Marne's Marvelous Adventures

5e Binnenvestgracht 5

2006-10-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

I have taken pictures of our house in Leiden, Holland. I thought it would help y'all picture our life better if you saw where we lived. I have not taken a picture of every room but you will get the general idea.

September 4th

2006-09-22T05:09:00.000-07:00

Virginia's 10 month Birthday Party!!!

Some people say that their second child is always getting seconds....well, that is not going to happen with Virginia. We celebrate her month birthdays, until she turns 1 year old. She is never wrong, and she gets to eat and sleep as much as she wants to! She is such a delight to all of us, and it helps that she is the easiest baby we've ever had!!! She eats better and goes to sleep better than her big brother, but Halsey is definitely the funnier child. So for Virginia's 10 month birthday we had a day at the beach. It was beautiful. The beach is at the North Sea is has soft brown sand and lined with sand dunes covered with tall grass. People are allowed to ride their horses along the seashore, which has always been a dream of mine.

photo journal of August and September

2006-09-20T07:33:00.000-07:00

August 4th...Virginia turns 9 months today and she tried "cows milk" for the first time. (right) Virginia wears her first bow!

End of August...

We enjoyed the North Sea with our Super Nanny Melissa. About 30 minutes after we got there a big storm cloud came over the water and we witnessed a funnel cloud almost touch the water.

We took an overnight trip to Brussels, Belgium. It was a lot of fun for me to speak French! Of course we also loved seeing Brussels with our "super nanny!"

Below is our trip to Den Haag (the Hague)
The archway leads you into the Parliament buildings. I am holding Virginia under the smaller archway and Melissa is in the middle archway. The second photo is the back of the Mauritshuis beside parliament buildings.

Fun Facts About "My" Holland

2006-09-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe we have been here for almost 2 months now. The time is really flying by. It does help to have a week of sun and 70 degree weather!!! I guess this is our payback for all of the rain we endured in August. So much has happened so in my next post I will take you on a photo journey over the last month in Holland. We we really really spoiled having Melissa come over here with us for the first 5 weeks. Too bad she wasn't here for all of this good weather. I think she would definitely give it a ....

A few things to take note of:

Holland is the name of the region of the Netherlands where we live. The Netherlands is the country and Leiden is the city we live in.
Melissa and I found a dead man in our little canal in front of our house. The neighbor's assured us that "things like this almost never happen here!!!" That is really reassuring!!!
John Halsey and I have mastered taking the children on our bikes. It is really safe, they don't wear helmets or knee pads. Truly the only reassuring thing to me is I never wore bike helmets growing up and look at how I turned out!
We love our clock tower b/c you can always know what time it is. Slow rings on the hour and fast rings on the half hour. Example 7:00 has 7 slow rings. 7:30 has 8 fast rings.
Scenic bike rides get stopped by the draw bridge opening. It's great, just tell Halsey to hold on tight to the fence, and he can see all of Holland from way up there! I know what you are thinking, how cruel. But it only lasted 5-10 minutes.

Traveling around Holland

2006-08-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

It is wonderful living in such a beautiful, quaint and picturesque country. We can get to so many different places in under an hour! On Saturday, Aug.5th we went to Amsterdam for the first time. Amsterdam is a small city created by beautiful old homes (row houses) and canals.

The only problem is you can't enjoy the beautiful architecture b/c there are so many people everywhere you turn. We felt quite dirty and depressed when we were riding the train home. The prostitution is very noticeable and the drugs scene is too. We did enjoy the museums we saw; the Ann Frank House and the Reikes Museum. But, taking a 2 1/2 year old boy to a cowded small museum is not ideal!

We have also visited several other towns around Leiden. We went to Delft which is a beautiful medieval city. The church in the center of Delft has a leaning tower that puts the leaning tower of PISA to shame. We had the privledge of attending Sunday morning worship in this church. A few weeks later, Melissa and I along with the children visited the antique market in Delft. There were so many treasures to be found...if only I had the funds to buy them and then ship them back to St. Louis! The market was made up of about 100 outdoor booths that lined both sides of a central canal in Delft. The market is only on Saturdays from June ~ September.

Melissa and I along with Leigh Richardson (my best friend in Holland!!!) and Colleen Mitchell, a student from my Dutch class, went to visit the town of Haarlem. It is a beautiful town and has a great town square in the center. We went on the Carrie Ten Boom house tour. The Ten booms hid some Jews from the Nazi's. It was an amazing tour. Much better than the Ann Frank house tour. There were not very many tourists with us, which made it nice. I am reading the book about the Ten Boom family. They lived above their watch shop, which is still in existence today.
The book is called "The Hiding Place." I highly recommend it.

We have also taken a few trips to the North Sea. The beach is beautiful, soft brown sand and lined with tall grass covered sand dunes. Sometimes you even see people horseback riding along the shore line. Of course the water is too cold for swimming....Unless it is a hot summer day and you want to be refreshed!
We love our little town of Leiden. There are about 100,000 people living here. It is just perfect for us. I hope you enjoy the pictures of our adventures here.

The Final Move

2006-08-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

We made our final move in Holland on Tuesday. It meant that I drove a car through a town where bikes always have the right of way and cars are just in the way! It was kind of crazy. I prayed every time, and thankfully the Lord delivered me safely back and forth!!! Driving an old Chrysler through streets that are as wide as one lane back home is quite halarious. Any way, we made it and now we are trying to once again get settled in.
Here is our old apartment........

Here is a typical view out of the old apartment window. We will miss the constant entertainment! Every time the same came out, so did the boat parade.

Here is a view of our new house from the botanical gardens.
Come visit!!!

First Week in Holland

2006-08-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

Our first week in the Nederlands was plagued with illness. Runny noses, fevers, stomache bugs, couphing, headaches, backaches and of course my evil eye. Even though Halsey threw next to Melissa on the couch and livingroom floor, she has managed to stay well and is still comitted to staying with us a few more weeks. The latter part of our first week was under heavy rains. It rains almost every day in the Nederlands but not usually heavy rains. We managed to still get out and about in the wet weather, only get soaked through our clothes one time. We have toured all over our new town called Leiden. It is a beautiful and historic town, filled with winding canals, loud seagulls, graceful swans, more bikes than cars, and acient streets lined with cobblestone streets and brick layed sidewalks. We go to the market every other day, which includes the large open air market on Wednesday and Saturday. You can buy most everything you want at the grocery stores here...except choc. chips!
John Halsey is really enjoying the Dutch life style here in Leiden. It is quiet, he can walk to school in 3 minutes, he gets tasty treats when he orders an espresso and the bear is cheaper than a coke.

The Children and Their Travels

2006-08-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

How do you prepare children for a life changing event across the pond?
We started talking to Halsey and Virginia for several months about moving to Holland. Everything seemed to be well received, especially by Virginia! Until midway into our first week in Leiden when Halsey said, "Mommy I want to go home. When are we going back to St. Wouis?" Wow! That really broke my heart. I didn't think either child would be disrupted by our move since we, John Halsey and I, were still with them. I was wrong. The good news is that now Halsey appears to like it in Holland. He told Aunt Melissa the other day, "Lissa, Europe is really beautiful!" Virginia appears perfectly content with being over here. Her biggest complaints are teething and viruses...but she realizes she would have aquired those discomforts at home or abroad.

The Airplane Rides

We were chauffered by Brookie and Lanier to the airport, which is really like having six cars take us instead of two. We had so much luggage both checked and carry-on that we looked like a traveling circus.

Once we arrived in the Chicago airport Halsey had great fun running all over playing red light green light. He only took down a few people. Virginia loved the people watching. Our favorite flight was the overnight plane ride.

Virginia got to sleep in a bassinette mounted on the wall, and Halsey got to sleep in his special airplane chair.

The Eye

2006-08-04T06:54:00.000-07:00

We have been here for one full week now...and I am finally writing my second entry.
The Eye!
I woke up our first morning in Leiden (Friday morning) with my eye swollen shut. Saturday it was worse and by Monday I could barely see out of it. When Melissa, the children and I went to our first "house Doctor" his first question to me was, "can you still see?" That did not make me feel very comfortable about the status of my eye! At any rate, I can now see again. My eye stopped draining yellow and red liquids, the swelling is gone and the dull throbbing pain has ceased. John Halsey and Melissa called it my "evil eye!" All I can say is that I am glad I did not have to look at that "evil eye!" (I get really queasy!)

The Great Exodus

2006-07-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

My emotions were like a mighty flood as I tried to get our family and home ready to move overseas. Thankfully we had many people help us with the overwhelming task. The last few days before we boarded the jumbo jet were a blur. I am forever grateful to Brookie Moore and Barb Hoover who seemed to wave their magic wands and make my home transform before their very eyes. We not only had to pack a family of four for 10 months, but also we had to leave our house renter ready. The three airplane rides went so well for all of us, especially the children, although we arrived tired and weary on Thursday afternoon. The airlines lost 5 of our 8 pieces of checked luggage, which was delivered Friday at noon. It saved us from having to rent another taxi in order to deliver all of our luggage. I think it is great how things work out! (that's the Scotty McIver/Doug Barr thrifty side coming out!) The great exodus did deliver us to a beautiful, charming, clean and enchanting storybook town called Leiden. Our first apartment is tastefully done with all of the Dutch efficiencies. The Dutch as most people know are minimalist. I hope some of that will rub off on me while I am here. The apartment is spacious and has a beautiful canal view with a windmill and an old draw bridge in the background. Our street is home to the birth place of Rembrandt. The cobblestone streets and winding canals everywhere is so charming. The doors of peoples homes are a work of art. Most people have window boxes filled with beautiful flowers for others to enjoy. The Dutch take great pride in their flowers. Flowers are sold everywhere and at a very good price. Our apartment, thanks to our dear new friends, Todd and Leigh Richardson and daughter Ava, was clean, filled with food and a gorgeous bouquet of yellow and red roses, upon our arrival. Melissa, who is sooooo sweet to come over with us for 6 weeks, has been such a blessing. We would not have made it through the airport with all of our carry on luggage and children and strollers if it had not been for her. She was like Mary Poppins on the airplane. She kept pulling out surprises for the children which entertained them for hours. Our first night here, Melissa, John Halsey and I took turns trying to comfort the children who couldn't sleep. Virginia had a fever and a terrible cold, and Halsey was just confused with where he was and what time it was. When morning came, I was so exhausted and my right eye was swollen closed. Apparently, I caught a virus in my eye. As our second day in Leiden is coming to a close, I am feeling much better. Leigh and Todd took us on a tour of the town...which gets more and more charming! We enjoyed a cheese plate on a canal bridge with them and our children and we found out all of their favorite restaurants and shops. Melissa and John Halsey are enjoying a night on the town while I wrote you my first ever blog entry! Come and visit. This town and the way of life here is wonderful. However, the cold wet winter begins at the end of October!