Voetbal ( Football )

So we didn't get to watch the super bowl this year and we didn't get to see the world series or basketball finals. But that doesn't mean we have been deprived of sports we just had to change what sport we were watching. We just had to switch to Soccer (Voetbal). Tonight was the Euro Cup Football (soccer) championship. (For those that don't know I think America is the only place that soccer is called soccer, everywhere else it is called football). The Euro Cup occurs 1 time every 4 years. We happen to be luckly enough to get to experience it this year.



It has been full of excitement. Kaitlyn has been excitedly watching every Netherlands game and cheering them on. This soccer season was a lot of fun. The Netherlands was doing really well in the play offs. Everyone was watching the games. Every night they played and they scored a point all the neighbors would run out side and blow there air horns. Brian and I of course were new to the soccer traditions and at the first game of the season were unaware of what was going to happen and thought we could just go to bed like normal. But since the games start at 9:00 pm. We learned quickly there was no sleeping on game night so we quickly gave in and began watching too. Unfortunately, 2 weeks ago the Netherlands lost the Russians and got kicked out of the finals. The Russians lost to Spain who is played Germany for the Final tonight. Everyone says that Germany is always in the finals. My German friends set me straight tonight and said no, Germany has only gone to the finals 6 times in the last 30 or so years... Well if they play games every 4 years and they have gone to the finals 6 times that covers 24 years. So I think Germany is always in the Finals.



All of my Netherlands friends wanted to make it to the finals to play against Germany this year. I guess the last time they played against Germany in 1976 they barely lost and they are really upset about that. They say there are more people in the Netherlands mad at Germany about the 1976 game then they are about WWII.



Yes, I know soccer is thought of as a boring sport but you know it is really fun to watch when you are with everyone else. So tonight's game was Germany against Spain for the European Championship. We all went to Ulrike's house. She is a big German fan since that is her home country. The girls were so excited to be able to stay up late and watch soccer with their friends. I was torn and not sure who to cheer for since Ulrike was from Germany and my other friend Marta was from Spain. Spain won however. So Ulrike and Johannes (her husband) were very dissapointed. But now I can congraduate Marta tomorrow when I see her.



I have taken a few pictures of all of us together to share with you.

All the kids so Excited to watch the game.

All of us out side chatting.

All of the kids together for a photo.

Brooke being a Ham and getting attention from my friend Erna.

Brianna wanted a photo too and she is showing off her chips.

Everyone chatting (because the game was really slow no one was scoring they were both really good teams.)

Brianna Hanging out with dad.

Brooke is up to more Tricks. My friend Erna just for the record is a lot taller than Brian.

Brooke playing the drums to cheer on the German Team.

All of the kids are so tired and ready to go to sleep.

Anyways, that is some of our Dutch fun this week.

Our First Camping Trip

We went camping at the end of Last month but we still had our old camera and so pictures of that seem to be lost also. Brian is of the opinion that I need to blog about it anyways with out pictures because it was such a fun adventure for our family.


The Ward Camping trip was to take place near the Hook van Holland. It is a good distance south of where we live. With out a car it was going to be difficult to get us and everything we needed to get there. But we had a plan. We were not going to miss this opportunity to go camping.

THE PLAN--
We were going to take only the necessities with us, Tent, bedrolls, the bare minimum because everything we took with us had to fit into our bike stroller. So it had to be small. (for a visual here is an old picture of us on a bike with the bike stroller)

Next we would ride to the train station and take our bikes and the stroller on the train. (you have to pay an extra fee for the bikes but the campsite is several miles away from the train station in the Hook van Holland so it was worth it to save the time with the bikes.)

We would grab some dinner at the train station in the Hook van Holland and then after that it was easy just follow the map and bike to the campsite, set up the tent and enjoy.

THE REAL STORY --

This is how it really happened. It started out on a calm Friday. I was at home packing up everything to get us to the Ward camp out. So I packed up everything needed to go over night with 3 small girls on a camping trip. I went to try to pack it into the bike stroller and it didn't fit.
I was breaking down in stress because I was suppose to be meeting Brian at the train station with the girls and everything at 5:00pm and it wasn't fitting. I tried to see what I could leave behind, but there was nothing I only packed what we had to have. Finally at just before 5:00pm I called Brian and told him to come home because I couldn't make this fit into the bike stroller. The bed rolls were way to fluffy, not to mention the pillows.

So Brian came home and in his normal problem solving style he stacked everything up on the stroller and tied it all down with rope. It was going to work after all. We would look a little funny riding through town with this overstuffed bike stroller but we were going to make it after all.

Happily we all got on our bikes and headed off to the train station. We were only a few minutes into our trip when Brianna decided to be frustrated with her shoe and because I wouldn't stop to let her take it off she kicked her foot in anger and it went right into my back tire. I was afraid that she had hurt her foot. But it was o.k. It hurt her but there was no permanent damage. My bike on the other hand wasn't so luckily. She managed to break 6 of my spokes and kind of bent my back tire.

Brian rapped my broken spokes around my other spokes so that we could continue to the train station but it was here that we had to abandon the plan of taking the bikes with us on the train because mine was going to be lucky to make it to our train station. Let alone make it to a campsite and back again. Never fear, I had a back up plan. Valery Reese in our ward said that if we needed when we got to the train station we could call her and they would come get us. So I had her cell number programmed into our phone for just in case and it looks like I was going to need it. And if all else fails, there was a bus that went from the train station to the campsite. I think the bus driver would give us a hard time about our stroller full of luggage but we would figure it out.

So our ride to the station was so slow and my back tire was wobbling and I was praying we could just make it there. Brian was pulling the bike stroller with the luggage behind him and he wasn't heavy enough to hold his bike down, it kept trying to flip up his back tire on him. His bike didn't appreciate being put through such hard work. We made it to the station and locked up the bikes and put the front tire on our bike stroller to make it a normal stroller.

Us and all of our luggage entered the train station and we found our train and got on it. But we got on the wrong train. It only took us to Den Haag instead of all the way to Rotterdam like we thought we were going. So we got off and went and found the correct train. We went to Rotterdam and had to make one more transfer to get to the Hook van Holland. We finally made it and got off the train at the Hook at 9:30pm. (luckily here it doesn't get dark until well after 10 more like 11 in the summer time).

Our first task was to find food because we still hadn't eaten. But in traditional Holland style all the stores were close (they close at 8:00pm at night) Usually the Train station has stores open really late but this train station was to small for that and there was nothing to eat or to feed our girls who are screaming of starvation.

We figured we better take a walk through town and see if maybe we can find a little cafe that was open. Finally after a long walk we found one open and got some fries for the girls. It was a Egyptian restaurant and although Brian and I loved the food the girls just wanted french fries, luckily everyplace here serves french fries. At this point it is 10:30pm and it is getting dark. I get out the cell phone to call the Reese's and number I programmed into my phone didn't go to the Reese's it went to some man's cell phone.. who knows who he was. I don't know what I did wrong or how this wasn't working. But it wasn't. So I told Brian we better go back to the train station and try to get on the bus. He said he looked and there were no buses that left the station going over to where we were camping. I looked at my bus information and the buses left from another station that was father away from the camp site. There were no buses at this station to take us over there.

We were left to our own two feet to try to get us there. So we kept walking through town and found the roads we needed. We looked like a bunch of homeless people walking along with our stroller all packed up the way it was.

Kaitlyn and Brianna were so tired by this point we found a way to balance them on top of all the luggage and give them a carriage ride. This is where I had taken the photo's. It was just to funny not to document. Brian pushing the stroller packed high with 2 little girls on top. I had the easy job, I was just pushing Brooke in her normal stroller. Poor Brian.

The girls fell asleep along the way which was good they needed the sleep. We managed to get to the campground shortly after midnight. Brian went searching through to find something that would look like it being our ward's camping spot. There were lots of scouts camping here, they were awake and running around and they made it easy to know those were not our wards sites. Finally Brian found one that was quite with a bunch of huge family tents. It was the only one that looked right so we snuck in at 1:00am and unloaded our stroller and put our sleeping children on the ground to sleep while we set up. Brooke on the other hand saw no need to be asleep and was yelling up a storm to let everyone know we had arrived. We were just hoping this was our wards camp site. We didn't want to wake up in the morning and be around all of these strangers.

We finally got our tent put up in the dark and all the beds made and everything was ready for sleep by 2:00am. I would have to say again I am proud of my husbands ability to set up a tent in the totally dark. He is a man of many talents.

At last we got some sleep. We were so happy to drift into this wonderful bliss to only feel like we had been there just a second when we here two boys not far from our tent yelling "Look Ducks!"... Those boys were awfully excited about those ducks. I looked at my watch to see a beautiful 6:45 am on it. The ward was awake and that was Lawry and Brison excited looking at the ducks. So up we came and crawled out of our tent to join in our ward fun and activities.

It really was a fun camp out and so worth the trouble to get there. Going home was so much easier, Jan Prins in our ward took all of our luggage in his van. Ward members offered us a ride back to the station but it was only shortly after 12:00 when everyone starting leaving and we felt like we just go there. We didn't come all this way to go home yet. So we thanked our ward members for there kind offer but told them that we really wanted to enjoy a walk through the forest. After all the ward members leave and we are off on our adventure back to the train station I realize we don't have our cell. Brian had packed it up with the tent (he didn't see it in one of the pockets, where I had put it the night before)... So we were praying our Journey home would be less eventful because we had no way of calling anyone.

To this day the cell phone still lies in that tent, I haven't gotten the courage up to go unpack the tent and dig it out.

So Brianna is so sweet and the last time we talk with my parents on Skype she decided to sing this song by Vitamin C to them. But she had to stop because she was crying. I am amazed at the love she has for her Grandparents. Anyways... here is the song... just thought I would share. (It was the chorus she was singing.)

Friends forever

So Brianna is so sweet and the last time we talk with my parents on the phone she decided to sing this song by Vitamin C to them. But she had to stop because she was crying. I am amazed at the love she has for her Grandma's and Grandpa's. Anyways... here is the song... just thought I would share.

Missing familiar things

Another day at home sick has brought lots of reflection: Maybe it is just that I'm sick and we are out of food and one of us is going to have to leave this house to get food to feed our family and neither of us want to do it.. who knows...

So as I've had a chance to read through my friends blogs and get all of there links put onto my page. I find that I am really missing those that are so familiar to me. I miss that familiarity and the comfortableness that comes with knowing people and being friends with them for years.

I was always in the processes of making new friends and I love meeting new people and making new friends. But I always had the old friends who we were familiar with that we could relax with and be friends with and never really worry about saying the wrong thing. There was always family around that if I did say the wrong thing it was o.k. because most of the time (sooner or later) they would forgive you and love you anyways.

Here I find that I am in a constant world of unfamiliar. That I don't have anything familiar to fall into. That I never get to relax and just be 100% myself because I don't know what is safe to say or safe to do. I'm learning and things are becoming more familiar.

It is funny that it takes reading my friends blogs to realize that. I go to Shayleen's blog and how I wish for our time of letting the kids play while we scrap book or made cards. I look at all my friends pages and I long for the times when we hung out and laughed.

Anyways, I just long for a bit of familiarity. For a time where I can relax and just be 100% me. In time it will come. But for now. It is fun to read my friends pages and remember good old times. Thank you for sharing. -- But if anyone wants to come to Europe we would like it if you visited us.

School pictures!

I love school pictures. They finally have arrived. So I thought I would post them on here to share with everyone.

Kaitlyn's School Picture June 2008

Kaitlyn's Class Picture

Brianna's School Photo June 2008

Brianna's Class

My Three Beautiful Girls Together

Fathers Day June 15th

The girls made Brian a tie for fathers day. It says # 1 Dad and has hearts and butterfly's drawn on it. He was so good to wear it to church. He is such a good dad.

Brianna made dad a special gift at school. It was an envelope holder.

Kaitlyn had colored dad a special picture and made him as special gift at school too.

We made dad some pictures that he could take to work and put on his desk.

The girls giving dad his last gift.. lots of chocolate. A necessary gift to keep this dad happy.

Brookes 2nd Birthday --June 13th--

Brooke's 2nd Birthday was so much fun! Since Brooke doesn't really have friends yet and we didn't have any family to have a birthday part with we thought it would be fun to invite 2 of Kaitlyn's friends over who always play with Brooke and completely spoil her every time the come over. We figure it would be perfect for her birthday. So we had Nina and Christel come over. All the girls played with Brooke doing her favorite games which was mostly jumping on the trampoline. Then to tell the girls thank you we took them all to a little cafe for dinner. They got Fries and a burger with 'water balloons' as the kid toy. It made them happy. We came home and had cake and open gifts for Brooke. She loved her day.

Just before we opened gifts the post man delivered a box from Grandma Greer. Inside was the Kitty cat. Which Brooke adores. Grandma has such good timing. Thank you grandma. Brooke's Back pack came from Nina and the music floor pad was the gift to Brooke from us. She loves it. Especially because there is a kitty cat on it. -- Over all it was a great birthday for Brooke.

Home sick --

So the family has been struck with the Rota virus. Brian, I, Brianna and Brooke, are all suffering from it. Nothing major, just sick. But since Brian was home I made him help me put my web page back ground the way I wanted it. I love that he knows about programing. It was fun putting it together with him and I am much happier with my blog now! Thank you Brian! My blog is much prettier because of you! -- So now I'm off to blog so more pictures.

I've been tagged....

I got tagged by Shayleen!

5 things on my to do list: 1) Buy Dressers for the girls rooms, 2) Figure out how to make enough extra money to make it home each year for Christmas 3) Print out photo's and start scrap booking 4) Do the Laundry 5)Figure out how everyone has such cute backgrounds on there blogs.

5 jobs I've had: 1)stay at home Mom.. duties include taxi driver, nurse, cook, maid, child psychologist ect... 2) Childcare... I do this a lot to earn extra money at home 3)Accountant at KB Homes, 4) Accounting clerk for Johnson's accounting firm 5)Accounts Payable for Hilton Hotel's

5 Places I have lived: 1) Oegstgeest, Netherlands, Europe 2)Mesa, AZ 3) Mesa, AZ 4) Mesa, AZ 5) Mesa, AZ .... I get the feeling it was time for me to move but maybe I moved a little bit to far away :-) .....

5 Favorite snacks: 1)CHOCOLATE! 2)Speculaas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculaas 3) gummy bears 4) Marshmallows 5) Ruffles Chips.

5 things you don't know about me are: 1) My husband asked me to Marry him 2 times the first time I asked him if he was serious and told him I wanted to date more. 2 months later I said yes. 2) I don't have a favorite color. I like all of them, especially together. I can't decide. 3) I can't remember most things told me past about a day. I just forget, I don't mean to but my brain doesn't hold on to it. 4) We don't have a car. For the last year it has been me and a bike to get everywhere that I need to with my kids. But I actually like it. It has been nice. 5)I have anxiety problems and if I get to stressed out I will hide in my house and not want to do anything.

5 thing I would do if I was a billionaire: 1)Invest it 2) Donate to orphanages around the world. 3) Buy a car. 4) Buy a house (we are renting) 5) Have a date with my husband every week.

5 things I love: 1)Brian my Husband 2) Kaitlyn, Brianna and Brooke 3) All my family and Brian's Family. 4) Friends-- they are an amazing support when I don't have #3 around all the time. 5) Not being hot. I love that it is summer and that I'm not sweating. It is so beautiful here! I love it!

5 people I tag: 1) Michelle, 2) Amanda, 3) Ashley 4) Valerie 5) Kristen

Brookes next fall

Brooke fell again on June 6th. This one isn't major compared to Brooke's other falls but still lefts a lot of marks on her. This little active girl keeps me on my toes. Everyday, I'm pulling her down off the fence or off something she shouldn't be climbing on, but some days I just don't get there on time. This day was one of them. The poor little thing feel off the bench face first.

Mothers Day

The Girls made me these beautiful picture frames with grandma for Mothers day. I love having them. (Thank you Grandma)

Trip to Germany

Brian and I went to Cologne, Germany for an overnight trip while Brian's mom was here. It was fun there was lots to see. We rented bikes and biked down the Rijn River it was a beautiful ride. Mostly we just enjoyed having time alone. Time by ourselves. We hadn't had that for a long time. We are so grateful for his mom for that.

Although like most trips this was not done with out us doing something wrong. We purchased some expensive delicious chocolates from the chocolate factory to give to our mom's for Mothers day (Brian's mom would take it back to the states for us). We also bough some chocolates for the girls. We left it on the train when we came home because we were tired and we were not paying attention. We were sad to lose it. It caused a fight when we got off the train and realized what we had done. But hey it was a nice trip! :-)

So enjoy the slide show below you may want to press F5 to refresh the screen and start the slide show from the beginning.

Check out my Slide Show!

Brian and I Visit to Germany

Brian and I went to Cologne, Germany for an overnight trip while Brian's mom was here. It was fun there was lots to see.

Grandparents Visit

The girls love it when Grandma visits them. It is the best treat in the world. Grandma and Grandpa Greer both came in May. They had lots of fun. Enjoy watching the slide show.

Grandmas Visit in May

Kaitlyn's 7th and Brianna's 5th Birthday

Playing a game to see who can eat the most chocolate covered Marshmallows. All the kids ate about 2 and gave up. They said they were too sweet.





The girls birthday's were so much fun. We had birthday parties for both of them. The Dutch culture has very specific rules as to what is acceptable at a birthday party. Here are a few of them.



1)5-10 friends are invited to the party. Any more than that and it is seen as"to much".
2)The party last for about 4 or more hours.
3)You feed the kids a meal of course since you are having a party for so long.
4)It is important that you give everyone else a gift on your birthday to let them know it is your Birthday.
5) You have several parties. One with the kid's friends from school and then one with your friends and there kids.



So the morning of the girls birthdays we had treats prepared for them to take to school and give out to there class and to all of there friends. They aren't just normal treats, they are very creatively done treats with a little notes that says Kaitlyn is 7 jaar (years) or Brianna is 5 jaar. We took a Styrofoam box and rapped it in tinfoil and decorated it with birthday stuff. Then we took Lollies and printed out pictures of flowers and taped them to the Lollies. We put all the Lollies into the box and made it look like a flower garden. They handed these out to there class with chocolate chip cookies. Of course for the teachers you are suppose to bring something special a larger nicer treat. Like chocolates. However it isn't just for your kids teacher but for all the teachers with in 3 levels of your kids class.



So once that task was done I could start working on the birthday party. We had planned treasure hunts. We made a piñata for all the kids to break open and we had all sorts of games and activities to play and do.



One of the most fun things we did was all of the kids hid there gifts in the house and the girls had to find the gifts.



Brianna's party was on Friday and Kaitlyn's was on Saturday. It was a lot of fun but we were so tired and so stressed by time the whole thing was done. Next year I just want to find a park to do it at.



We took so many fun pictures of their Birthday party but my camera wigged out and lost all of the pictures. All of them are gone. I was so sad. But at least we still had the party to go with our friends and their kids. We had that the following week.



We planned it on a day the girls had off from school and it was fun. Except for the fact that we went to the store that morning to buy food and everything we needed for the party to find out that this was a national holiday and all the stores were closed and there were no stores open. We were so sad. How were we going to have this party we planned with all the stores closed? Brian went searching across town and found 1 store by the train station open and we got what we could to make a party work. It wasn't what we had planned but it was still nice.



So above are pictures of that party that we did for the girls. We bought a new camera also to make sure we didn't lose any more pictures.