more postings than I thought

OK... so i'm sure it won't be like this all year, but since this is all new to me I seem to be posting quite often...
Good news. I love how God ALWAYS provides. I have really been praying that God would send a friend to me this year that wants to travel and do "touristy" things with me and today that need was met! HORRAY! I met her today at church. Her name is Rachel and she just graduated college from Ohio State. But her parents live in Texas. She is here as an au pair for a year as well. And she arrived 2 weeks ago. It was so funny because we were both so excited to have met another American au pair and we had both been praying that God would send a friend to us. In fact, we both prayed that it would be an American who was here for a year! God is sooo good!!!! I'm just giddy over the fact that I have a friend. It's so silly, but all I could think about these last couple of days is how lonely I was going to be once Camille left.. but ta-da! God to the rescue! :o) Rachel and I plan on attending the "new member" pot luck together after church next week. And maybe coffee later this week. *big sigh of relief!*
Today Camille's friend took us out to lunch at this yummy buffet type place.. they had a pasta station, a pizza station and a salad station.. and you could pick anything from those stations and then go on.. it was nice. Expensive I thought, but Camille said that it was a low end place to eat. Crazy! Guess I won't eat out much :o) Then he took us the a fantastic museum! I was more impressed by this one than the Van Gogh one... crazy I know.. but man. This was so great! It was the Panorama museum in Den Hauge and this guy painted this really really really great mural in this circle room. If it were to be laid out flat it would be a little over a mile long! It's crazy! The detail is AMAZING! He left nothing out. One section is fishermen and their boats and nets and such, another section is Den Hauge with the church and trees and people and another section is the countryside.. he left no detail undone. Everything from fish in the nets, to people looking out the windows to fenses along the horizon. I really can not describe this painting. It was just incredible. I could have looked at it for hours! I wish I could have taken pictures, but you weren't allowed too. Boo! But the crazy thing is that it only took this guy 4 months to paint it (floor to ceiling, 1 mile long) and it took them 10 years to do the restorations on it. I was amazed.
I think tomorrow I will need some asprin before I get out of bed just to help my aching body. These people are crazy here. They ride their bikes EVERYWHERE! I think I'll be sore for a whole year at the rate things are going now. Lol. I'm anxious for the day when I'm riding my bike I don't have to say " I think I can I think I can I think I can.. come on legs!" lol. I just laugh at myself all day when I'm here. Between the words I see and find out that they mean "orange" and the throbbing legs... I really am amused.
Well, I'm exhausted. It was a busy, extremly fun and wet weekend. Now I'm ready to go to bed.. Night!!!

Den Hauge

Ok... In Holland.. everyone speaks hairball I think. It's so funny listening to people talk because they always sound like they are getting ready to cough up a hairball. HA! I wish it was a more beautiful language.. I mean, even saying the word gezellig (cozy, warm, comforting) sounds like you are coughing up a hair ball (HA-zell.. or something like that, I haven't quite mastered that one) but such a nice word and they butcher it. Oh well. I get a kick out of it..and sometimes I literally laugh out loud when one of the kids says a word. But then they laugh at me when I try and pronounce the number 9. lol. Lot's of laughter around this house. I love it. They aren't super affectionate people, but Maurieen gives me a hug every now and again. It's quite nice. They seem to be generous people as well. For instance.. silly me did not bring an actual rain coat.. DUMB MOVE! If you come visit, make sure to pack your rain coat. It rains ALL THE TIME here... Seriously. It's crazy.. however it does decide to quit once the kids get home and you can't go anywhere then.. oh well. But back to my story, so I don't have a rain coat so I am borrowing Camille's poncho for now, but Maurieen offered me her's to use along with anything else. And they offered to buy my train discount pass. So nice. They seem very willing to work to make my stay as enjoyable as possible. And the food.. oh my goodness! So delicious! I think I will get very fat very fast if I don't ride my bike all the time and if I just eat all the good food all the time. I might have to diet with her during the year sometimes. Lol...Today Camille rode our bikes in the rain to Den Hauge.. it's about 15 min by bike. And it's pretty flat the whole way there.. however we went through this beautiful forest.. Oh it was sooo nice! Very quiet, but there were lots of people walking their dogs and riding their bikes through there.. it was nice because even though you were in the middle of town, you were in the forest so you couldn't really hear the cars and buses on the other side. And the path goes right onto the Palace grounds. That was kind of cool. It goes right in front of the gate. So of course I stopped and took pictures like a good tourist would :o) The guards looked at me funny, but who cares. I figure they get lots of people who come to take pictures of the palace. We also rode past Parliment, but I didn't get a picture of that b/c it was raining and there were tons of people so there wasn't a place to park my bike. Ha.. I just read that sentence. That sounds so funny.. " I didn't have a place to park my bike" oh gosh. OK.. getting distracted here, sorry.
(this is the palace ---> )
We also went to this delicious coffee shop.. actually it's the only one in Den Hauge that will give you a latte with any flavoring in it.. all the other ones are just plain latte's... I think I will visit this place often.. and then we went to a great little cafe. Oh it was SOOO good!!! They have fresh baked bread with perfectly seasoned meats and homemade chutney on the bread. So good. I had a smoked chicken sandwich on a brown roll with apple chutney. It was absolutely the best sandwich I've ever eaten. period. mmmmmmmmmm.
Tomorrow Camille and I are going to take the train into Amsterdam. Its going to be so much fun! I can't wait!! I'll post some pictures probably tomorrow night.. right now I don't have enough pictures to make it worth posting.. but I'm sure tomorrow I will :o) Hope you are all doing well!!

Day one in the Motherland

Hello everybody!

I made it! After lots of packing and unpacking and repacking (thanks mom and josh for the help!) we made it to the airport and found out my bags weighed 48 lbs and 50 lbs! Whoo-hoo!! I was glad that they didn't weigh anymore because I don't know what I would have taken out, and my 2 carry on bags were packed to the brim! I made my connecting flight just fine and when I got on the plane from Detroit to Amsterdam it became very real to me that I was actually going... As I looked around at all the people from other countries all speaking different languages, I knew I was in for a treat when it comes to people watching :o) I sat next to this sweet older woman from Poland ( I think ) and she didn't speak hardly any English at all, but she kept trying to talk to me. It was quite fun! At one point, I was attempting to sleep and she stuck her pillow behind me neck and gave me a kiss on my forehead and said " Ok! Sleep!" So cute :o) The flight was crazy long, and I got about 2 hrs of sleep, however i LOVED looking out at the sunset over Canada and the sunrise over Ireland. It was absolutely beautiful.
When we got to Amsterdam I was looking down at the water and they have wind energy propellers in the ocean. I thought that was kind of cool, apparently Holland is very into that right now.. and there were TONS of boasts in the water as well. When I got my bags from baggage claim I loaded them on a cart like I knew what I was doing and was very much relieved to see Maurieen waiting for me right outside the baggage claim door. She was so sweet, she gave me a hug and bought me a latte (i must have looked like I got ran over by a truck). When we were leaving the airport we had to go down to the garage, and they have these escalator things.. they are kind of like the moving sidewalks in the airports, except this was an escalator so you could get the baggage cart on it.. well this puppy was STEEP... and I didn't secure my bags, so off they went. It was so funny.. ok, maybe it wasn't THAT funny, but due to sleep deprivation it was stinkin' hilarious! I don't think Maurieen knew what to do with me, so she just laughed too.
We didn't do much the rest of the day since I was so tired, but tomorrow we are going to De Hauge and Camille (the current nanny) is going to show me around. Yay! I'm sure I'll have lots more to say the next time I write :o)