Mom, Dad and Sean made it!

I am so happy to let you know that mom, dad and Sean are here. I couldn't be happier! Lucy came over at 9 this morning to watch the kids so I could go pick them up.
While waiting for them to come through the doors I thought I was going to be sick because I was so excited!
After what seemed like forever I finally saw them with a massive amount of luggage! Half of it being requests from us. :)
When we came home it took Kaylin all of 30 seconds to jump into Papa's arms and she has been there pretty much the whole day. She even wanted to take a nap with him this afternoon. So sweet.
It was like Christmas here after they came. Clothes, yarn, toys, snacks and the camera Matt and I decided to get as an early Christmas present. The camera is fantastic and I am having a great time learning about it.
We had lunch, the kids, dad and Sean napped, we played, ate dinner and then went to
the park. A great day!







Our little climber




Building a sandcastle


Destroying the sandcastle

Commemoration Day

Today is Commemoration Day. It is the day all WWII victims are honored. On May 4, 1940, the Netherlands was attacked. Earlier today the kids and I were out for a walk and I noticed some people around a statue placing flowers. One woman was visibly upset. Immediately I thought it was for the 5 people who were killed on Queens Day.
About an hour ago I noticed the street in front of our house was like a parking lot and quite a few people were walking around. I was so confused so I went on line to see if I could figure anything out.
Every year on May 4 from 8:00-8:02 there is a ceremony at Dam Square (the center of the city) and two minutes of silence is observed. The street lights go on for 2 minutes and all public transportation and traffic stops and I believe there is a silent walk from 6:15 from a street near us to the square. Thousands of people watch the ceremonies.
I turned the tv on to see if I could see the ceremony and even though I can't understand it I am so moved.
I guess it just hit me what all of these families must have gone through...I know that we Americans had many people who fought and died during WWII and I am not saying that it doesn't mean as much and wasn't extremely difficult. What I am saying is we didn't have soldiers marching right outside our doors and bombs falling on our homes and I can't imagine how horrifying it must have been. I just get the feeling that it is still so fresh and not buried away in History books. Right now they are showing videos of soldiers and tanks going down the streets here.

Tomorrow is Liberation Day, five years later the Germans officially surrendered. I know I was taught all of this in school, but it is so different being here seeing the ceremony and seeing all of the people outside...it just puts it a bit more in prospective.
I read that there are quite a few parties and a concert tomorrow.

Almost Fixed!

I had to delete all of Matt's pics and videos from his post. For some reason they were causing the problems. I tried to save the pics and re post them, but they came up as funny symbols. No idea why! So, once we get to Tokyo I'll try to re add them. I am not even going to begin to try and understand why they are not posting correctly!

Fixing

As you can see the blog is a bit messed up right now...I don't know what happened, so hopefully it will be fixed soon!

First Two Weeks in Tokyo

So I am finally getting around to writing my first blog, I am sure you have all been anxiously awaiting this moment. I have now spent about two full weeks and Tokyo and it has been quite an experience. The culture here is completely different than the United States or even Europe. Japan given the fact that they are an island have been able to keep a lot of the influences from the western world out. The city itself is super clean and quiet. The city is huge but the horn honking and most other noises that you here in large cities don’t happen very much here. It is interesting that you can’t smoke on most public streets but you can in all restaurants. In addition they are a very polite culture with a number of customs that take some getting used to. For example we got reminded of the following shortly after our arrival....

As a rule you may not enter our working space via the reception corridor ie by passing the meeting rooms. If clients are present please be respectful and don't engage in conversation around them or in the elevators as this is not considered appropriate. Do not eat in the elevators or when walking through the passage ways.You should not enter any meeting room that has not been reserved for you. Typically if a client is going down the elevator and is being seen off by PwC people you should not get in the elevator but hang back and take the next. ...

Some other cultural differences I have learned, are not to blow your nose in public and you should never fill your own glass from a pitcher at the table, someone should do it for you, you can fill everyone elses up but not yours. Also you are not supposed to open cab doors yourself.

Work has been a little bit more difficult to given the language barrier, the familiarity with English for most local people is not that strong, overall I think they understand English more than they let on, however they are not very confident in their ability to use it.

I have been busy at work but have been able to experience a little bit of the city on the weekends. The first weekend I was here we went out for my birthday to an area called Rapongi, this is a section of Tokyo where a lot of the foreigners hang out. We had dinner at a Korean barbeque and went to a karoke bar. Karoke is very popular here however it is different than in the US, the karoke bars here have a number of private rooms where you sing. So only the group you come with hears you, I think this makes it more enjoyable.

The Sunday after my birthday I walked around the area where I am staying and went to a park not far from here, it is just great looking around a people watching, below are some pictures of the park and a small video of a couple of the concerts that were going on.

I also went to a baseball game on Sunday evening, while it was not as crowded as I expected it was great to experience all the chanting and traditions that go on at the games, essentially either sides fans chant the entire time when their team is up to bat. They also have beer girls that carry around mini kegs on their back and fill up your beer (of course I had to have one, see picture below).


This weekend I went and walked around again this time I took a cab to youi yomi park where there were a lot of people hanging out. There happened to be some sort of rock and roll dance show going on so there were a bunch of people dressed up like people from the movie Greece, there were a ton of people around so it was a lot of fun. There also was some sort of flower festival and I saw some local dancing. Again see the pictures below.



The food has been great, it takes some getting used to but I am quite good with chopsticks now. The sushi rolls that are common in the US are not as common here, if you want sushi it is just the seafood on top of a ball of rice, but there are lots of other options to choose from. The strangest thing I have tried thus far has been beef tounge, it tased like a chewy steak so was not all that bad.

Brugge, Belgium

Yesterday I booked the hotel for our trip to Brugge. I love this city and am excited to take mom, dad and Sean there. I am feeling extremely guilty going without Matt though. He is not going to be able to take time off when he comes back from Tokyo so he and I decided it would be better for me to go with my parents while he is still in Tokyo. That way we are not gone when he is home...we have been apart for too long already! I just feel bad that he is away working and I am going on a trip.

We are leaving the Monday after they get here and will come back on Wednesday. I found a great hotel that has a family room with a double bed downstairs and 2 single beds upstairs and they will bring in 2 baby beds. I was able to get it cheaper than getting 2 rooms, but with all the snoring that goes on in this family I may be regretting the decision! :)

I have decided to drive rather than take the train. It will be cheaper and won't take as long. The only concern is if my dad can handle riding in the passenger seat! I wonder how many..ummm..."discussions" we will have along the way!

I will have our new camera by then and can't wait to start taking pictures!

Update

Pretty uncreative title isn't it...sorry my brain is slow this morning...
We had a great time celebrating Queens Day! I heard people setting up their tables for the rummaging around 4:30am so they were ready for the 6am start. We were ready by 9:15 which I thought was great. It is usually a pretty challenging feat for me to have us up and out of the house before 10! We spent the morning trying to navigate our way through the massive amounts of people. Imagine Summerfest at night while trying to push a double stroller. Needless to say I didn't spend too much time looking at anything because I was just trying to get through the crowds! While at Vondelpark I did find the Little People House for 2euro 50 cents! It retails for $45 so we were thrilled! All of the pieces didn't come with it, but it has been a huge hit so far. Both Kaylin and Shane have spent quite a bit of time playing with it.
We all went home around lunch time to eat and take naps and then we went over to Chelsea and Aaron's for a pot luck dinner. This time I put Shane in the sling, carried a back pack and pushed Kaylin in the umbrella stroller. A bit better!
Next year I would like to try and get a babysitter for a portion of the day so we can go to the center and check it out. I saw a lot of orange and many flags. Nothing to really take a picture of though. The streets were just full of people and tables with what ever they were selling. If we were in the center I am sure there would have been more photo ops. Maybe next year!
What I am most impressed about is the clean up. It was such a mess Thursday night and by Friday morning it looked as if nothing happened the day before..at least by us. Matt said that they don't put garbage cans out because they are afraid of bombs.
Overall a great day although I really missed not having Matt here!

There is some awful news to report though...a crazy man tried to attack the Royal Family in the city of Apeldoorn. Since I don't watch the news here, well, because I can't understand it, I didn't find out until the next morning. 5 people were killed and the rest of the celebrations throughout the country were cancelled. I thought the streets looked a little quieter than I had imagined they would be on our walk home that night. Awful.

We have been keeping pretty busy. Last Monday I hosted the playgroup for the American Women's Club. It was great! I met a few moms who live close by and the house was chaotic. Wednesday I had a babysitter from 12-4 and had intentions to go to the Amsterdam Historical Museum, but decided against it because it was such a nice day. Instead I walked around here a bit, picked up some coffee and headed to the park and knitted. It was so relaxing. I am knitting a baby blanket that I was going to give away, but the stitches are pretty uneven so I am going to keep it here. We'll see how the next project goes.
I (along with some help from Kaylin) made two pairs of pajama pants for Kaylin and Shane and I have to say I am pretty proud of how they turned out. Kate gave me the book, "The Creative Family" (http://amandasoule.com/book/) before we left and I love it. Very easy pattern and very cute. I'll have to take some pictures... I am going to use two of the blankets I made when Kaylin was small to make more pants, so the blanket I am knitting will get some use!

Matt is doing well. He is very tired and frustrated. The start up of this project has been very slow and the language barriers are making for LONG days.
He keeps telling me that he is going to update the blog, but I'll give you some examples of what he is experiencing:
All bus drivers and cab drivers wear white gloves
He has to wear a suit to work every day. The problem with that is the temperature in the offices can not go below 82 degrees for environmental reasons so he is hot!
Not a lot of space in the office. He had to work in the cafeteria one day
They are not allowed to walk through the lobby unless they are with a client
Can not talk amongst themselves if a client is in the office
If someone is with a client and getting onto an elevator he can has to wait for the next elevator
Just a sampling...

Anyway, that is all for now! Mom, Dad and Sean will be here on Friday!
Hope you all have a great weekend!