Well, 3 years later, I am back to my blog. Oops. I guess I got too busy with my family to post much, but now I'm ready to re-join the blogging world. Moving to another country gives you a lot to say, I guess. We just arrived here in Brunssum, The Netherlands on Thursday. We're still a little jet-lagged, but other than that, we're happy and having a great time. Our trip was pretty uneventful. We left from Atlanta a little late due to a problem with the a/c on the plane, but we were on our way by 8:15ish. Dinner was served, the kids and Wally slept, but I didn't. I never do on planes, even if I'm travelling alone! I don't know what it is, I'm not a nervous flyer, I guess I just can't get comfortable. We arrived in Amsterdam about 11am local time, but to us it was 5am. We were sooo lucky that all of our bags (all 10!) came out quickly and we were on our way through customs. We found the guy holding the little sign that said "Wallace Smith," loaded our bags, and left the airport. I slept most of the almost 3 hr drive to Brunssum and the kids slept too. I don't think Wally did this time. We arrived at our hotel, met our sponsor and his wife, got our bags in our beautiful hotel room, and woosh, my husband was gone to sign in and the kids and I were alone. :( They played and watched Dutch cartoons while I crashed. In fact, I crashed so hard that I slept through dinner! I woke up and ate a bit later, but went back to sleep while Wally took the kids to the driving range for awhile. Lexie woke me at 2:30 saying she was hot and after that, she and I were up for awhile. About 8am we all trooped down to the hotel's breakfast, and it was really great to see a nice European breakfast buffet again. There was coffee and assorted juices, cereal, yogurt, fresh fruit, pastries & toast, hard boiled eggs, sliced meats & cheeses, plus eggs & bacon. Yum. After eating we came back up to our room and Wally, Lexie & I crashed for a bit while Julia and Aiden hung out together. For lunch we headed over to the base with our sponsor and ate while he & Wally ran errands. Wally began his in-processing, secured a temporary driver's license, and picked up our Kia. Then he found us (in the bookstore of course!), and we filled up the car with gas & headed to Maastricht for dinner. Wow that was an experience. Of course our GPS took us some crazy route that was twice as long as it should have taken us. When we got there, we quickly realized something major was happening. We found out that Andre Reiu, a famous violinist, was playing in the square. Despite the large crowds, we found a place to eat and had a nice dinner, then walked around and saw as much as we could. Almost all of the stores were closed, but we saw some beautiful statues & the river Maas. It's definitely a larger city that is worth exploring again. We didn't get home until close to 10:30, which is about when it's getting dark right now. It's kind of nice to have that much daylight in a day. The kids were exhausted and went straight to sleep. And then...um...they slept the next 14 hrs! At 12:30 pm THE NEXT DAY, Wally and I were in bed going "I can't believe they're still asleep, can you? Should we wake them?" I guess they needed it, and of course, our bodies have not fully adjusted to the time change. As I type this, it's 11pm and they're still talking to each other in bed :) Today we checked out downtown Brunssum, ate lunch at a Chinese place, bought some groceries at the commissary for our hotel room, and then had pizza for dinner. I'll be so glad when I can cook a real meal again! After dinner I cleaned up in our room for a bit while Wally took the kids to a nearby playground and for ice cream. Let's see what tomorrow brings :)
