In Nederland

I am in the Netherlands! The next phase of our step-by-step move to China. Paul is still in Washington till next week, working with the painters and other people to make our house ready for the future renters. (Oh, and also work...someone still has a job.) And I flew with the boys to Holland yesterday for some quality time with family AND of course being in Holland during the World Cup. Yeah! Thomas was walking through Beek & Donk (where my mom lives) today with his orange shirt on, and the boys got a real big blue Dutch KNVB (Dutch soccer association) soccer ball from grandma. Life is good.

I had hoped to have more time to download pictures, but in the chaos of moving we can't find the cable to download pictures off our camera. Sorry! I would have shown a picture of Simon and Thomas flying in business class. They both had shrimp, soup, chicken ("spicy chicken" Thomas said) for dinner. And after dinner Thomas put on a big act putting on the purple socks handed out by Austrian Airlines ("Soccer socks" Thomas insisted) and the purple mask for your eyes. Unfortunately the mask didn't actually put him to sleep, but encouraged him to goof around till he was about the last business class traveler to fall asleep. Simon, meanwhile, was across the aisle from me and had a more adventurous evening because he got sick from the heavy turbulance. In the end though, we all arrived in Vienna, safe but red-eyed. We spent some hours in the Vienna VIP lounge, eating snacks and playing computer games and Uno, till it was time to board our flight to Amsterdam. From there, it was just an easy (though not short) taxi ride to Beek & Donk, where we arrived just in time to see the Dutch soccer team beat Cameroon. Every house is colored orange or covered in flags here... and I have to say that after 10 years living abroad, this is a lovely sight :-) I never new I could be such a soccer fan or so patriotic!