograph signings :-)

April Milestones

Now that we’ve passed the 5th birthday milestone, mom was prepared that things might go a little quiet on the blogging front without much to report on that was new. I guess Kevin decided we couldn’t have that, and set about giving me something to write about – He can cycle on two wheels!

I should mention that while he’s pretty well on track ( I seem to remember the training wheels going off my Pink Schwinn somewhere between 5 &6) it’s felt like he’s behind the curve here in one of the cycling capitals of the world. It’s not uncommon here to see 3 & 4 year olds on 12 inch cycles without training wheels zipping along with their 5-foot safety flag waving alongside. Kevin had so far resisted any attempt to remove his training wheels for ‘practice’.

It reminded me very much of when we were trying to get him to walk……he went directly from crawling to running across the room. No tries, no stumbles…..He takes his time (practicing in his sleep?!) and just as we start to wonder…..he busts out a brand new capability like he’s been doing it forever.

He’s already able to cycle to the shops in the center of town, go to the recreational lake/forest area near his dad’s place….soon I’m sure he’ll be out-cycling mom, and be a true Dutchy cycling everywhere!

Here is a video from the end of the afternoon on that first day of cycling…this is near to dad’s house, and dad’s using his cameraphone….it might not be the best quality (and the proud papa Dutch commentary is an added bonus) but it’s clear to see how proud of this accomplishment he is……as are we!

Birthday Boy

It's *only * been, like, a month (!) since Little Man turned 5.........

So, before I have to start planning for the next birthday, here are some photos/video of both the day itself and the long anticipated (if you're the b-day boy) party!

I know, it took me long enough..... :-)

These were on the big day, before we loaded the car for school that day (Yes, we took the balloons to school and tied them to the special chair/throne they the birthday kid gets to sit in).

For the class, we made little favor tubes with stickers, temporary tatooes, confetti, a balloon, a self inking stamp and small candies. Here is a photo of the contents and then the final package once it was all in the tubes.

I ordered the boxes for the cupcakes from ebay, and I also ordered smaller boxes for the favors at the same time from the same store.... but, what I got when I opened the package from hong kong were these little tubes and the cupcakes boxes. There wasn't time to re-order before the party, so Mom just had to make do. The end result wasn't too bad, if I'm allowed to say so?

As I already admitted in my last post, I 'cheated' on the cupcakes and ordered them rather than made them myself. Still, Kevin was happy with them! Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to make the cupcakes from scratch myself......

For the party on Saturday we did small favor bags with cupcakes, all in the theme of (of course) Cars. Everyone got a bag and a Cars balloon (or a star ballon if you one of the three girls) when they left the party. Since we had 12 kids for the party, compared to 25 plus in the class, we could have some small gifts in the bags as well.

The party on Saturday for 12 was at a bowling and event center in the next town over, Hoofddorp. They had a package for birthday parties that included birthday cake (you couldn't bring your own), drinks and then 1 1/2 hours bowling. We had three lanes - you can only have 6 kids per lane, and then I had an extra lane for the parents, which worked well - most of the parents stayed and bowled and had a good time, and I had some some support. I wouldn't advise trying to handle 12 kids in a bowling alley solo! The last hour of bowling was "disco" or cosmic bowling with blacklight and dance music. The kids all got glow in the dark necklaces to wear, and we were done entertaining by 4pm. I still think next year, Mom might scale it back to 6-8 kids, sizewise...........but I'm not thinking about next year yet! (no, really, I'm not!) :-)

As you can see from the video, Kevin got some great presents and we'll sign off with a photo of the (future) bowling phenom in action!

Party Planning 101 - Dutch Style

So, now, onto the Party Planning phase of Mission:Impossible - Birthday Edition. This was originally one really loooong post together with the countdown clock, but I decided to break into smaller posts before a reader's eyes started to bleed :-)

When it came to planning where and what the party should be this year, we based on recent experiences he really semeed to enjoy, something we could do with between 10 and 12 children, and something that, with any luck, I could enourage the parents to stick around for, becuase who really wants sole responsibility for tweleve 5 year old boys?

The fun he had with Bowling during the Christmas break meant he wanted to have a bowling party for this birthday, in the theme of everything Cars - Lightening Mc Queen, to be exact. At first, it was Spiderman (again), then it was SpongeBob (who Kev loves (from his dad) but is not so popular over here yet), and finally we settled on the ever cool, always a hit with 5-7 year old boys, Cars. it also ticked all of mom's boxes (see above) so, I figured we were good to go!

With that settled, Mom has spent the better part of two weeks searching websites both here and in the US (love Ebay for things like this!) for all things Cars. So far, I've found the favors for both the class party and the bowling party attendees, the balloons, the invites, and someone to make about 70 cupcakes for the different parties (easier to transport and share than a cake, and no fights over corner or 'small' pieces!

I'm outsourcing the cupcakes because as much as I love to bake, 70 cupcakes is beyond my capabilities during a work week. I'll package them nicely and with some creativity (I'll post pictures later) but the actual baking would just be overwhelming on top of the parties and gifts and the invites.

Class parties over here are so...creative. There are home made gifts, made to look like other things (think paper ducks whose wings are chocolate egg holders, elaborate things made out of pipe cleaners……you get the idea? Then there are the funny handcrafted bags to put everything in...maybe it is for a lower costs overall (as a Dutch pastime seems to be to compare relative cheapness of things with pride – “this, oh it took only 5 hours and 49 cents to make!), but unless there are some bulk methods to buying craft items I haven’t yet stumbled across here after 13 years, it's never as cheap as they say when you try to replicate it!!

The materials that go into crafty handmade things aren’t exactly cheap over here (there are no large craft stores, or malls or anything like that in most towns, and then you've got to figure in the time it takes to make 50-70 of anything.

There aren't enough hours in the day for this mom, I'm sorry to say. I love to be creative, but that's just too big a scale for me. Those are the moments I feel very fish out of water with the more traditional Dutch moms who work 2-3 days a week and have time for these kinds of activities. At birthday time, I'm jealous, and wish I could do more 'from scratch'. Oh well... Maybe I need a hobby room like Holly's! - I should put in a request for an attic conversion, hmmm.......

You wouldn't think 12 invites would be a big deal - I didn't, but then I got the invites and realized they were completely blank! That means a lot of handwriting, in Dutch! The Dutch part is what takes forever, then add on Kevin's wanting to 'help' by writing his name in each invite, and mom's bright idea to add confetti and a balloon to each invite, then realize I was out of stamps and needed to order/buy some (because otherwise I'm trusting one almost 5 year old to deliver something to another 4 or 5 year old, and they in turn have to get it home to mom and dad), and before I knew it, 12 invites had turned into a worthy part of a blog post.

I'm also carrying on the tradition this year of the b-day shirt. Every year, I've gotten something for everyone who comes to his parties to sign. For the first b-day, it was the autograph bear with birthday cupcake from Build-a-Bear, and each year since, I've gotten a personalized t-shirt in the theme of the party that all the kids (and parents) can sign. This way he has something fun to wear on the day once everyone has signed it, and later he'll have something to look back at as his friends change (or don't).

So, with 29 nights to go, and the invites to 12 kids and their parents out........now I have to think about what my present will be...I'm tempted to go easy this year while I still can and do the party, let 1 or 2 friends stay over, and call it good. I think between Dad, Oma and Opa's, and the friends who come to the party, he'll be more than covered gift wise, and a party for 12, plus the class party for 30 has to be paid for somehow, and it's all mom as far as planning and invested time goes..... What do you guys think - can a party be considered a gift?

Leave a comment and ease my guilt, or let me know if I'll be scarring him for life if there isn't a package in the pile with my name on it.

I'll re-visit in March with pics and party stories, promise!

Winter Wonderland

We're in the middle of a winter wonderland here in The Netherlands...... since about a week before Christmas, it's been snowy, freezing and everytime the snow melts away, there comes in a day or two a fresh layer. Both this year and last year the man made lake our balcony is out on was a big hockey/skating rink....a hot topic of discussion here is if there is still time to have the first elfstedentocht (eleven city tour) since 1997 this year. This week, the temps are supposed to plummet, staying between -2 and plus 2 during the day,a nd dropping to -10 at night....that's supposed to be 'great' for the natural ice and chances for skating...not so great if you're already almost 2 weeks into a head cold!

In the middle of the deep freeze early in January, a whole crew of dads and older brothers shoveled the snow off the lake to make a skating rink. I loved the view and watching all the winter activity from my warm, dry living room! :-) (I'm not sure what it says about me that one of my first thoughts was "a kid could make a killing here selling hot chocolate off the balcony). Kev's not yet old enough for his first lemonade (or hot choclate) stand, but Mom's filing that one away for future use!

During the last week, there was the first day that there was no snow or ice left on the roads near the house, or the sidewalks. The lake just melted, and all the snow piles had just just about melted before the snow started again at the start of this week - so it's not over yet, but a solid 6 weeks snow and ice in a country where they are not prepared for it at all has been pretty challenging. I've managed a personal best and only slipped and fallen twice - but it was on the same day and both times outside Kev's school.

Last week Monday, the commute into work due to snowfall took a record 2 hours and 15 minutes to drive 50 kilometers (say 30 miles). it also landed number 10 on the list of worst traffic jams ever, with over 500 kilometers of traffic jams around the country. Crazy!

Kevin has really enjoyed the snowy winter so far, and got his first pair of adjustable ice skates (double bladed for stability) for Christmas. He's been skating on an indoor rink twice during the school break, with use of a kind of walker-like device to keep him standing. During the Christmas break, we went bowling, skating, to the movie theatre, a pancake restuarant, had a play date and played a lot with his race track that he asked Santa for - so much so that one of the cars had to be replaced already, but he's figured out how to do the upside down loop withour flying out of the next corner.

On New Year's, I had my first preview of how the new neighboorhood celebrates New Year's. New Year's Eve is NL's 4th of July (and then some) as far as fireworks go, and I was amazed at how many fireworks there were starting from 10pm. Here private people can buy professional level fireworks.....In this short video, taken a bit after midnight, you get the idea.....these were all private households nearby! The height was the first 10 mins of the New Year. Next year, I'll know to have my camera ready, but even so, I found this pretty impressive!

Next year, I know where I'll be spending New Year's.....with a free show like this courtesy of the neighbors :-)...amd I can watch it all from the couch....this was the view from inside my living room. When you see this video, it's not hard to belive that the spend on fireworks this New Years was something like 65 million euros (!)

There's also been opportunities to build a snowman with his dad, and get pulled on a sleigh by dad.......Not that he really enjoys it or anything! :-)

Here is a few more from our collection of winter 2009-2010 photos....enjoy!

This was the skating rink the neighborhood dad's made on a Saturday morning...and what it looked like a 4pm as the light was starting to go.

And the skating continued the next day, but the wind made it really cold...no-one was out there much longer than 30 minutes at a time, but it seemed like most people were from the houses nearby, so the came back throughout the day. This was the view from the living room.

Of course, Kevin did make it out there, but he found it too cold (and a little bit scary, considering the he knows it's a lake filled with water most of the year), so after the obligatory 30 mins, we were back inside, drinking hot chocolate and watching the kids play hockey.

After a day of outdoor play in the fresh air, there is nothing quite like a warm bath, footie pj's (from Oma & Opa for Christmas) and a photo op!

B-day Countdown Clock

I think this is universal to moms everywhere, but the only way to measure time as far as Little Man is concerned is 'How many more night do I have to sleep until......?"

We used this to great effect when Oma and Vivi came to visit this last summer, but then it was with the visual help of a paper chain - we took one chain link away each night before bed, and then he could count the links left. It's amazing to me that in the 7 months or so since, his countdowns are now more or less in his head. I have to set the base line number (90, or 40 or whatever) and then he pretty much keeps track from there, and will then tell me every night after ' did you know there are only so many more nights till..........'

He gets occasionally caught up when he's been 3 or 4 nights with his dad, and hasn't done the countdown in the in-between days, so we'll have to reset the count.....but overall, he's pretty spot on, and understand the concept that the closer something is, the less nights there are till it happens. I bring this all up because the countdown we are in the middle of now is '29-more-nights-till-the big-5-and -31-till-the-party-countdown.

So, in that spirit, and since Kevin lately has taken to asking if he can see 'his pictures on mommy's computer that are for Oma' (also known as 'the blog'), here is his very own Birthday Countdown Clock:


Birthday-Countdowns