I think I'm ok today!

We finally got the kids in bed at around midnight. This time change is terrible, but I'm pleased to say Alexa slept all night! The night before she woke up screaming. Not a pretty sight, but she seems good to go. I think I heard Dylan once, but yesterday he had a bit of a runny nose, so I think we've got some teeth coming in. Chris and I woke up at about 7:00 this morning. I dunno about him, but I feel great. Got up, got dressed up (in heels....I'll update this later probably cursing myself. I'll post a pic too), fixed my hair and did my makeup, grabbed aa cup of coffee (with a scoop of chocolate milk to make it mocha :o) ) and here I sit. We have a driver coming in about 20 minutes to take us to tour Alexa's preschool. I'm gonna try to get to IKEA today to get a blanket and maybe a chest of drawers since it's cheap there. Chris found an LED TV for us yesterday on clearance for a little less than 2000 euros. Those LED TVs (not LCD) are absolutely AMAZING! Oh, and I have at least found 2 pseudo-American stores. One is like Best Buy, the other like CVS. They have Burger King EVERYWHERE (my FAVORITE fast food place) and Subway, McDonalds, KFC, and Dominos Pizza....lol. And IKEA!! AHHHH. I LOVE IKEA! Speaking of finding places, I have yet to see a nail salon (I need my eyebrows waxed) or even a hair salon! (Alexa needs a trim). I know the weather sucks here, and everyone seems to wear their hair up, but where do they get it cut?! We are going to "The River Oaks" (Chris term....equivalent to Beverly Hills) of Den Haag (or the Hague in Dutch) "Wassenaar". Apparently that's where we will be living, and that's where a good deal of American ex-pats live. Hopefully I'll find some things there. Right now we're in downtown Den Haag......equivalent to living in downtown NYC and it SUCKS. Cant wait to get to the 'burbs. lol. Oh, and while I'm speaking Dutch...lol....I learned a few things.... "Treinen Stoppen" ->"Trains stop" Cant figure out what "Vonen" is though. Guess I could look it up while I'm sitting here. Off to drink coffee, go schopping, and learn Dutch. Vrede uit.

Day.....am I on 2 now?

I am so exhausted....and starving. Apparently I'm burning more calories walking places than I am taking in, and I'm constantly starving. WTH do these people eat here?! We came here back in 2005 for a visit and sampled the Duch cuisine and werent fond. Now we're back to the Bitterballen (minced meat and mashed potatoes rolled nto a ball and deep fried) and Frikandel ( fried hot dog......does it get any healthier when they fry it? Think not). I keep seeing/hearing people talk aout Stroopwaffels (or something along those lines), and they sound DELISH! I cant find them though, and I surely dont know how to cook them. Hell, I cant even store the ingredients to make them in this apartment. At least Chris agrees we need to find a house ASAP. Today I woke up at 1045am with a little princess right on my heels. Luckily I was able to pack some food from home to bring with us, so the princess and I had a pop tart for breakfast. This by far has been the hardest day sleepwise. I am absolutely exhausted. All of the running around and literally walking for 10+ miles a day has caught up to me. I didnt think I'd make it up today. After breakfast I got in bed with Alexa and we watched Blues Clues. I tried to take a nap, but got a phone call. We just kinda hung out until Chris got home at 3 and Chris and I headed out to get some things. (I need a freaking blanket. I'm freezing to death!!!) But of course, everything here closes at 5:30 pm, so it's absolutely pointless to go anywhere in the evening. I guess you could ride the trams/trains around for some evening entertainment. Totally kidding, but after our 2 hour excursion the other day (I've lost track of all days/time), today we decided to find the bus/tram that goes by the house. It was a 3 minute bus ride. Kinda embarrassing, but anyway, we found it, so hopefully we wont be walking too much more. I didnt buy any new shoes today, but I guess I'll get some of those with the blanket tomorrow. We have a busy day. We are going to tour the Preschool tomorrow, and possibly going to look at houses. DEFINITELY not wearing heels. Going for the jeans and tennis shoe look (sexy, I know). We found out our air freight will be arriving tomorrow and our sea freight the 20th. God only knows when it'll clear customs, but WTH are we gonna do with 3-3ft long boxes packed with clothes, baby walkers, and potty seats, and shoes?! I guess we'll live out of boxes. I dont even know where we will put the boxes. Oh, and Dylan's crib just got here too. No more falling off of the bed (it's a platform bed, so it doesnt hurt, it just scares him. He tries to go off head first instead of feet first). So yeah, nothing too exciting today, just exhaustion and starvation. I keep asking Chris what these people do. Do they eat out (like the French), or cook (which I cant imagine given the limited space), but he said they mainly eat breads and fruits. (No wonder these people are so skinny. They walk all day and only eat bread and fruit!!) Still havent found a Walmart-esque store. Still looking though. I want a store that has everything I need in 1 place. I'm tired of walking. Anyway, it's 20 thirty here (whatever that means. I have a hard time with this 24 hour clock thing, but that's what my alarm clock says. ). I think it might be close to my bedtime, but the kids are wired. I'm exhausted. Peace Out!

Day 1

The loud mouthed toddler SCREAMING at the top of her lungs. I knew she slept too much yesterday, but I just thought she was exhausted from the flight. She would NOT settle. Then she woke Dylan up, so they were both up. Susie told me to go back to bed and she dealt with the kids (a SAINT I tell ya!) So I woke up at 1015am this morning and everyone else was still asleep. I kinda just hung out for alittle while, then Dylan woke up, so I got my list of all of the things I need together, woke Chris up, then Alexa, and around 1pm we headed out the door to get the necessities. Chris said we werent gonna walk like we did yesterday, so I wore heels and he drove to the "Mega Stores". He freaking lied. Mega Stores is like the Mall of America in size. It was raining and it's about 63 degrees. Umm...that's freezing to me. I'm dressed in layers with my heels. I'm from Texas. It was 93 degrees when I left and the HIGHS are in the 60s...MAYBE.... here?! OMG it's cold. So today it was raining and I wore my bra and a camisole with 2 long sleeved shirts and a jacket...lol. Everyone else seems to be adapting well to the cold and walking. I dont adapt well. I'm freaking cold, I drive my car when I need to go somewhere, I dont take trains, I eat fast food, and I have frozen food in my freezer. I'm an AMERICAN. I wear heels when I go shopping. I go to Walmart when I need something easily accessible. Here, OMG My feet hurt SO BADLY. I cant even explain! I could barely walk into the house, but we're here. And Where is Walmart?!? I need a freaking booster seat. I made dinner, gave the kids a bath, Chris hung Alexa's DVD player for the car on her wall, so she's watching a movie, and hung Dylan's crib toy on the wall, and they are both in bed. It's so hard to get them to bed before 10pm. Dylan doesnt have a crib here, only a twin bed, so Susie pushed her bed up to his and they are sleeping on a "king sized" bed together. Hopefully we'll get crib tomorrow. Poor Dylan is all bruised up. He thinks he can walk and keeps hitting his head on these wood floors. He cruises around and Alexa comes and knocks him down. It's only a matter of months before he's as big as she is though. I'll upload some new pictures onto photobucket and post the link......and here comes Alexa.....this time change has us all screwed up. It's 11pm here and 4 pm there. We'll eventually get on a schedule....... EVENTUALLY.

Day 0

Or D-Day I have been calling it for the last 3 months. Septemeber 27th, we boarded the plane to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Susie (my Mother in Law), came with us to help us out. Lord knows we couldnt have done it without her! 10:45 am, the driver arrives to pick us up from the hotel we had been staying in for about a week. We sold our house and all of our furniture in the matter of a few weeks. The 4 of us (Alexa, Dylan, Chris, and I), all had First Class tickets, so we were allowed 3 bags apiece, plus a carry on, a personal item, 2 carseats, and a double stroller. Can you picture this yet? The entire living room of the hotel was full of luggage, so they hauled it out to the car (I had surgery 3 weeks ago, so I supervised), and off to the airport we go. It was about a 30 minute ride with the Bulgarian driver. He looked like a stereotypical Russian mafia man, but I digress.....to the airport. The kids ride with their grandparents, and Chris and I were in the van. We pull up to the airport, get a skycap, and onto the booking agent. He looks at us and says "Oh My." Yep, 13 checked bags later, we were on to security. SO glad it wasnt too busy. I had to take the DVD players out of Princess' Dora rolling luggage (she's in love with it...thanks Nana), her Nintendo DS, the laptops and all of the electronics, the kids had to come out of the stroller and go through the metal detectors, take my jewelry and shoes off, and get myself through the metal detector, then comes Chris with his 15 laptops, belt and stuff....he's no help...lol. He and the TSA agent couldnt get the stroller down. I had to go back through and collapse it, then come back through and pull it back out, put all of the kids and their things back together, get myself together, and flag down a motorized cart. There was no way we could lug 4 carryons, Alexa's things, and a carseat through the gateways. We get on the cart and the lady is laughing at us, Alexa starts screaming, and everyone starts looking like we're beating her. She wanted to ride on the cart too (couldnt take the stroller on the cart), so Chris is pushing Dylan behind us while Alexa is sitting in my lap. Thank GOD for the President's Lounge (thanks Continental for the President's Lounge and the family room in it, but that's all I'll be thanking you for....) So....a screwdriver, 2 Bloody Marys, 3 White Russians, crackers, cheese, and chips later, we are ready to get on the plane. We get a cart to the gate, and THEY'RE ALREADY BOARDING!!! We are on the first row, in Business Class, and they have us split across the plane! Alexa and I were on one side, then 2 people in the middle, then Susie (or Chris...they kept switching) and Dylan on the other side. The people in the middle didnt even offer to switch seats with us, so we just yelled across them. Ehhhh, I'll blame that on the 3 extra Apple Juice and Vodkas and the glass on champagne. So the lady in between us decides she is going to try to sleep at 7pm (CST). Ummm...my kids dont sleep that early...sorry. So at 8:30pm when Dylan started getting fussy, she started getting all huffy puffy with her sleep mask on. We got him some milk, and he drifted off to sleep. Alexa, on the other hand....NIGHTMARE (surprise?, Nope.) She didnt want dinner, but she wanted the chocolate that came with dinner (sleepyhead lady in the middle had dinner before everyone else also), so after the chocolate meltdown, out comes the cart of ice cream, so I said screw it and she had ice cream, a piece of chocolate, 2 bites of polenta, and a carrot for dinner. She spit the fontina and spinach stuffed chicken. Then she had to go potty every 5 minutes (word of warning.....toddlers find airplane bathrooms VERY amusing). Then she didnt wanna sleep, she didnt want anyone talking to her, she screamed when her programs were over, kept sliding down in the seat (which made her CARES choke her and start screaming), and had night terrors. I ended up falling asleep about 1 hour before the plane landed. So about 9 hours later we arrive in Amsterdam. I have a headache from getting less than an hour of sleep, and Chris was still drunk. We then had to get the kids and the carseat with all of our carryons off, and wait for the stroller (it was gate checked). As soon as we got off of the plane, we asked for the stroller. 15 minutes later, after everyone walked through us with the toddler wanting to scream and run around and we're trying to hold on to Dylan, we get the stroller, load them up, and somehow made it to baggage claim. This was a nightmare because Chris and Susie were both rolling carryons tied to another carryon, so they were steering 2 at a time. THEN came the luggage. We had NO IDEA where we would even begin! It was 8am here and we didnt see any carts, just the luggage carts, so Chris grabs 4 of them and we stack them TO THE TOP. The carseat kept falling off, they were impossible to steer, it was a mess. Then we got a Dutch customs agent to helps us to the taxi. We had a driver for a bags and had rented the car, so we start asking everyone in the airport where "the knot" tied on the pillar is. No one knows. So Susie stands with 2 carts and Chris and I start our trek to find "the knot." Either these people are freaking blind, or they were just being rude, because you cant miss this damn knot. Chris finds the driver and leaves me and the carts and kids with the driver. Then he comes back with Susie and the other 2 carts and the driver is floored. He couldnt believe all of the luggage. This isnt a vacation. We're freaking moving here. So we get to the taxi, get the luggage in, then get in the car. It's been awhile since Susie has driven a standard, so she kept killing the car. Well, not only is it standard, it's a diesel, so the ride for awhile was freaking HILARIOUS!!!! Finally we pulled into the turn lane and switched drivers to let Chris drive, and we made it to our new house. It's a cute little place. 3 bedrooms, living room, dining room, bathroom (with no toilet) and toilet room. We are on the second floor, and the house has hardwood floors, so Alexa walks round stomping and yelling and singing SO LOUD! I feel sory for whomever lives underneath us. If we tell her to stop, she does it more. If we ignore her, she does it louder. We gave up. Chris and I headed off, by foot, then train, to the grocery store. We bought a few things, and came back to everyone sleeping. Good deal. We'll put our things away and get settlled in. Well, we have no dressers. Nowhere to put bras, panties, or even shorts for that matter. oh wait. I havent even TALKED about the weather yet. We'll get there in a minute. So, no drawers and only a wardrobe for clothes. Umm....hmmm....how is this gonna work? Chris and I have about 10 hangers of clothes apiece and everything else is either folded on a shelf or in the luggage still. Got back with the groceries, everyone woke up, and we decided to go to dinner. We walked to Den Haag Centraal and took the train to Delft to have dinner. The trek to Den Haag Centraal is about 20 minutes, but we did make it to the train, then we had a trek to the restaurant. On the way back, Chris and I are EXHAUSTED, it's about 10pm, the kids are passed out in the stroller, and we start walking back to the train station, get on the Stoptrein to Den Haag Centraal (the train that stops at every city....lol). Then we start walking home and GPS queen Lindsay tells Chris we arent going the right way, but he'll hear none of that. 2 hours later (yes, I said 2 hours.....it took us 20 minutes to GET to the station), we make it home. Should've listened to me huh Chris? We get home and CRASH. Then who wakes up screaming at 4am? You guessed it.....

Background

Let me give you a little background first. My name is Lindsay. I am a Texas girl, born and raised. Went to Texas A & M University, where I met my husband Chris, and finished up at University of Houston. Chris and I have been married since 2003, but we've been together since 2000.We were blessed with our first child, we'll call her "Princess Alexa" for lack of more appropriate termonology, in 2006 and our last child, Dylan , in 2008. I am a stay at home mom for the time being. In June 2009, Chris decides he would like to post out of his current position with a major oil&gas company and try to be an expatriate. Well, if you know me, I just smiled and nodded. I mean, then, we had a 2 year old and a 7 month old. Ex-pat? Really? Well, he did it, hence this blog. He got a job, and I got relocated.