Day 300: House Sweet House

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

It’s nice to have a place to come back to, after a whirlwind vacation, but we still don’t feel like we’re home. I am thinking it’s the Ikea bed. I don’t look forward to falling into my bed because its not very comfortable and is very hot. I am happy to be out of the car and off the road. So as Juliana said, “it’s nice to be house'”

I think since we’re moving home to Sunnyvale soon, this feels more like an intermediary place and less like home than it might have if we had decided to stay longer than a year. Since we know we are moving, we already feel a bit more detached,and we don’t feel as rooted here anymore…we are kind of in Limboland.

For example, at the dinner table tonight, we talked about where we want to go first when when we get back home. The kids thought in terms of restaurants and I thought of people and places I wanted to see. The kids want to go to The Habit, Jocko’s, and Taqueria Latina. I want to go to April’s house and sit at her counter, and to my mom’s house and to the beach. Those places feel like home to me besides our own home. Our home feels like home because that’s where the kids did so many firsts. There are so many memories there that make me long for this place, even though home should be wherever we are. We’ve created so many memories together here, but home is still there… For all of us. I wonder where home is for kids who do this expat living thing for longer than 3 years. I bet it becomes confusing in a sense, and liberating in another.

Today we are back in the Netherlands – 300 days after moving away from home. That’s a long time to me!

We explored Reims, France today and drove through France, Belgium and Holland to get back here. It rained the entire day again. I’m looking forward to relaxing and catching up with everything tomorrow. Hope you had a good day!

Namaste.

Here are a few pictures from Reims, France.

21May2013

Day 299: Mont Saint-Michel, Chartes and Dinner at EuroDisney

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

Keeping with the theme of traveling the hard way, the rain hasn’t stopped all day! Wind and rain and cold…so lucky!

We took a shuttle bus from our hotel to Mont Saint-Michel. It looks like an island in the middle of nowhere. We took a tour of the old abbey and enjoyed the spectacular views. It’s amazing that this building has been here forever!

After MSM, we started heading toward Reims and stopped to see Chartes. We arrived on a holy pilgrimage day and the church was packed inside and out with people who must have hiked from all over the place. They looked cold and wet and thankful to be receiving communion together. We waited to go inside the church because there was no room at the inn, so to speak. What an amazing building with so much history. It’s amazing how people built such large churches with so many ornate details and carvings and stained glass, so long ago. Truly amazing to see.

We were freezing cold and starving. Everything was closed because of the holiday and we found a Subway to curb our appetite. Then we headed out for another couple hours in the car with pouring rain, and lots of traffic!

Our timing is so off and the kids are pretty good for having no schedule whatsoever. We’ve had our share of giddiness and frustrations with so much togetherness mixed with hunger and being tired, but we’re still smiling and doing our best. We were driving through the outskirts of Paris and really needed to eat a real meal. As we were driving, we unexpectedly saw signs for EuroDisney and decided to take a detour and find a fun place to eat at Disney Village. It was still pouring rain, which helped us to not be wishing we were spending the night at Disneyland and playing in the park. I can’t imagine that to be much fun, but we did find some fun at the Rainforest Cafe. Such a cheesy place with bad, expensive food, but definitely entertaining for just once! I was happy to get us all out of the car and walking around someplace lively for a bit.

We should arrive at our hotel after midnight… the kids are happy, mama’s happy, Jeff’s got a Starbucks, so he’s happy and we’ll sleep when we’re dead…another one of my weird mottos.

Goodnight, from Disneyland Paris.

19May2013

Day 298: Freedom Isn’t Free

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

War. Evil. Tyranny. Hate.

Nobody likes it, but it exists.

Yin and Yang.

My generation really felt it on 9-11 and we felt it again at the Boston marathon, just recently. Jeff’s grandad felt it and lived it in 1944, and survived WWII. He is a hero.

To visit the war sites around Normandy leaves you wondering and thinking and imagining what it could have been like for the soldiers and their families. The sense of fear and loss is unimaginable, even when you see it. History is not my passion yet I know I need to understand and learn more and continue to make the connections. I also like to focus on the positive, but I’m not naive. There are bad people and we cannot allow evil to be stronger than the good.

“For no one is to forget the heroism of those men who defied the impossible for our freedom.”

Freedom isn’t free. We have so much to learn from those who serve in our military. These men and women can teach us what it means to be selfless, to sacrifice, to keep moving forward despite the struggles, to be disciplined and compassionate, focused and respectful. The people that fought for our freedom gave up their freedom, the comforts of their homes and families, to serve others. And so many gave up their lives.

We can be advocates of goodwill. We can create peace in our time by following their examples. We can and should serve others and show compassion and be a little less self centered. By giving of our time and resources, we can help create peace in our time, right now.

How can we be of service? I think when we chose to serve others we actually create joy and peace for ourselves as well. We have nothing to lose.

Today we visited Grandcamp Maisy, Ranger Museum, Maisy Battery, Utah Beach, and St. Mere Eglise. We also saw Brecourt Manor. Here are a few pictures from these historical sites.

Wishing you peace and love.

Goodnight, from Mont Saint-Michel.

19May2013

Day 297: Normandy, France

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

We made it to Normandy this afternoon. The sun was finally shining again, which helped to improve my mood. I’ve been grouchy for several reasons. I am homesick and sick and a bit tired. Kimmy’s graduation is today and I want to be there and not where I am. My volleyball girls had a weekend getaway and I missed it! I feel torn today and down, and it’s taken me longer than usual to snap out of it.

I have to really practice being present today and its been a struggle. Just keeping it real. I helped myself by thinking of Jeff’s granddad and the other soldiers who were probably so uncomfortable day after day, fighting the Germans, and all the sacrifices they had to make. Seriously, I have nothing to complain about and my discomfort is kinda stupid. I’m over myself… Just like that. Thanks for listening. 🙂

We started our day at Omaha beach, after a long drive from Lisse. We landed and walked on the beach, imagining the hell that others experienced there and not quite comprehending it all.

After Omaha Beach, we drove to see the American Cemetery on the bluffs above Omaha Beach. That takes your breath away. Seeing all the headstones makes the numbers of casualties pop out at you and you can feel the sheer magnitude of loss and the human sacrifices that were made to fight evil.

We walked through the entire field of headstones, noticing when people died, what state they were from and what their names where. We noticed how many more Christians than Jews were buried there.

And we imagined PopPop fighting with the allies through Europe and are so thankful he survived the battle. We looked at the wall maps and Jeff pointed out the areas where PopPop landed and traveled with the 3rd army through France and Germany. Thank you PopPop for your years of service and thank you MamMam for keeping the family strong and together.

While there, we ran into our friends and enjoyed sharing stories and our experiences so far. I was so happy to see them and can’t believe we were at the same place at the same time. We made plans to meet up for dinner afterwards in Bayeux.

But before we got to Bayeux, we checked into our hotel and went to see Pointe Du Hoc.

This is where the US Army rangers scaled the cliffs and seized the German gun emplacements. The kids loved this area because it was on the edge of the ocean and was filled with craters and bunkers that they could run around in and on top of.

It’s crazy to think that the craters were created by bombs and naval gunfire.

I finally snapped out of my funk at PDH. The kids were happy to be running around and exploring the craters and bunkers and I enjoyed watching them play. I think being near the ocean helps too! The views were gorgeous and calming.

We drove 30 minutes to Bayeux and met up with Bob and Greg for a late dinner. Bayeux is a magical town, and we arrived in time to catch some love entertainment both before and after dinner. I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the end to a great, long day.

Happy graduation day, Kimmy!

Goodnight, from France.

17May2013

Day 296: Traveling the Hard Way

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

We are learning the hard way today.

We are tired and have been traveling quite a bit, and we aren’t quite done yet. In Holland, they have these four day weekends twice during the month of May and we want to take advantage of the extra days off to explore Europe while we can.

But the trouble is we’ve been playing hard since April and the kids are burned out and I’ve been sick. So what would you do? I know the logical thing to do would be to stop traveling but that doesn’t feel right either.

So we pushed through all the complaints and reasons not to go and decided to go anyway. But then once we got on the highway, our engine light and TCS light turned on before we even got to Abcoude. Luckily the Honda Dealer was just around the corner and I called to tell them we were on our way and could they please see us right away!! The good news is that it was 4:30 pm and they were still open. The bad news is we have a problem with our transmission and our minivan has to stay overnight for several days!!

The Honda dealer doesn’t sell or rent minivans or anything close to as big, and ours was loaded down with five suitcases, snacks, DVDs, pillows, blankets and personal backpacks for everyone. How were we going to get out of there? Luckily they were able to get the biggest possible car from an outside agency and we were able to cram everything in, kids too.

Right before this all happened, I learned that the four or five hour drive I was expecting tonight was really a 7+ hour drive. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy already. Now we were hugely delayed! What to do?

We drove back home, ate the sandwiches we had packed and reloaded the car dropping off extra stuff so we’d be more comfy in our now cozier vehicle packed side by side! We worked hard through a family struggle to decide whether to go or not go and when to go, tonight or tomorrow. It wasn’t easy, but we decided to cancel our reservation for tonight and made a new reservation half way closer.

We decided we couldn’t give up the fight to get there to see and experience Normandy, despite the struggles.

Normandy, here we come.

16May2013

Day 295: Photos Photos Photos

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

My photo hell is back. We have done so much in the past two months and again today I’ve found myself trying to catch up with my digital backlog, before we head out again to create and capture more memorable experiences.

I still haven’t found the holy grail, but I think I might be getting closer. Never the less, it still comes down to a content issue, just like the days when I used to work in knowledge management. I have too much and capturing and sorting and organizing, deleting and backing up, packaging and sharing takes so much time! I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth it. The amount of time it takes to manage the photo process almost makes me want to quit taking photos, or at least I need to learn how to better edit, delete and manage them daily or weekly. How do you do it?

Here is how I’m trying to manage this beast that gives me anxiety and sucks up a lot of time. Please do share how you do it if you have a better solution or suggestion to try.

1. Create folders on my external hard drive by year, and subfolders by month. I use the format 2013/ 01 Jan 2013 and 02 Feb 2013, 03 Mar 2013. The numbers before the month sort the months in numerical orders. ABC order and the redundancy of the year helps you to visualize which month and year you’re working in, in case things get confusing.

2. Upload photos from all three of my devices (iPhone, iPad and SLR) by month to appropriate folder on hard drive.

3. Open monthly folder and create sub-folders to organize photos from each of the monthly events that occurred. i also create a summary folder for all misc pics for that month.

4. I then edit and delete photos for each event that aren’t great. I think I should work on deleting right after I’m done taking pictures on the device used to take the pictures very day. When do you edit?

5. Backup photos from hard drive to an electronic sharing location by monthly event. ( I’m trying Google + right now, but Facebook, Costco.com, picassa, Flickr are some others too). I’m hoping Google comes up with the killer platform to streamline and manage the entire process from up,lad, edit, store, share, create digital albums, print, etc)

6. One extra step for backup might be the CD/DVD rom physical files that you can store some place else. I also heard of carbonite, but haven’t looked that up yet. Any suggestions??

I used to use iPhoto until I ran out of space in my iPhoto library. I recommend NOT using iPhoto for storage because it’s a huge pain when you run out of space!

I shared a picture of my chaotic desk, trying to multitask while I wait for photos to upload. I am downloading magazines on my Kindle for the car ride, have my France travel books handy, and a cup of tea. There are devices all around and it’s still light outside at 9:30 pm! I’m also writing this and taking more pictures to add to my blog while waiting for uploads to complete. I’ll be sure to delete those right now!

I’m still finding joy despite the chaos. Wish me luck and I’d love to hear from you if you have a better solution!

15May2013

Day 294: Family Time And Missing Family

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

Tonight I am going to appreciate what I have, even though my mind is on what I am missing. I want to be back in California to celebrate my sister’s graduation from college. I am sad that I’m not going to be there to see her cross the stage and receive her diploma. I want to be with my family this weekend for the BIG party to recognize her HUGE accomplishment. But we are living overseas and getting there is just not possible (as the Dutch would say!)

Kimmy is a single mom, raising two beautiful young daughters, and has worked day and night to accomplish her goal. She is so incredibly artistic and loving and funny and smart! I am proud of her for sticking with it and finishing the work and can’t wait to see where she goes next on her journey. I’m proud of my parents for being so supportive of her and my nieces, picking up the kids from school and helping out to make life a little easier for them. I want to be there too! But I’ll have to wait until August to see her and we’ll have our own private party then. Congratulations, Kimmy Joy! I hope you enjoy every minute!

Tonight I enjoyed my family, all snuggled on a little couch upstairs watching Band of Brothers. Not exactly the feel good movie, nor one you really want your kids seeing, but one we wanted to see together before heading to Normandy this weekend. Our kids are getting hands on history lessons and are making connections between their family and friends who have experienced war first hand. Charlie’s classmate’s grandfather was killed by the Nazis. Our house repair guy used to hide from the Nazi’s out in the Dutch fields, wearing wooden clogs and pretending he wasn’t Jewish. Jeff’s Grandfather, and a couple great uncles fought in World War Two, and survived. Our kids have been listening to their stories and asking questions about what it was like and did they get shot. I’m hoping that by them going to visit the battle grounds, they’ll feel and experience a bit more of our history and make it more tangible and real. Hopefully they will find an appreciation for history and it will help them to study and learn about it in their classes as they grow up. Tonight we snuggled them a bit longer and answered their questions.

Late night sunset

We are thankful for our freedom and opportunity to live in Europe; to see and feel and experience as much as we can before moving back home. Kimmy, cheers to you from across the sea! I love you, girl!

Namaste.

14May2013

Day 293: What Makes You Happy?

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

How much of your day do you get to spend doing things you love? What makes you happy and are you making time for those things?

This was painted on a store window in Fussen this week and I loved the saying. It gave me inspiration for tonight’s blog…

I think it’s kinda crazy that I’ve been blogging for over a year, every day. I obviously must like it as its become something I look forward to everyday, even though some days I don’t know what to write. As I sit down to just do it, inspiration always seems to magically appear. Writing and sharing and connecting and focusing on what’s good in my little world makes me happy. Reading your comments and hearing you tell me that you read my blog and make connections with my story makes me happy. I like taking the time to reflect on the days of my life as they swirl by, and I plan to turn my blog into a book when I’m done…so that I can taste life twice!

What do you love to do? What makes you happy every day? What would you do if you could do anything you wanted? I think we have to dream like that to make our dreams become reality. And I think it works!! If we are realistic with our expectations, we can find peace and joy every day. Some things that make us most happy are very simple, and some things take more time or money, but I bet most things that make us happy are attainable daily.

Today I didn’t feel good again (headaches and GERD) so I enjoyed staying home and resting all day, until it was time to see Charlie’s open class music show. Even though I didn’t feel good, I enjoyed seeing his passionate teacher and his class and his little body playing and smiling and laughing with his friends. I loved sitting next to my friends and watching hem enjoy their kids as well. And Jen’s baby made my day when she reached up and wanted to come sit on my lap and be with me. These things make me happy!

Kids make me happy.

Passionate and loving teachers make me happy.

Loving babies makes me happy.

Being part of a village filled with friends makes me happy.

Cooking delicious and healthy dinners make me happy.

Seeing this family made me happy.

Playing with my kids makes me happy.

All is good, even when I’m not well.

What made you happy today?

13May2013

Day 292: The Simple Beauty of Swans and Ice Cream

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

We were so tired today that I let the kids sleep in and skip school. We needed a day of rest. They woke up at 10:30 am!! We weren’t ready to really move or get out of the house until 3pm. After coming home from a long trip, there’s more work to do like putting away luggage, lots of laundry, grocery shopping and sorting all the stuff.

I’ve adopted the Dutch way of going to the grocery store and buying what we need for dinner that day and buying what looks fresh, available and on sale. For tonight’s dinner, Charlie picked steaks for the grill, baked potatoes, Chinese broccoli and I picked whole carrots to roast with balsamic, Dijon, a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper.

While I was preparing dinner, the little ones were out riding bikes. Juliana came home and told me I had to come with her quickly. My first thought was something happened to Charlie, but she had a smile on her face. I jumped on my bike and headed up the road with her, as she requested and dropped everything. (I’m listening to all the wise women who tell me to enjoy them while they’re young!)

What she shared, made my day!

A little swan family!! How adorable are the babies??

And just yesterday we were at the Swan Castle, Neuschwanstein! King Ludwig’s favorite animal was the swan and the swan motif played throughout his castle.

Swans mate for life and protect one another. Seeing this family swimming and eating together and my family enjoying them made me happy. While we were visiting with the swans, our neighbor Peggy walked by with her dog. I really love the feeling of a small neighborhood, and really love the simplicity of life…Shopping, cooking, playing, experiencing nature, visiting with friends, and being with my family.

Afterwards, we came home and finished preparing dinner together. During dinner, I told the kids we were cutting out junk food from our kitchen! I didn’t buy any today,except for one box of cereal. I want our family to eat more delicious and nutritious foods, not that we don’t already, but we also snack too much. But the irony of the conversation came when the ice cream man came by, playing his music and parking outside our front window. In the spirit of letting the kids be kids, and enjoying the moment, we let them go outside and splurge! I hope they remember their fun parents one day when they think we don’t know anything! And I’m not saying they can’t have junk food, but I don’t have to keep a stash in the house, readily available. Yin and yang, it’s all the same!

Life is good. Hope you had a good day and got outside to play!

Goodnight, from Holland.

13May2013

Day 291: Part 1: Happy Mother’s Day from Neuschwanstein Castle

Posted in Uncategorized by adrianahartley

Happy Mother’s Day, especially to my mama Jane! Everyone who knows her, loves her. She is the most generous and giving and loving woman I know and I’m so thankful for her! Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas in the world.

Today we are traveling through Germany, Austria and the Alps through a surprise May snow fall, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany again and home to Holland which will technically bring us into tomorrow! It’s been amazing to be able to drive through all these countries and to get a glimpse of the different landscapes, terrain, weather, architecture and sites.

The highlight of my day was spent with my family at the Neuschwanstein Castle. This castle served as the model for Walt Disney’s Cinderella’s castle. It was quite majestic with beautiful views of waterfalls, steep cliffs, and open valleys. To get to the castle, we hiked up the hill for 30 minutes and sneaked in some exercise, with some rain and hail. It was quite cold at the top. No pictures were allowed from within the castle, except for in the kitchen.

When we were done with our tour, we headed back down the mountain and stopped for a German lunch. We then took a horse and carriage ride back down the hill. I loved all of it, except for the hour long wait at the castle entrance, waiting for our tour to begin in the rain. The only way to see the castle is with a tour guide.