Matt and I have really begun to fall into a lovely weekend routine. One day is completely for sleeping. (usually Saturday which isn't good cause nothing is open on Sunday.) You may think this is an exaggeration but most of you know how much I love to sleep. Usually I sleep at least until 11 or noon and then take another nap in the afternoon. Matt usually doesn't sleep as late as I do but then he's always up for a nap too. So that's what we did today. Then we had church at 5:00. After church we had no food in our house, surprise, surprise. We never have food because we only buy fresh stuff for the most part and go through it so fast. So we went to the Vrijtof center where there is currently Maastricht Wonderland. This consists of lots of little crafty booths, an ice skating rink, a ferris wheel, and some other little kiddie rides. Matt and I got food from a vendor there and then romanically went on the ferris wheel. It was cold but so cool to see all of Maastricht at night. I actually was a bit scared at the top and I have NEVER been afraid of heights. (Thanks a lot Dad.)
Yesterday, Thanksgiving for us proved to be a wonderful home away from home Thanksgiving. We got up around 10 and went to run errands, post office, bank, grocery store. Seriously our bank here is the best bank I have ever been to. They are so nice and really helpful. They also always give you a bottle of water while you are waiting and doing your paper work. We applied for house/jewelry insurance, a savings account, and a credit card so we can buy stuff online in Euros. Matt is going this week to pick up his residence card and our health insurance should start so we are finally, offically setteled. Whew....it only took three months.
Anyway, after shopping we took the bus to Gronsveld, a little suburb of Maastricht. Our friends the Markinks live there, Jessica and Frank. They are from Minnesota/Texas and the husband, Frank is originally from the Netherlands. They have three boys, Josiah, Jonah and Josh. Josiah and Jonah are at UWCM secondary and Josh is in a dutch school, all his friends are in Matt's class though. Our friends the Pridmores also came, Jason and Jenny, with their girls, Maggie and Hope who were at Joppenhof last year but are now in a Dutch primary school. They are from the East Coast/Canada. We all spent the afternoon in the kitchen eating and cooking. We ate around 4:00 and of course had a traditional Thanksgiving. Jessica was great enough to get two Turkeys. One from Belguim and one from an American base nearby. I made mashed potatoes, Matt made corn, Jessica had carrot souffle, stuffing, cranberry sauce, homemade apple sauce, homeade gravy, plus the turkeys. Jason and Jenny brought green bean casserole, appetizers, plus apple pie, pudding cake and a meringue pie. YUM!!! It was so great. Frank's mom and two brothers came too. They are all from the Netherlands.
We also got to have a great Thanksgiving Thursday via skype with the rest of our families at home. Matt's parents set up the computer at the dinner table so we felt included in while everyone was eating. Doug even feed Matt a roll. :)
After dinner we took a nice walk around thier town, even though it is pitch black at 5:00. After that we watched two movies. Up (so cute) and Ghost of Girlfriends past, this was Jessica's request since she never has other girls in the house to watch chick flicks with. :) It was such a great day!! We're so thankful we found our church and such great friends.
Since I've last posted we haven't been up to too much. Just the usual work week, stressful, frustrating and difficult. We're trying our best but things are still not getting sorted at the school. We've been enjoying hanging out with school collegues on the weekends though and church friends. We have also been enjoying Maastricht a lot because in November and December all the stores are open on Sundays for Holiday shopping so we've been able to get out a bit more. Everything is decorated SO beautiful here.
Matt and I have gone to the movies, (saw New Moon). Grandma Besty's friend Louise came from Rotterdam last weekend to visit with us. It was really fun just to chat with her about the Netherlands and about her time in the US. She took us to lunch and then we had her here for pie and tea.
We have also started Dutch lessons. We still can't speak too much but are starting to understand a lot more. I am tutoring a french boy who is in third grade once a week and Matt continues with his lessons with Joop. These are both highlights of our weeks.
So all in all, we are finally feeling settled and happy with everything here, just hoping school is going to improve. December is going to bring about it's usualy business. We have lots of shopping to do. Next weekend we are off to Brussels and then Christina comes the 11. I am taking the day off to go and get her and bring her here. Then we will all head home the 21st and be home from the 21-31 of December. We will be at the Orefices the 24, The Cooleys the 25, and Momma Peters the 26. The 27th were heading up to the farm. Those are really all the plans we have for now besides a party at Jen Wierengas sometime when we first get home, lots of time at the Baaremans and just enjoying being home. Can't wait!!!!!
23 days!!!!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Time for a life rant.....be prepared!
Back from Ba...ba....ba...Bar...celona (must be sung to my Shirona sp?) :) Anyway...The kids came back today. It was great to see them. Two of the coolest things...1. What did you do over break kids??? "Switzerland, Disney World, Rome and saw the Colusseum, Paris, Prague, went home to Poland, England, ..." Sounds fun kids... I went to Barcelona and had a great time too. "Oh yeah it's so great there Mrs. Cooley. Did you like the aquarium and the cool Gaudi stuff?"
#2. Got to paint with my kids. Yes Irwin Kurrs, we used glue, markers, colored paper and painted for a WHOLE HOUR!!!! I even think a few kids got scissors out! We drew paintings of myths we've been studying. We looked at famous paintings on our smart board and studied artists styles, took a field trip down the hall to see the representation of year 6 aboriginal art. We used different colors to represent our feelings, we listened to lovely classical music while we did it and we laughed and were normal, creative, healthy people full of smiles. We got it all over our hands, our clothes, even in our hair. We happily splattered it on our desks and acted like the lovely children we are made to be.
It's so great to see what teaching is meant to be. Sadly for us, the guidance isn't where it needs to be. Someone said today "It's the blind leading the blind." Higher up isn't informing us of what's going on with some programs and we aren't sure what to do about some teaching things. And neither are other teachers. Thankfully, the upper school has banded together and we've just started making decisions, unifed decisions ourselves. Support is good. We've all started saying the serenity prayer alot. "Give me the ability to accept the things I can not change...."
Life here continues to go well but yet be a struggle. We feel like sometimes we've been waiting for Matt to graduate, waiting to move and to change so we can start life... yet now we've realized we started a long time ago and we've been living it all along. Now we really feel like we've put it on hold. The house... the family...mostly for Matt the dog....Harry Winz where are you????
Our families...the things we love about home...Meijer, Culvers, the beach, and beauty of the state we've been blessed to grow up in.
Being in Barcelona we had a great time. We spent the last few days at the beach, the Guadi park, enjoying the beautiful musical fountains. We loved it all...but we realized, is it so different from Paris...New York...Chicago... couldn't we be traveling and seeing just as cool of things in the US? Going out West, back to NY, down to DC or Floridia where we can travel and visit friends. Where we can view the Grand Canyon, the silent deserts, the palm trees on the ocean. Even just a trip to the UP or a weekend at a family cottage...wouldn't those vacations be enough? And you know what, I think they would.
It's not that we haven't always been greatful for what we've had and all we've been blessed with. It's not that we didn't realize it was there and there weren't great opportunities all around us, we knew that. But sometimes I think we just forget it, all of us. How lucky we are to live close to family, or love the nature you live in. We take the simple things for granted and become jealous of the extravagant things. I read other friends blogs of postings and think oh my gosh their trick or treating with their kids or ooh a day at the pumpkin patch...maybe just an afternoon walking the dog and I think that sounds nice. While others think ahh Barcelona, NL ahhh.... it's so true isn't it.... the grass is always greener....
All that said, we ARE happy here. We've done a great job over the break realizing a lot. Spending time together, talking and realizing it's time to leave school at school. This makes nights at home and weekends much better. It's nice to be a married couple at home and not colleagues still. We've been invited to our first wedding! Friends from church. In January. We're going out again this weekend with Suzanne and Mathew and another teacher Lily-Anne and her husband. Matt's teaching partner is back and this makes the team work great again. We both feel better and I know Matt is less stressed having Audrey around. Christina will be here in weeks and we can't wait to just get to spend time the three of us! And show her our life her. Then travel home for Chistmas. Yes, even here too it's began. The decorations are going up. Trees already in stores. I'm not sure if the music has begun on the radio but the kids are singing the songs at school. I even saw Matt looking at the Christmas music on I-tunes and earlier I asked to watch Love Actually, our favorite Christmas movie.
All right... enough for one night. Matt's been playing guitar...helped me be reflective... :) Enjoy the fall night...we're enjoying the light rain we can hear on the roof....ahhh....time to jump into heavy down comforters.....Grace and Peace.
#2. Got to paint with my kids. Yes Irwin Kurrs, we used glue, markers, colored paper and painted for a WHOLE HOUR!!!! I even think a few kids got scissors out! We drew paintings of myths we've been studying. We looked at famous paintings on our smart board and studied artists styles, took a field trip down the hall to see the representation of year 6 aboriginal art. We used different colors to represent our feelings, we listened to lovely classical music while we did it and we laughed and were normal, creative, healthy people full of smiles. We got it all over our hands, our clothes, even in our hair. We happily splattered it on our desks and acted like the lovely children we are made to be.
It's so great to see what teaching is meant to be. Sadly for us, the guidance isn't where it needs to be. Someone said today "It's the blind leading the blind." Higher up isn't informing us of what's going on with some programs and we aren't sure what to do about some teaching things. And neither are other teachers. Thankfully, the upper school has banded together and we've just started making decisions, unifed decisions ourselves. Support is good. We've all started saying the serenity prayer alot. "Give me the ability to accept the things I can not change...."
Life here continues to go well but yet be a struggle. We feel like sometimes we've been waiting for Matt to graduate, waiting to move and to change so we can start life... yet now we've realized we started a long time ago and we've been living it all along. Now we really feel like we've put it on hold. The house... the family...mostly for Matt the dog....Harry Winz where are you????
Our families...the things we love about home...Meijer, Culvers, the beach, and beauty of the state we've been blessed to grow up in.
Being in Barcelona we had a great time. We spent the last few days at the beach, the Guadi park, enjoying the beautiful musical fountains. We loved it all...but we realized, is it so different from Paris...New York...Chicago... couldn't we be traveling and seeing just as cool of things in the US? Going out West, back to NY, down to DC or Floridia where we can travel and visit friends. Where we can view the Grand Canyon, the silent deserts, the palm trees on the ocean. Even just a trip to the UP or a weekend at a family cottage...wouldn't those vacations be enough? And you know what, I think they would.
It's not that we haven't always been greatful for what we've had and all we've been blessed with. It's not that we didn't realize it was there and there weren't great opportunities all around us, we knew that. But sometimes I think we just forget it, all of us. How lucky we are to live close to family, or love the nature you live in. We take the simple things for granted and become jealous of the extravagant things. I read other friends blogs of postings and think oh my gosh their trick or treating with their kids or ooh a day at the pumpkin patch...maybe just an afternoon walking the dog and I think that sounds nice. While others think ahh Barcelona, NL ahhh.... it's so true isn't it.... the grass is always greener....
All that said, we ARE happy here. We've done a great job over the break realizing a lot. Spending time together, talking and realizing it's time to leave school at school. This makes nights at home and weekends much better. It's nice to be a married couple at home and not colleagues still. We've been invited to our first wedding! Friends from church. In January. We're going out again this weekend with Suzanne and Mathew and another teacher Lily-Anne and her husband. Matt's teaching partner is back and this makes the team work great again. We both feel better and I know Matt is less stressed having Audrey around. Christina will be here in weeks and we can't wait to just get to spend time the three of us! And show her our life her. Then travel home for Chistmas. Yes, even here too it's began. The decorations are going up. Trees already in stores. I'm not sure if the music has begun on the radio but the kids are singing the songs at school. I even saw Matt looking at the Christmas music on I-tunes and earlier I asked to watch Love Actually, our favorite Christmas movie.
All right... enough for one night. Matt's been playing guitar...helped me be reflective... :) Enjoy the fall night...we're enjoying the light rain we can hear on the roof....ahhh....time to jump into heavy down comforters.....Grace and Peace.
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