We love Halloween!

It's true. My kids love Halloween. Not because we're into witches and goblins, and not even because all you have to do is walk up to people and they hand you candy (my kids are weirdly not big sweet eaters), but because they LOVE to dress up. Both K and Keir love to wear costumes and often throw their own together for playing around the house. Keiric has a cape that he wears quite regularly around the house, and would outside the house as well, if I would let him :) He says it's his job "to save the day."

Kaylie also loves to dress up, but she is my thinker and planner. She begins planning her Halloween costume, sometime at the end of February - conveniently right after her birthday party, which she will start to plan again now that Halloween is over. Although she does typically change her mind a few times in the course of the 8 months, she must plan even to the smallest detail.

So since I haven't posted in ... forever. I figured what better way to jump back into it than with a couple adorable pictures of the kiddos all dressed up. Kaylie decided to go with 80s and Keiric was a knight - because ...well... he had to "save the day."Kaylie's costume was sadly oh so very memorable. As I was teasing her hair she asked if that is how I used to do my hair and I had to admit that I definitely did. For those of you who knew me back then - this is exactly how my hair used to be - minus the pink (which my mom wouldn't let me do) but plus 6 inches of a fanning bangs which I was not about to cut for one night for K. I can also hardly believe how old she looks in this picture. I know the big hair and make-up don't help - but she's even growing into her teeth :)I also have to admit that don't typically like store bought costumes. This was one I had picked up at 75% off sales after Halloween last year for like $3. I bought it back then since we didn't have much for playing dress-up that was boys and his cousins kept trying to make him wear their princess dresses. Now he can play the knight who saves them.
Doesn't he make a dashing knight?! I would trust him to save me.My mom would see this picture and say that he needs a haircut - but I love his long hair. Doesn't it suit this knight in shining armor? It reminds me of Wesley in The Princess Bride, and we all know that he was a cutie!And every knight must have a princess he must save :)

Still in Holland

Yes - even though we were supposed to leave 3 days ago, we are all still in Holland. Traveling standby means much cheaper tickets - but on this trip for us - it has also meant a lot of flexibility. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday's flights have all been full and right now we are hoping to get on the flight tomorrow - Friday. In the meantime, having used up all our Euros and not wanting to pay the crazy bank fees for pulling out more, we have been doing a lot of free stuff in the days while we wait. Going to the parks, long walks around town, and yesterday we walked through the woods to the next town over. And now, I decided I could use this time to update our post at least with pictures. So here are some pics from the last few weeks, and keep us in your prayers that we can fly home soon.
Saying goodbye to our dear friend Samara who was headed to Canada for college
The kids love to go to the park
Kaylie loves climbing these spiderweb things

Going to the lake with my newly engaged friend Vera (and we also took some engagement pictures for her to use for her invitations)

Another park - just got to love these life sized lincoln logs!
Kaylie did get to see a few of her friends at the park one day

We love walking around town

So pretty everywhere!

We went and brought flowers to Kaylie's old teacher - sadly all of her friends from school had since transitioned full time into the main dutch schools and were no longer there.

Going to the petting zoo -

more pictures to come...

Here are a couple pics from our adventures. We love how green and beautiful this country is.Sporting their Oranje leis in support of the Dutch team at the World Cup (We are also rooting from USA) but this whole country gets excited and decorates everything with orange, its hard not to get caught up in the spirit!
yes. I know, they are a bit strange :)

With Sonja who were are staying with and her son John and his girlfriend.

After 10 pm

This is why my children are keeping crazy hours. How do I make them fall asleep when its this light outside?!

(This the center of our town - the Kaasmusuem (cheese market) and it dates back to 1390!)

In Holland!!!

We are in Holland - and I love it here! It was so familiar and comfortable coming back it was like coming home. Except we miss Jeremy a lot! We've been here for 1 week now and it has been going really well. We have had the chance to see many of our old friends and the weather has been beautiful!

I haven't been able to post before because I want to add pictures, but since I am "borrowing" someone's unsecured wireless internet, my access is unpredictable.

Saying goodbye at the airport
The kids are such great travelers. We were flying stand-by with our discount tickets and had planned for the worst which would be getting stuck in Philadelphia for 24 hours, so we had planned to see friends and stay overnight, and then arrive a day later, only to find out that there were no problems, and we were going straight through. This left Jeremy a bit of a challenge to contact everyone while we were in the air to change everything to a day earlier, but it all worked out in the end!
The one hiccup was maybe that the kids didn't want to sleep on the plane. They finally fell asleep after they played the children's movie on the plane, which was played after the adult movie - yeah - that didn't make sense to me either. Keiric slept about 3 hours and Kaylie only about 2 out of the entire 14 hour flight - and yet they were still SO good! Keiric was even complimented by nearby passengers and a flight attendant on how well he did! And Kaylie had to sit by herself for the first leg, and she was so brave and grown-up! So proud of our kiddos.

Thursday and Friday we were able to go down to Tyndale Seminary were they asked me to photograph their Graduation ceremony again (that was my last assignment last year before leaving, and I was glad to be back in time this year to do it again.) They had 12 graduates with Masters in Divinity and Theology - most come from African and Eastern European countries to receive the eduction and then they return to their churches and families there.On Saturday, we went down to Uitgeest to see some sweet friends who took the kids to ice cream and then we took pictures of her darling son. Then on Sunday, we returned to the EKV church. The kids had a great time seeing all their little friends and we were warmly welcomed! Sometimes I think its funny how it seems a lot changes in a year - and at the same time - not much changes. On Sunday afternoon, we were able to go into town for a Keaskoopen. They had an entire area of town roped off and then had redone the area to what it would have looked like 100 years ago with people dressed in costumes and acting as though it were back then. It was fun and pretty educational.Also this week, we went to town several days since the weather has been good, I was able to go to the International Bible study group Tuesday night, and yesterday we saw another friend in a nearby village. The time has been going fast- only 5 more weeks!

Such is my life...

I just finished an hour of searching for my electrical cord adapter for our upcoming return to Holland. You know those little plug-ins that you have to have to plug any type of American electrical item into a foreign outlet since they all seem to have different styles: flat prongs, round pegs, fatter rounder pegs, flat sideways tilting prongs, etc. So knowing that we are leaving in 3 days and having my own collection of the little adapters, I went to finding the 2 I would need. 2 because there's the little adapter for the American 2 flat prongs, but of course my laptop needs the one with the 2 flat prongs and the little round peg. Are you confused yet...sure you are. Why so many different varieties? I don't know. Forget a 1 world government, language and currency - I just want a 1 world electrical system!

Anyway, I decided that I needed to make sure I had my adapters so I could use my laptop while there to update our blog :) So I looked in the laptop bag thinking that is where it probably got left after our return last summer - but didn't find it. Then began the above said hour-long search. Really I knew that it had to be somewhere - I mean - we're living in 300 square feet - where could it go? And yet, I couldn't find it anywhere. I looked through all our boxes, our dressers, the desk, the closet, everywhere... only to have Jeremy jump in and find it... yes...

in the laptop bag.

I swear i had searched its every nook and cranny, at least 3 times, and yet, there it was... or maybe, he had it all along and was just enjoying my frenzied search and then like the kid who steals a puzzle piece just so they can put the last one in, triumphantly presents the prize. Maybe... maybe not. What I do know is now I have to re-clean the mess I made going through our closet, dressers, and boxes, before i can finish packing.

The good news is that I did, in my frenzied search, find the new pants that both my children had received for Christmas,

unfortunately, they are both now a size too small.

I give up

So I obviously have been avoiding my blog because every time I thought of it I was overwhelmed with guilt on all the things that I didn't blog about and how behind I was, and I just felt like I couldn't blog the current things until I caught up on all the things I missed, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, all of our birthdays, our anniversary, lost teeth, end of school, etc. So I give up.

The last year has been great and I can't believe how fast it has gone.

There. Done. That is all the catching up I am going to do. Now I can move on and live in a guilt free blogging zone.

Thank you for your understanding and now I can move forward with the current happenings of our household.