Trade-Off

Let me just start by saying...we're living in Europe!!! Yippee!

Ok, now the chaotic part, forcing me to have plans that are well thought out and orchestrated to retrieve our desired items like...my daughter's favorite panties. I just ordered them from Amazon.com because I can't find the same exact ones at Target.com (where I'm pretty sure I bought them in the store before we came). I then have them shipped to my parents' house so K can stop by, pack them in his suitcase, and bring them to us. I could have sent a picture of them with K when he returns to the states in a few days or send a picture to my mom and have her try to find the replicas at the real store. (By the way, what would you say if you were shopping in the Greenwood Target and came across my husband in the girl's panties aisle with a picture in his hand, sorting through the racks for not only the right style, but the right size too? It would take him at least 10 min. I'm sure!)
This is the part where K and I believe most tasks here take 3 times as long to accomplish. I should be able to just go to the store here, see her size, bring them home, wash them, and viola! They're panties and I'm spending how many minutes searching for them on the internet to find the ones we know have the perfect fit? I spent 3 times as much money for them too! This is ridiculous, but they are the ones that don't give her a wedgie (which by the way, how do you spell that?), so when you think of the comfort she's enjoying while she plays on the monkey bars at school, it's completely worth the hassle. It's a trade-off, but we're still enjoying it!

Girls' Night Out...Washed Away...

I had just taken a shower and gotten all dolled up for our Girls' Night Out with other women from my Hints for Living in Belgium class when the downpour had started. K arrived home a little early to watch the kids and my dear friend Amy was stopping by to drop off her daughter as her husband was out of town. It was raining so hard I knew my hair was going to be a complete mess before we even got downtown for the Chez Leon dinner highly recommended by the "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" book. R quietly played upstairs while I busied myself with making a pizza for K and the kids until we heard some toys fall over...or so we thought. After yelling upstairs to make sure he was okay, K walked by the door to the basement and realized the sound he had heard had not come from upstairs. Water gushed through a pipe into our basement. It was as if the fire department had taken their high power hose only to have it spill out into our basement.

Now you can imagine the horror of it all...fast paced...it's still completely pouring outside...K's in his work clothes...I run to get his rain boots...he ventures down to the cellar to retrieve anything he can...this isn't stopping anytime soon...he retrieves some suitcases...a few other boxes...the water's rising...we're helpless...he tells us to go on as there's nothing we can do (Seriously? You really think we're going to leave you with 3 children and a rapidly flooding basement to go have a great time chatting over dinner with some friends? Isn't he sweet?)...the water's too high and now coming past his boots...he's outside trying to stop the drainpipe or whatever it's called that's allowing all the water to pour in...he's completely drenched...it's worthless...the water and mud are being pulled into the drain...he tries to start digging trenches for water to drain away from the house...rain is still pouring...the electricity goes out...the kids are starving, so they start eating pizza...we're praying for the rain to stop...he thinks it's going to flood the first floor of our house...Amy and I take off like rapidfire getting all the family photos to the guest bedroom upstairs in our high heeled boots...we're carrying up our camera, laptop, K's work bag, my purse, the movies, the Wii...flashbacks of the Greenwood, IN flood occur in my head...trying to get anything we can off the floor...I'm sweating bullets...the rugs are up...our first floor is completely upturned...what a nightmare...cords are placed anywhere off the floor...the rain finally slows down and we don't hear the gush in the basement anymore...the water rises higher than the top of K's head and only a few inches below our first floor...so close to ruining everything...Girls' Night Out washed away in just about an hour and a half.

We sigh and take in what has just happened. What to do? Where to start cleaning? Amy takes the kids to her house so they can spend the night and hopefully have a normal day tomorrow. K and I are completely drained, but we're trying to clean up and dry some of our belongings he was able to save. K reflects on the truth of it being so difficult to handle when you have no control of the status of your house slipping away right before your eyes. We remember the people in Greenwood and Franklin who lost homes and belongings only a little over a year ago and praise God that the rain stopped before our house completely flooded.

And I thought not having internet for a few weeks was a pain in the booty (I can't even call my mom and dad to just cry!). Little did I know what was coming! I didn't realize how much work went into cleaning up a basement that has flooded, and our work has only begun. Now the pump (very slow might I add) is working and at this rate will have the water completely out by tomorrow evening.

Right now this is my prayer: Thank you, Lord that the basement just held "stuff" (even though I'm really going to miss the kids' hand made Christmas ornaments from preschool) and that we're all safe!

Will We Get to Watch American Idol Again?

K traveled to the states last week and our internet conveniently decided not to work on Tuesday when he was away. We are 99% sure we know the source of the problem, but with the language barrier, along with other events, we haven't been able to bring resolution to the issue. The internet company came out to our street last week and just happened to be digging, for what? (maybe the geocaching thing I just heard about??) we're not sure, but we're pretty sure they cut our line. Now, we're pretty sure also that in the states the company would have it fixed within 48 hours (probably even 24 hours), but not the case here. We didn't have the right "username" to check the status of our service. Can't they just look up your address? No. It just goes on and on from there. I won't bore you with the details. So, now the gentleman today said we'd have to wait until next Wednesday the 20th, yes, another week, to have the technician come and fix the line. That just puts a little damper on things...like blogging, and watching American Idol on the Slingbox...we're so far behind...will the Tivo cut out a show since it's only supposed to have 2 saved at a time? We'll just have to go to McDonald's to watch it on their free internet before any episodes are deleted! Hopefully we'll get our internet up and running again before Danny wins the whole thing. Don't give us any information...we want to watch it for ourselves!

Kelsey's New Passport

Kelsey Koo came to Belgium with all her paperwork proving she's had mandatory shots and the required microchip placed in her neck. Since we've been here I've had to explain that 05/01/09 means May 1, 2009 instead of the European way of writing dates which would be interpreted as January 5, 2009 on her paperwork. Here they write the day first and then the month when they use numbers. She needed her rabies vaccine sometime in May to be up to date on her shots, and to allow her to stay at the kennels.

The veterinarian was 2 minutes away. We walked in at 4:20 for our 4:30 appointment and left there at 4:30 with a passport, a quick good-health exam, and 2 shots. The veterinarian, along with the doctor only have 2 rooms in their clinics. One is the waiting room and the other is the exam/office/everything else room. 72,50 euros and 10 minutes later (in Europe a comma is used instead of a period and vice versa when dealing with numbers) we walked out completely set for another year. Kelsey came out with a clean bill of health and her new passport.

I love the passport idea. All the documentation about the dog is in one small book and that leaves no filing or paper shuffling for the owner. Then when we drop her off at the doggie hotel, we can prove she endured the pain of the shots by simply presenting her passport...and we can have another adventurous vacation!

Belated Easter Egg Coloring Pictures

I recently found out (after stressing about all these pictures and places) you can take your blog and make it into a book "very easily". We'll see how the 'easily' part turns out, but that took a huge weight off my shoulders since I of course wanted to scrapbook our journeys. Hopefully we can eventually figure out how to implement the program.

I found these Easter pictures that I need to have in my scrapbook, so they're a little belated, but better late than never.

The brown eggs here didn't seem to hinder our American dyes.

J picked some thick paints that easily covered any traces of brown eggs.

R's dye consisted of two steps with the first being dying eggs in a baggie. Then sparkles were added for the finishing touch. Surprisingly, these also came out well without using white eggs.

Yes, if you look closely at the newspaper protecting the table, it's from the U.S. I know you're thinking I'm crazy bringing over the Daily Journal from 2008, but with the dog's cage, I wasn't sure where or when we'd get newspaper here. Since I'm not wasting my money buying a Belgian newspaper I can't read solely for her droppings, I packed it just for her. It came in handy! :)

Labor Day in May?

Yes, in Belgium we celebrate Labor Day in May, so K and the kids had the day off. The sun was supposed to be out all day and the high reaching up to 67 degrees. A perfect day for the English Channel beach - just a 2 hour drive from our house. Sure beats driving to Florida (about 18 hours?) with 2 kids in the back seat.

Supposedly the Belgian coast is crowded, but if you cross over the border to the Netherlands, the atmosphere is more relaxed. We heeded the advice from others and ended up in a town called Cadzand. After parking the car, we walked up the ramp to discover the beach...Beautiful!

You can click on the picture below and see K and Kelsey, our dog, who made her debut at the beach. So much for a little dog to see and take in! She basked in the sun all day and crashed on the way home from all the activity.

Some of the sights we took in included sailboats, cargo ships, kids digging in the sand, dogs playing with their owners, kids playing paddleball and cricket on the beach, naked kids (I think I counted about 10) running around - why?, and one lady bathing topless (welcome to Europe everyone!). Luckily my kids didn't see or we were going to be in for a discussion. They did wonder why all the children were running around without bathing suits. Yeah, me too. The other peculiar thing is that some kids had t-shirts on, but no pants.

This is J burying her arms in the sand.
J building her dream castle.

R building digging in a pit.

R and K playing paddleball. Can you eye-spy something he's missing? That tricky photographer!

This cute little area of beach had a restaurant so we could eat lunch outside with our feet still sandy. Children climbed on the playset nearby and teeter tottering became another fun activity for the kids.

You can't drive through the Netherlands without seeing some windmills worth photographing! Here's two we found along the way.

We had a great time at the beach and I'm sure we'll continue to go throughout the summer!