It's That Dam Good

Yesterday was a perfect fall day here in Amsterdam made even better with a visit with Pete's aunt Heidi and husband Rob. Maeve and I got our bearings on our new tram and metro line and met up with them for lunch in the Jordaan followed by an afternoon drink in Dam square. Heidi and Rob were just off a 15 day Viking River Cruise and tacked on a few days to see the city. They have grandkids the same age as Jude and Maeve and were so great with her at lunch so I could eat in peace.

Later that evening after Maeve was fast asleep and Jude was happily playing with a new babysitter, Pete and I met back up with them for a fabulous dinner at Bridges, a spot I'd been wanting to try since we moved here. A great time getting to know Heidi and Rob (the Canadian Durning contingent) better.  It was a late night for all and when I asked Pete this morning how the night went with Jude, he had no recollection of going in and sleeping in his bed with him :) Too much fun for a Tuesday night I'd say!

Maeve really is delicious!

Leaves just starting to turn against a cloudless blue sky

Bridges and Canal Houses will never get old

Happy Diners

Spiders and Burglars and Buurman. Oh My!

Some thoughts on our new home ownership.

1. If you have a fear of spiders, the Netherlands may not be for you.

We would get an occasional spider in our rental, but have now noticed that spiders are everywhere. Luckily, I don't have any significant fear provided they aren't too big or hairy. A big 6 inch long furry one once scurried out of a tarp I was unfolding during my camp counselor days and that still gives me the heebie jeebies! The spiders are a problem outside and thankfully have not been an issue (yet!) inside the house. Anytime you reach you hand into a dark space or bend over, you are sure to put your hand or head through a web. Every time I go to unlock my bike, new spider webs cover it. Pete came home down the alley one day and I watch as he tries to wipe the webs off his face as an amused Jude sits on the back of the bike. We will get used to this I'm sure.

2. Befriend your Buurman

We have been very pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of our new neighbors. Buurman (pronounced something like "beer man) is dutch for neighbor. We are in a row of 7 houses and met all of these neighbors except 1 plus a few to the different sides of our house. People will be out walking and see us and say hello. I don't know why this has surprised us so much, but it has. We have an idea to host our neighbors for a little American welcome party. Will let you know if that happens!

3. But beware of some buurman and burglars

The elderly neighbor who came over in her nightgown to tell us to quit hammering the night we were removing the cork stairs has a grown son. As I was leaving the house one evening to meet friends for dinner, he approached me and began talking my ear off. He shared that his mother had been burglarized (or at least an attempted burglary) only 2 days prior and that he had talked to some neighbors who also had recent break in attempts. While I appreciated the intel, he would not stop talking and I was already running late. Cue the next night when he rings our doorbell. I did not want to talk to him again, so Pete answered and after ~10 minutes of the man talking Pete's ear off, I called Pete and pretended to be his parents calling from Portugal to give him an out. We think that he means well, but we have too much to do when the kids are sleeping to stop and shoot the shit with him for ages!

He did share some hilarious intel though. When describing how his mother was burglarized, he explained that she has some dementia and was sitting in her front garden with her front door open. Apparently, a polish man walked past her in the garden and went into the house and used the bathroom. The son didn't know if he also stole something while in the house as it seems there is a bit of a hoarder phenom going on over there, but he did warn us to watch out for the "Polish pooper." His words, not ours!

4. We better brush up on our Dutch

Property insurance, internet and cable contracts, electricity and gas providers, home inspections and contractor reports, furniture assembly instructions, etc, etc, etc. All of these things are tedious to begin with and then add on top of it that everything is obviously in Dutch. It makes me dread getting the mail as I know there will be important things there, but I won't be able to read it! Google translate on my phone has a feature where I can hover the camera over the text and it instantly translates it, but this really only gets you so far. Time to take learning Dutch more seriously!

We hosted our first friends for dinner Friday. Jude got a kick out of the kid table set up. 

Jude helping load all of the cardboard into the borrowed ISA van to take to the dump

So Many Feelings

This past week and a half has been a whirlwind and I'm just starting to process and now document all of the recent changes in our lives. Our big moving day was last Sunday. Two of Pete's coworkers graciously offered to help out and we hired a moving service to tackle the big stuff. First, Pete and co went to our storage unit to empty it before the hired movers arrived. Then they worked quickly, stopping at our apartment to pick up the rest before unloading everything at Belle van Zuylenlaan. Some big items had to go up over our back extension and through the bedroom windows as the stairs are typical Dutch and very narrow. 

All our goodies at the storage unit

Loading up Patrimoniumlaan

Hauling things into the house

Oma and I spent the day entertaining the kiddos and trying to stay out of the way. Luckily Jude had his Little Gym class in the morning and the local park was having a children's festival all afternoon. I was excited to see all of our stuff in the new house so we went over Sunday evening and had take out dinner in our front garden. 

Unloaded at the new house!

First dinner at the new house

The boys celebrated their hard work with some whiskey that was given to us by one of the expats we bought some furniture from.

We then spent the next 3 nights living at our apartment with just the essentials. In the interim, the house interior was painted by the partner of one of Pete's coworkers. The stairs were scheduled to be carpeted on Tuesday. This is what the stairs looked like before: 

Some pretty classy laminate cork board :) I couldn't stand the sight of them. The carpet store told us that we'd need to remove the laminate before they could put the carpet down. We thought we'd have plenty of time to tackle this first home DIY. Then we started and realized that this stuff was really stuck on good and removing it was far more work than we were willing to take on. We decided to pay extra to have the carpet installers remove it for us. At the last minute though, we decided to also carpet the top floor landing and needed to have the laminate removed by the next afternoon. The first landing had come up easily so we thought "no problem." 3+ hours of hard, sweaty labor by Pete, Opa and I and that dang stuff was finally gone! It didn't help that it was during last week's heat wave. It was not quiet work and at 10:30pm, one of our elderly next door neighbors came knocking on our door to ask us to stop. Not the best first impression! I have since gone to meet her and given her cookies, so I think we are back in her good graces. But she doesn't speak English so I don't really know! 

Each night, Pete and I would come over to the house to set up as much as possible before our move in day on Wednesday. I had visions in my head of this seamless transition from one home to the next, with everything all set up and ready to go. Ha! I greatly underestimated how difficult it would be. 

Tuesday night was the last night at Patrimoniumlaan. We will miss that apartment where we made so many memories with Jude and where we gained our television fame :)

Wednesday might have been the busiest day I have had in years. It started with a trip to the new house to finish off the laminate removal with Opa. Then, I rushed back to take Maeve to her first day at day care. The day was scheduled way before our move date was known, otherwise I wouldn't have had everything happen on the same day! We had an intake meeting followed by 3 hours of her at the center. In those 3 hours I took Oma and Opa to the airport, loaded our last belongings into our car and brought them to the new house, went back to our apartment to pump and then continue cleaning the apartment. Followed by picking Maeve up, grocery shopping, returning home to clean, clean, clean before the new tenants arrived. Then it was our first night in our new house. It was over 80 degrees. We couldn't find anything in boxes. Our room didn't have blinds yet and the street lights are very bright. Jude fell out of his new big boy bed (even though we had a bed rail) at some point in the night and Maeve woke up an extra time. An exhausting end to an exhausting day! 

Maeve getting practice with taking a bottle. Jude insisted on feeding her. 

Maeve on her first day of day care. Oblivious to the stress her momma was under!

On Friday, Pete's school had their welcome back party for staff at Melkhuis in Vondelpark. I tooled around the city Friday with Maeve running errands and going to the Amsterdam Museum. We stayed late at the party and Jude was having a blast with new friends. We had a number of friends lined up to come over to see the new house and help out with our endless list of projects on Saturday, but then Jude woke up with a roaring fever and we spent the day binge watching Peppa Pig on the sofa instead.

Girls' day at the museum! 

The heat wave ended and all of a sudden it was Fall in Vondelpark! 

This was Jude's second weekend in a row with a fever. Starting school has worn him down! Yesterday, he refused to nap at school and arrived home like this: Poor little guy!

It was chilly so daddy gave him his jacket.

It is hard to tell which transition is affecting Jude the most. New school. New house. New sister. A lot of changes for one little guy. He is doing pretty well, but has had many more melt downs at home in the past few weeks. I imagine he's exhausted mentally and physically. 

Luckily he had Oma and Opa to help him. I had taken my rings to a jeweler to be cleaned so Jude and I chatted about rings, why we wear them and what they mean. He said that he wanted to get married. When asked to whom, he replied "Oma and Opa." When I explained that you (generally!) can only marry one person, he decided it would be Oma. She was flattered of course and brought him a ring. Opa may have been excluded from the nuptials, but he did get his fair share of "Ahwooga" hugs!

Jude's fever broke Saturday night and it was back to business Sunday. I took him to one of the local parks and ran into a new neighbor again with his kids. Our neighborhood seems like a solid mix of old and young and very multicultural.

Checking out our new canal

Maeve had her second settling in day at day care yesterday. When I dropped her off, she made a pitiful sad face and started crying and I nearly started crying. It's not easy turning your baby over to someone else's care. She seems rather unfazed by it all though. Unfortunately, on Maeve's first day, I was told that chicken pox was going around so now we wait and see if and how it will affect her :(

So now we are rounding out our first week at the new house. It is starting to come together and feel like home, though there is a lot to do before we truly feel settled. It is exciting and scary to be home owners. We've been warned already by neighbors about break ins in the area so we are on high alert for that (as much as you can be). We are getting to know our neighbors who have all been very welcoming and come to meet us or stop us on the street to say hello. We're getting used to our new Albert Heijn and Pete had his first evening run along the Amstel river tonight.

And the kids seem happy and I know that we will be very happy in this home together!

"How happy are you to be in your new house?? So happy!"

And "so hoppy" :)

Belle van Zuylenlaan

We are about to spend our first night in our new home! It has been an exhausting week to say the least, so a longer post about the move will have to follow. But for now, here is "Baby in Box" version 2.0. Maeve will be 4 months tomorrow and Jude was the exact same age (to the day!) when we moved to Amsterdam. It feels like we've come full circle! And I'm glad I kept the onsie for the comparison :) 

And Jude at the same age!

House Updates

In addition to Jude's busy first week at school, we have been busy with preparations for our move which is happening this Saturday! Our initial Oct 5th closing date was moved up when we learned that the current owners were leaving sooner than expected. We found new tenants (Pete's new coworker) to take over our lease so now we close on Friday! We have had less time to prepare for the move and to say our goodbyes to our apartment, but are happy to get in early to feel settled before Pete's work gets really busy. 

Remember when we said goodbye to our Brooklyn home and took off for Amsterdam with just 10 suitcases and two shipped boxes? 

How simple it all seemed

Well, we may have accumulated a few things in the past two years... And now, moving from a furnished apartment to an unfurnished house we needed to accumulate a lot more stuff! I am a member of a number of Facebook Amsterdam Selling groups and expat sales are sort of the best. People move here, buy all new furniture and then sell it all for a song a few years later when they move back home. Yes, most of it is Ikea, but I happen to like Ikea. And then you go to collect said second hand Ikea item and the sellers are like, "oh, and do you need kitchen stuff, decorative stuff, etc for free?" People get desperate to get rid of stuff and I have been the happy recipient of their generosity. I imagine this will be us in a few years so I will be sure to pay it forward. 

We've scored some major deals, but the biggest of all was a former executive selling the entire furniture contents of his house for 1,000 euro. Including 2 flat screen Tvs, a woman's bike, 2 sofas, the list goes on and on! This was back in July so we made the decision to buy it all, rent a moving van, borrow a friend and move everything to a storage unit until we were ready to move. Even with the costs of the rental van and storage unit for a few months, we knew it would be worth it. There is a lot that we won't need and will resell to recoup some of the costs to make it an even sweeter deal. 

Maeve helping at the storage unit a month ago

We filled it up in no time!

And now we are in the packing phase of the move with the movers scheduled to come first thing Saturday morning. Where did all of this stuff come from??

Our current view

A lot goes into buying and setting up a house, especially in a new country. A new washer/dryer was purchased from a salesman who shared a lot of Dutch history. Carpet for the stairs was ordered while we had our first "we lost our child in a store scare" (Jude was behind the drapes hiding). Contractors and painters came and gave quotes. We've chosen an internet/TV package and are choosing insurance options. Oh, and we are transferring a lot of dollars into euros to pay for the house at closing on Friday! We will be in our rental until September 15th, taking next week to set up the new house.

It is going to be a busy time, but we brought in reinforcements! Oma and Opa arrived today. They initially were coming to help me this week while Pete goes on his grade level trip. Then they were going to return in October after spending a few weeks traveling in Portugal to help us with the move. Now, we'll take care of the move in the first part of the visit and have the second part to just enjoy our time together. 

Transition Week at ISA

Last week was long. Jude continued his settling in days at ISA and I felt like our whole family was living there with all of the back and forth trips. Each day, a new place was shared with the kids. The early education kitchen, where Jude showed off his cookie making skills (we consume a lot of cookies in our household!). The early education library, where the librarian (a friend) was apologetic that the library only had 6000 books (for nursery through Pre-K)! And the piece de resistance, the gym, specially designed for the little ones complete with an automated basketball net that lowers to their level for slam dunks. We are impressed. By Thursday, the two small groups of kids had joined together so that all of the children could get used to playing together. Added to the little nursery UN is a Portuguese girl, a British girl, a Chinese boy, a Japanese boy, a Dutch boy and a Tunisian boy. 

I loved getting to see so much of Pete during a time of year when I'm always sad about his sudden departure back to teaching. Before and after Jude's classes, we would pop down the hallway to say a quick hello. Pete will be in charge of most drop offs and pick ups since it is the most convenient option. So he practiced having Jude around while he attempted to get work done.

A little chemist in the making 

Doing his "work"

Today was the first full day for Jude. We were told just the night before that Jude would need a blanket, pillow and lovey for nap time. Would have been good information to have the week before when we drove in every day. Not on the first day Jude was going by bike with Pete. Thank goodness for Pete's new bike basket! "Pink Addy" got quite the ride!

So far, Jude is loving school. He's doing "super" per his teacher and has quickly made a best friend with whom he shares his nap time bunk bed. We are all so excited for him!

"School!"