We definitely weren’t your typical dog owners at the beginning.  We didn’t take our dog for as many walks as most people around here did.  We were happy to let him out in the back yard to do what he needed to do.  In the last few years, I’ve learned to really enjoy taking Boomer for a daily walk.  During the week, we walk for 1.5 miles and on the weekends, we bump it up to 2 miles.  It’s something he very much likes to do.  During these outings, I realized that I slowly had become part of the dog-owning subculture or “one of them.”

In the beginning, I never let Boomer off his leash.  Inside our house, he was apt to bark at anything – especially dogs – that walked by.  He also wasn’t the most obedient.  I was afraid that if I let him loose, I’d never get him back.  Plus, he constantly pulled trying to get to other dogs.  I only saw the bad that could come from that.  I eventually got to the point that I started letting him loose, but only in certain areas where everyone else did.  I started to encounter the same people/dogs everyday.  It reminded me a bit of children’s church.  While I might know all the kids’ names, I have a hard time with their parents’ names.  I found myself talking to the dogs and calling them by name but having no clue as to the owners’ names.

One day, I met a lady walking her dog.  Sometime into our conversation, here’s what was said:

Her – “Ben je een Nederlander?” (Are you Dutch)

Me – “Nee, ik kom uit Amerika.” (No, I’m from America.)

Her – “I’m English!”

Since then, when I see Harvey (I still don’t know her name), I immediately speak English.

Not too long ago, while Boomer and I were out for our walk, I came across someone with their dogs that I’d never seen before.  I went a little further and ran across my neighbor.  Yes, I do know his name.  :)  As we were talking, he pointed to the other man with his dogs and asked me if I knew them.  I said, “No, I’ve never seen them walking around here before.”  It hit me then: I’ve become one of them.  I’ve found that when I’m jogging, other joggers greet me like we’re great friends.  When I’m walking my dog, I really have built relationships because of Boomer.

Last week, Boomer had to have surgery to remove stones from his bladder.  He has stitches and isn’t allowed to scratch them.  In the house, he has to wear a t-shirt that is more like a onesie.  It even has snaps that go on either side of his tail.  It’s better for him than a cone, but it’s a bit of a hassle for us at times.

Boomer's onesie

When I’m taking him for a walk, it’s definitely in the way, so I take it off.  Until the stitches come out, he has to stay on his leash while on walks.  I feel like we’ve stepped back in time when I was afraid to let him loose.  I’m also concerned with what the other owners will say.  Yep, I’m definitely “one of them!”

Canal near our house

Everyday I take our dog for a walk.  What a beautiful view I get to see and enjoy!

Blooming tree

I love walking by this tree. It looks a bit like snow when its petals start to fall.

Spring flowers

I know what you’re thinking.  It’s Spring in Holland.  Surely you’ve got some tulips around.  Of course we do.  In fact, we have a few in our front yard.  They’re so pretty that I don’t want to pick them.  I just enjoy looking at them in the ground.  One thing I love here is when we go into Leiden.  There’s a farmer who sells flowers pretty cheaply.  Today we went by, and I saw that he was selling 5 bundles for 5 euros.  That’s 50 flowers for 5 euros.  Do the math!  You can’t get anything priced like that in America.  I brought them home, and they were too much for my large vase, so I had to add an additional vase.  Beautiful!

My Tulip Bargain

We also had a few Zuper Zondags during the series. We’ve got an incredible lady who comes up with crafts for us. Here are a few of her ideas for the kids.

Fruit tree

Fruit mouse

Of course, the kids were creative and made things in their own way.

Kid's fruit mouse

For our last lesson, we talked about good fruit vs bad fruit. Mike offered bad fruit first to the kids and then gave out good fruit.  It was a good visual for the kids and adults as well. The apple was so gross! Mike put it in a plastic bag and simply pushed on it causing it to explode. I definitely want to have good fruit in my life!

Good fruit vs bad fruit

My favorite season is spring. I love the hope that comes after a long winter and gray skies. I love the flowers making their first appearances and warmer temperatures. We’ve had a few days of warmer weather. Well, I guess warmer is relative. I saw that for family in America, it has been much warmer than it has here. Nevertheless, I’ll take the warmer temperatures we’ve had. The highs have been 10 – 15 C (in the 50s F). I got so excited that I decided to wear a short sleeve shirt and flip flops when we went out. Mike laughed at me, and I realized that it was a bit too soon for that. I’ve added a hoodie to my t-shirt and traded my flip flops for warmer slippers.

We can see flowers beginning to bloom everywhere. They’re so beautiful. With that, blue skies and warmer weather, it’s hard not to get excited. Now, if it will only get a little bit warmer, I can break out the flip flops and not freeze trying to wear them!

When I observe her, I see some differences in her from most American kids.  First of all, she only understands temperature in Celsius.  We were Skyping with my family, they mentioned that the weather had been in the 70s.  I looked at Grace and asked her if she  knew what that meant.  She didn’t, so I told her that it was about 20 degrees.  She immediately knew what that was.

She also has an odd mix of vocabulary and spelling.  She is taught English on a British curriculum, so she writes about how many metres it is to the centre of town.

Grace can also compare the voices of cartoons in English versus Dutch.  She said that Spongebob is weird to hear in Dutch because they don’t sound too much like their English counterparts.  Mickey Mouse, however, sounds exactly the same – except for the fact that he’s speaking another language.

When it comes to traveling, Grace has more miles under her belt than most adults.  She’s flown over the Atlantic Ocean seven times.  When we go somewhere, she’s the one to remind us that we’ll need our passports.  While we’re in The Netherlands, we don’t travel all that often, but since countries are small and it’s easy to get from one place to the next, she’s been to quite a few countries.

Grace’s list of best friends changes often.  One friend in America has stayed on the top of the list since Grace was a baby though.  Some of her other best friends she’s had here have moved to places like Spain, Libya, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain.  Between that and being in an international school, Grace’s world geography knowledge is pretty good.

I often think about what an amazing opportunity it is for her to grow up in another culture while at the same time wondering what it’ll be like when she goes back to the States or where she’ll end up when she’s older.  I do my best to help her as a mom, but I have to leave most of that in God’s hands!

This backpack is a symbol of graduation

With the World Cup going on, it’s normal to see plenty of orange or Dutch flags.  During this past week, we’ve started to see backpacks put out with flags.  This is only done at the end of the school year, and it’s a sign that someone in the house has graduated.  They literally hang up their backpacks.  When you drive through the city, you’re sure to see this sight.

Here is the other thing that I never thought I’d see advertised:

New herring is here!

Herring is a really big deal here.  They eat it raw & pickled.  Often, they’ll put raw onions on it.  I’ve been told that this helps it taste better.  I take people’s word for it.  I don’t like seafood, so I stay as far away from this stuff as I can.  This is the time of year that the new herring is sold.  It’s the first herring of the season.  People say that it tastes better at the beginning of the season.  They also discuss what year had the best herring.  It’s like a wine connoisseur discussing which year’s wine is best.  That’s a conversation I will never be a part of!

Today was the first Dutch match against Denmark.  It was played at 1:30 pm here.  Every school that we heard about stopped classes and let the students watch the match.  Grace said that her class started watching it, but the girls got a bit bored with it.  She was happy to have a break from the schoolwork though.  :)

You have to understand what the atmosphere is like around here.  There are orange banners and streamers everywhere.  When there is a score, you can hear people in the neighborhood cheering.

This is just some of the banners you can see supporting the Dutch team. This is in the school where our church meets.

Today while the Dutch match was going on, Mike was having a church “staff meeting” that happened to have the game on in the background.  I was out running errands before picking Grace up from school.  At the bank, I was able to watch the game while waiting to be helped.  At the grocery store, they had the game on the loudspeakers so everyone could continue to follow it.  Mike was also sending me texts so I could know what was going on.  At one point, I heard people honking their horns and blowing vuvuzelas (the horns the fans blow at the game).  A few seconds later, Mike send me a message that Holland had scored.  Everyone was so glad that The Netherlands won the match!

Orange banners in a neighborhood in Leiden

Today is Koninginnedag, Queen’s Day.  It’s the day to celebrate the queen.  It’s supposed to be on her birthday, but since her birthday is in the winter and weather is bad, they kept the date as her mother’s birthday.  This is the only day that garage sales are allowed, so everyone goes into the center of the city to set up and sell their things.  Grace has asked for years to do this, and I finally gave in.  We got there at a little before 8:30.  It was rainy and cool.

Here is a timeline of how things went:

8:30 – It is raining.  Grace asks, “Has this thing started yet?”

8:45 – Nothing has sold.  It has at least stopped raining.  Grace asks if we can go home.

9:00 – It is raining again.  Still nothing has sold.  Grace asks again if we can go home.  We lower prices.  Grace says, “I hope we at least sell one thing.”

9:30 – Morning snack time.  The kid next to us asks if we have sold anything after he sells a few things.  I begin to not like that kid.  I try to convince Grace to call out to people and try to sell things.  She absolutely refuses.  It’s no longer cool.  It’s becoming cold.  Grace and I are shivering.

10:00 – We sell our first item.  Grace is more optimistic about the day.  More people are starting to come.  It’s raining off and on.

10:30 – The people by us leave, so we move to their better location.  We sell a few more things.

11:00 – Grace gets her second morning snack.  It has started to rain harder.  Yuck!

11:30 – Grace and I are ready to go.  Grace has started picking up certain items and shouting their price.  She even goes so far as to get a Winnie the Pooh toy and have it wave at people as they go along.  I have to tell her to back up because she doesn’t need to get in their face quite so much.

11:45 – We call for Mike to come pick us up.  It has stopped raining, but we are pretty wet and cold.  Most of the people around us have left.

12:00 – We are home and get to go through our things.  Everything is wet and kind of gross.  Grace has made 8.25 today and is very happy.  We have cleaned out a lot from her room and it looks much better , so I am also happy.  Hot chocolate and hot tea make us both feel much better too.

I asked her if she wants to do this again next year, and I got a definite “NO” from her.  I tried not to be too obviously excited about her answer.  Today, I hope she realized how much I love her!  By the way, as I type this, it’s now 1:30, and the sun is coming out.  It looks like it will be a much better afternoon than morning.

Happy Queen’s Day to all!

The view during our morning walk

It seemed like a lot of snow to us, but on Sunday, we had much more.  Grace was able to play in the snow before we went to church.  She even had a snowball fight with our neighbor, Dirk.

Grace gets a huge snowball for the fight

While we were at church, the snow was coming down so hard!  I said that it looked more like someone was shaking feathers out of a pillow than snow.  The flakes were huge!

The after-church snowball fight

We came home and made our own snowman.  Because the snow was the perfect consistency, it only took the three of us about 10 minutes to finish.

Our snowman for home

All the snow was beautiful, but it wasn’t always wonderful.  On Christmas day, we had just finished opening our presents.  I thought I heard our dog chewing a new bone he got, but the sound wasn’t him.  I followed the sound until I found our roof leaking.  All the ice and snow had blocked the drain.  As the snow started to melt, it was had nowhere to go.  One part of our roof is flat, so the water started coming through our skylight.  It wasn’t a drip, it was a constant stream.  It started in one place and ended up in about eight different leaks.  Mike had the very good idea to use the plastic tubs we had for moving.  Each bucket held about three leaks.

What a mess!

We felt awful but had to get our neighbor/landlord to come help us.  For now the leak has been stopped, but we’re leaving the buckets out for a little while longer.