Visiting Delft

Thanks to a friend Brian and I actually got to go on a date on the 16th of August. That is something we haven't done in months. We got to go see Delft. Which is a town here that we haven't gotten to explore yet. We decided that we would begin by seeing the huge church in town. They are fun to see because they are huge, old, beautiful, and rich with History. We started with the "New church". Which wasn't very new, it was really close to a 1000 years old. But it was newer then the old church which is the second place we went.



The New Church had a high tower that we could climb the steps and looked out at the city. Of course, we climbed them and took lots of pictures of roof tops. I couldn't get good pictures of this but some of the people had pictures done on the tiles in their roof tops around the church. It was so fun. One house had a picture of a trumpet in its roof tiles. Another house had the year the house was built. It was just fun.



I loved standing up top and looking out. Brian, however, didn't like it so much, he said it made his stomach sick. So I had to tease him a little bit. This is the only place where he is afraid of something that I am not.



We had so much fun talking and walking and enjoying our time. We went and got lunch after we saw the new church and then we went and saw the old church. We looked at the clock when we came out and realized that we had already spent our 4 hours of date time. It was amazing that it flew by so fast. It was so nice just to be alone and just talk.



Here are some pictures we took in Delft. There aren't very many because the batteries died.

Sea Life

A few weeks ago some really stupid things happened. No details needed just know they were stupid. It really affected me because I had some goals set and they had to be changed. I was really discouraged about some financial stuff because it affected us financially. All together, to say the least, I felt really helpless. I hate that felling.

Anyways, I needed to go do something fun and that meant just go out and socialize and be with someone pleasant. 1/2 of our ward moved back to America this summer and the other 1/2 is sick and pregnant or on vacation. However there was one victim to call. Amy! She just moved in this summer and I am just getting the chance to get to know her. I was so grateful for her willingness to go out with me and the kids. We took our kids to the Sea Life Aquarium. It was really neat. (I forgot my camera.. sorry I have no pictures.) And then we went and let them play on the beach since the aquarium is right next to the beach.

http://www.sealifeeurope.com/

I just need to say thank you to Amy for her kindness that day. It was a really stinky one for me and although she didn't know me well she was so thoughtful to just hang out with me.

Available

Since we have been stuck at home ALL week long -- with every member of the family taking turns with this flu thing. I have been doing lots of cleaning and organizing or at least as much as I can. I was going through cloths that are too small and cloths the girls are growing into. You know the boxes in the Attic. Anyways, I found this shirt which is so cute. A friend of mine from Germany gave it to me. I can't get rid of it because it is so perfectly German. But yet at the same time I think when will my girls ever really wear this? It is so cute though. So I thought I would post pictures of it here and the first person interested in it you can have it. Brian is coming to Arizona next week. If you aren't in Arizona I will mail it to you happily. If you live here I will happily hand it over to you. Just let me know that you want it. It is a child size 6 or maybe 7/8. I'm not for sure it is a European size 128, I just have a hard time changing that back to American sizes.

visting Delft

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cute kids

Yes, these are just pictures of my Cute little girls playing dress up together. Brooke and Brianna are having fun in pretend world. It was so fun watching them play so well together. Brianna is such a good sister. She tries so hard to play well with her sisters. I had to just take pictures of the sweet moment!

camping

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reminder of things to come

I haven't posted for like 2 weeks, I know. I have been having a really hard time because some very disappointing things have happened in my life but at the same time some really fun things have happened also and I want to make a few quick notes about the fun things so that when I get to blogging I don't forget the important stuff and so that you know that I'm alive.

1)Went to Sea life with a new friend Amy!
2)Went to Delft and got to do some site seeing.
3)Went camping- It was awesome!
4)Flat Stanley came to visit our house- We took him on tour.
5)Finally made it to the Linnaeushof - again so much fun
6) the whole family got sick (which is why I'm not actually blogging anything right now)
7)Surprised my friend Ulrike for her birthday (forgot my camera so no pictures).
8)I've been job searching - for something I can do to earn some extra money with out completely leaving my kids (it has not been a fun experience) But I think I may have found something. Heavenly Father has a wonderful way of blessing us in our lives.
9)Fall seems to be arriving... Summer is so short here.

I have a child crying so I have to go take care of them.

Until I actually get to blog!!

Dilbert

I loved this one. I had to share

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/dilbert;_ylt=AsXkvJvk6x_JRXcQe3XY58rV.i8C

Camping the Dutch way!

So we got to go this weekend up camping with a friend. She had a camping spot reserved that allowed her camper plus a tent. So they invited us up to join them for a few days.

We traveled up by train and made our way to the camping area. We got there and my goodness. If there were camping area's like this in Arizona, I think everyone would spend thier whole summer camping with there kids. It was the coolest place. It was like this huge amuzement place for children. There was so much to do. They had a huge pool with a water slide. They had the coolest parks all through the campsite. One was pirate themed with a pirate boat and all sorts of fun things to run around and play on. They had ponies to ride. They had this Huge jumping thing that the girls spent forever on. The lake had normal park toys all around it but all the slides went into the lake. In the middle of the lake there were park toys they could swim out to and play on. It looked like every kids dream come true. The girls were so happy there and did not want to leave. It was AWESOME! We loved it and enjoyed our time with our friends.

I only have a few pictures that I can post and the rest I will post when my friend Erna emails them too me. I forgot my camera to many times as we went around but she had her camera phone.

Praying for a car.

Kaitlyn has for many nights been including into her prayers that we can have a car. She wants one so badly. Every time we go on a long bike ride she talks about what goes faster then a bike and how much faster it would be to go by car. She is by far the biggest advocate of getting a car in this family.

Anyways, her faith must be pretty big because tonight some people in the ward who are suddenly moving back to the states, called and said that they don't really have time to sell there car and wanted to know if we wanted it. WOW! what do you say to something like that. It is so generous of them. It is by far the most exciting thing for our family. It means we can go places and have the freedom of getting to church with out being rained on. I look forward to that!

Now if we can at least get Brian drivers licence to come through. We applied for it 3 months ago and still haven't gotten it, but hopefully soon. I am going to apply for mine now. We will see how long it will take.

Oh! You're Brian!

So Brian was on the phone talking and Brooke was at his knee begging "I want to say Hello to Brian, I want to say hello to Brian." Brian finished his call and said goodbye and she was so mad and was crying because she didn't get to say hello to Brian. Brian laughed and told her, "Brooke, I am Brian."

Brooke was really confused for a moment and thought that one over. Then with the most excited look on her face she smilled and ran to Brian and gave him a giant hug and said, "Oh! You are Brian. Thank you, I love you".

She had finally met her phone friend.

one of those weeks

This week has been one of those weeks. You know the ones where you get pushed to your absolute limits and you break!

So Kaitlyn sat down with me and had questions about the changes that will happen to her body and she gets bigger so I explained it to her simply and she wanted to know more about the monthly cycle so I looked up a nice picture chart on the Internet that shows the ovaries and explained how it all worked and why you have these monthly cycles. She then asked if I kiss a boy will I get a baby in my tummy. So then I had to find a nice way to explain it to her but with out to much detail. Only a little stressful but not to bad.

Second a very close friend of mine has had lots of questions about the church and wither or not they even believe in the church or not. It makes me really sad because I have been friends with this person for so long and I have tried talking with them but I feel so helpless in this situation. I have prayed to know what I can say and what I can do but this friend seems determined not to believe any more and I feel so sad inside.

There is this person that I have been doing some work for. We agreed on a price in the beginning of 350 euro a month for the work I would do which would be about 80 hours per month. This persons then starts talking that since I was salary that they would just maybe use me extra days here and there with no extra pay. When opportunity came I asked to paid hourly because it was given to me as a choice. They then set my hourly pay at 4 euros per hour. 4 euro times 80 hours is only 320 euros per month. When I pointed out they were underpaying me they got mad and angry at me but then reset the pay to 4.50 per hour which comes out to 360 per month. I said fine if you want to. The exact pay should have been 4.38 to go with the original agreement. But then they said but we will only use you 40 hours a month instead. I patiently dealt with this. I still did the work that they asked. Accept for the first month that I was suppose to work those 40 hours they ended up only using me 20 hours instead and canceled on me on the other 20 hours.

In addition to these stunts each time the communicated with me they would let me know how displeased they were with my actions in one way or another. I dreaded talking to them and felt like I was being verbally abused with ever interaction with them.

Brian and I had a friend invite us to go on small trip with them on one of the days they had scheduled me to work but that didn't mean they would use me as they had cancelled at the last minute several times already. I felt like this working arrangement wasn't working out anyways and so I emailed them and told them I needed a vacation day. They were mad at me and told me how inconsistent I was and how I kept changing things on them and that I had made things horribly hard on them by not doing the full 80 hour work. They then let me know that come October 1 they were going to use someone else for there needs.

I was so mad. I mean I was so mad I blew like I have never blown at a person before. I let her know exactly how rude and jerky I thought she was. And that I quit now! It so isn't worth it.

The problem is I know the I should never treat any person this way, no matter what. You know there is turn the other check and all that other stuff. I had been praying and trying to know how to best deal with things. But it was to frustrating. I feel so angry and embarrassed about it all at the same time. Yes I needed to quit but I needed to do it way nicer.

Our Wassenaar Beach Trip

We decided to ride our bikes to the Wassenaar beach. We have a lot of fun going to the beaches in the different towns. We have not gone to the Wassenaar beach yet and we had heard it was nice. So we decided it was time to go. It was a sunny day so packed some snacks and we jumped on our bikes. The day was so beautiful. It was sunny. The wind was slightly blowing and it was such a tranquil day.



We were riding along in our line, Brian first Kaitlyn next and me behind. Kaitlyn is riding along in a nice straight line on the bike path and then she suddenly just falls over. The only thing I can figure is she fell asleep. She literally just fell over for no reason at all. I asked her what happened and she doesn't know. I think the tranquility of the day made her a bit too relaxed. She wanted me to take pictures of her wounds. So here is a pictures of her and a scraped elbow and knee. Right after I took this picture we even had a police officer come by and offer to give us a ride somewhere to get band aids. I really wished I took a picture of that. It made Kaitlyn feel special.







We were able to stop by the Larson's house who are friends in the ward (since 1/2 of our ward lives in Wassenaar, it was easy to find someone to help) and get some band aids and cleaned her up and then we left her bike at their house and put her on Brian's bike and went on our way.

Getting to the Wassenaar beach was fun. We discovered that you had to climb a small mountain to get to the ocean. Not really a mountain it was just a large hill. We were amazed at the Dutch at that point that they drained all this land because it was obviously below sea level.


I loved the beach at Wassenaar. I loved it because there was so many people on this beach that were speaking English, not just English but American English. I LOVED it! There were plenty of people speaking Dutch it was just so nice to hear that common familiar sound of American English here and there.


The girls loved the beach too and Kaitlyn's injuries didn't stop her from jumping in the water and having fun. It was a good day. On the way home we stopped by a pannenkoeken restaurant that had 102 different types of Dutch pancakes to chose from. The girls got strawberries and ice cream on there pancakes. Brooke just wanted fries. It was a great day and we enjoyed it.

A happy Post!

So there has been enough DRAMA this week I decided we needed a happy post and today provide a good chance for one. The process of weight loss is a long and grueling process that feels like it is going to take the rest of my life to reach my goals. So to help me not get discourage, I have little goals. To spare you the Horrific reality of how much I weigh I will not confess my weight here or my little weight goals along the way but I think I have another good way to describe it.

Every Friday I weigh myself and some weeks I have more success then others. But today I stepped on the scale and I weighed a weight that I haven't weighed since before I got pregnant with Brianna. It has been a long time. I am really excited about making it to this weight goal. Although it isn't anywhere near my final weight goal. It was a nice weight goal to make it to today!

Brian suggested we have a celebration tonight so I decided we would walk to the farthest away grocery store in our small town to purchase a small thing of soy ice cream to eat as a family for a celebration. It was a beautiful evening and a very enjoyable walk. The girls loved there ice cream in the end. It was very nice.

All is well -- Brookes hospital stay

Brooke on her bed watching some TV


All the girls on Dad's bed. Kaitlyn Learned how to braid she is showing off her braid.



Brooke playing in the play room. It was lots of fun.


Brooke in her Crib with her Rabbit.


We have some fun stories to share with you about Brooke's stay at the Hospital.


First, Brian takes Brooke in to the hospital Monday night. He promised Brooke if she was good for the doctor then they could leave and go home. She was so good and behaved so well. The doctor came back and told them she wanted them to see another doctor. Brian told Brooke one more then they could go, she was good for the next, who stripped her down and checked her reactions and such, but the same thing they wanted them to see another doctor and again they couldn't go. Then they would talk for 30 minutes and get another doctor. Finally, after they saw the neurologist, Brooke put on her shoes and jacket and cleans up her toys and says " it is time to go, now!" but yet they still couldn't go. They had to wait 45 min after that and Brooke was very upset about this and getting much fussier all the time. In frustration she asked Brian, "Daddy don't you want to go?". Poor thing finally gave up and went to sleep, which is a pretty big thing for Brooke. But shortly after they found out they had to stay, and didn't get to go. She woke up and was very angry that they were not going home.


When the Neurologist was checking Brooke's reactions he had a small tape measure with a button on it. He wanted to test her ability to reach for something and to react, so he would pull it out and then push the button when she reached for it. She did not appreciate this game. Then he gave her the tape and pulled it out and told her to push the button to make it go in. However, he gave it to her with the button turned away. Brooke quickly examined it and found the button and pushed it in. The doctor was very amazed with the speed of her thoughts. He also made a comment about how it was obvious that she was a curious child and she dismantled the room while he and I talked.

Remember my earlier blog about not wanting to actually potty train my kid yet. Yea! So the doctors needed a urine sample from Brooke and had this little potty that they wanted me to sit her on to go potty. It is all great and good going in the potty when Brooke wants to but when mom wants Brooke to sit on the potty and go, there is no way! We went to the store and bought gummy bears to give to Brooke each time she sat on the toilet. We took off her diaper and just did everything we could to try to get her to sit there or at least go ever like 15 min and try. It wasn't working, she didn't want to sit on the potty any more and she was NOT going to pee. She didn't pee for 4 hours, because she didn't want to go on the potty. Finally i gave up and went to go talk to the Nurses to see if there was another option for collecting this urine sample. There was. They had these little plastic bags they could glue to her. First method we have ever seen that stops her from moving. Not very nice or comfortable but a lot more successful then my crash course in potty training. Needless to say, Brooke will NOT be going through potty training for several more months to come. Some explain potty training as a Love/hate relationship, I think I just simply HATE it!


On Brooke's bed, the sides go all the way up like a normal crib. Anyways, she was down for a nap and we were in the play room with the girls playing some games. When Brooke finally woke up from her nap we went in to get her. Brooke was standing up in her crib holding on to the railing and Kaitlyn excitedly came in and grabbed on to the railing and was jumping and saying hi to Brooke. Sweet, yes, until she somehow triggers the release button and the side railing comes down and Brooke is dragged out of the crib and falls out head first and lands on the hard hospital floor on her head again. Luckily one of the doctors were there in the room with us when it happened, otherwise I don't think they would believe us. They checked her out right away. She went into a strange dreamy daze for a little bit but then she came out and seemed o.k. They kept her over night again just to make sure.



Wednesday morning they came in to release Brooke from the hospital and the head Dr. said "I hear you are a naughty one". The Dr. has no idea! The Dr. needed to see Brooke walk and check out her coordination before she released her, but Brooke had enough of these doctors and she didn't want to do anything but hide behind dad's leg. So Brian came up with a plan to have Brooke take the doctor her stuffed rabbit to get checked and make sure it was o.k. Brooke had a little stroller she had been playing with and put her rabbit in it she took two steps and shoved the stroller as hard as she could towards the doctor. The rabbit made it to the doctor, Brooke laughed about how clever she was and again hid again behind Brian's leg. So the Doctor checked rabbit out and told Brooke that rabbit seem to be o.k. and the head doctor said that someone had to be more clever than the child to get her to walk. After a couple of tries the student doctor asked Brooke to come get the rabbit and Brooke decided that she better rescue rabbit from that mean doctor and the doctors got to see her run. The Doctor laughed at Brooke's creativity and the things she came up with to get out of having to do what they wanted her to.


Of course, after us telling everyone that she was sick and threw up every night in her sleep, Brooke only threw up once in the day when her Dad was playing with her. The doctors declared her to be a very healthy little girl and were happy to let her go. Talk about a pain, they decided to keep her in the hospital because she was healthy... not sick.

Brooke is home and all is well. Brian and I have our own theories now about what it might have been making her throw up, now that we know it was none of the other items. It has to do with the fact that she snagged some ice cream and ate it when she shouldn't. She gets sick in her stomach in the same way that I do, where the doctors could never tell what was wrong with my stomach either. She had been doing well with eating the bread that had some milk product in in and she has been o.k. with eating chocolate. So I didn't think about the fact that this could be a reaction to the ice cream but maybe it was just too much milk product for her system. It is only our theory. It just doesn't seem to be anything else that that doctors could find. It is all that is left.