We did it!

Ok, now things are really starting to sink in. We got Alexa in school. Now we found our house. Here it is.. http://www.funda.nl/huur/rijswijk-zh/huis-74795644-park-de-wervelaan-23-s-m/fotos/#foto-1

We just have to do a few negotiations about furniture, and since it's vacant, we'll be good to move in! Yesterday was very hectic. We were supposed to meet the agent at the first house at 9am. Well, Dylan doesnt usually wake up until 10am, so I let him sleep until 8:30, fed him something quick, and in the car we went. Boy was he grouchy trying to get there! He's going through a nasty phase where he doesnt wanna do anything that's not his idea...lol. Alexa was a little more cooperative. She enjoys getting out and looking at houses. We got outta here at 8:45. We knew we were gonna be a little late, but didnt expect the surprise we got....a draw bridge!!!! We had to sit and wait in traffic for this boat to go through....and it was a regular street....nothing spectacular. There are canals everywhere around here, but I had no idea they were actually navagable! Pretty cool. So we get to the house. Traditional Dutch house. Nothing special. Built in the 1900s. Upstairs, the rooms were connected by french doors. The 2 rooms on the 2nd floor connected and the 2 rooms on the 3rd floor connected. Just what we need, Alexa keeping Dylan up, or vice versa, and us keeping 1 of them up. So that house was a definite NO. Then we get to the second house. When you walk in, there's a huge mirrored closet. The real estate agent and Chris almost walked into the mirror. It made the place look HUGE, and it was a gorgeous place, so it was a close second (next to the white house). We almost quit there. Alexa was screaming because she wanted to run up and down all of the stairs, and they are Dutch stairs....very dangerous, so we kept telling her No. We had to end up dragging her out of the house. Then we decided we werent doing this anymore! We didnt see anything we fell in love with like the white one. The RA wanted to show us this last one. We walk in and it's so open and airy. Everything's really bright and white, and there are windows everywhere. It actually felt like "home" when you walked in. We talked for a minute weighing our options. There's not a huge backyard, but there's enough for Alexa to play around in. Across the walkway, you can see our neighbors backyard (it backs up to ours) and they have a ton of toddler toys. That was our selling point. With the white house, we would have no neighbors, and apparently it's in a bad part of the city? I dunno. But here it's like a little townhome subdivision, so we'll have neighbors, and they obviously have kids, so that'll be great for all of us. We told the RA to go on with the paperwork, so we shall see :). After all of this house shopping, we had to get our bank cards from the bank at Chris' office. Then we went and looked at another house, and went grocery shopping. We finally found a grocery store that wasnt ridiculously outrageous. They had little shopping carts for the kids to push around too. OMG I shouldve known that was gonna be a nightmare! Alexa kept running into people, and walking in front of them, but she does have enough manners to say "excuse Me" LOL. people thought that was cute. She wouldnt let us help her, and she wouldnt let us touch her cart, so the checkout was a nightmare too. She was standing in front of people ramming her cart around. When Chris grabbed her cart to stop her from hitting people, she would throw herself on the ground screaming. I was just beside myself. She will NEVER get a cart again. I keep telling Chris she doesnt mind because he doesnt make her, and he saw her true colors yesterday....finally. Hopefully things will be better once she starts school. I know I say that everyday. I'm really holding out hope.

Me, I'm doing better. The reality is really starting to set in that we'er not just on vacation. We are living here. It's a weird feeling....knowing we might not ever go back to where our families and friends are. I've never done anything like this before, so it's all new to me. It's been hard to adapt. We've been here for what? 3 weeks now? Ya know that show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" Going to live in a new culture with a different language kinda makes you feel like one of those people that miss one of the first questions. Everything is so different here than what I'm used to. Kilometers instead of miles (MPHs). I try to convert it in my head just so I can get an idea, but I'm clueless. That, and the temperature....it's in celsius. Many people dont know how to convert C to F. I do, but I dont want to have to do that. I just want to be able to say "Oh...it's 11 degrees outside....it's cold" and not "11 degrees...go look at the F thermometer...oh, that's about 52 degrees....it's cold" I know that's petty, and it will come in time, but I just dont feel comfortable here yet. Most people speak English, so that's really helpful, but I wanna learn Dutch! I wanna be able to communicate with these people in there own language, live the way they do, and think the way they think. It's just so hard having been taught a totally different way to do things. Oh well. It'll come. I've rambled on enough today. It's laundry day. Since the washing machine is the dryer too, and hardly anything fits in, this is going to be an all day event.