Nemo | here i am

The kids have been home with me for 2 weeks now. I’m feeling shiny!

I wanted them to choose what they wanted to do on their vacation today, and they had three options to consider. I think they practiced and might have learned a bit about:

Negotiating
Not screaming or crying to be heard.
Listening.
Giving in.
Making a group decision.
Bargaining.
Picking what’s good for the whole.
Choosing.
Deciding.

They made a decision with a little gift of chocolate from one sibling to the next. Hmmm… I guess they learned about bribery and influence too. But they decided, and I was pleased with the process.

They decided to go to an indoor water park called Duinrell, about 30 minutes away. It felt kind of strange to be driving in the rain and feeling cold but feeling good about swimming and sliding and burning off some energy in a heated pool. We were all happy to be doing something together, out of the house. But when we got there, there was a sign that said they were closed. The place was too crowded and it would be unsafe to add more bodies. We could wait for people to leave and then go in, but still it would be over crowded. We chose to leave, even though our friends were already inside. A tough decision but remarkably we all easily agreed.

I was proud of the kids for being adaptable and flowing with what was. I think that’s a great life skill – we can’t always control what happens but we can control our reactions. And they were so cool. We decided to go with Plan B, which was what one of the kids originally wanted to do in the first place! Ironic how that works! And he got chocolate too!! Lucky kid.

We came home and changed out of our bathing suits and flip flops and put on layers and layers and warm shoes and umbrellas and headed into Amsterdam to go to the Nemo museum. It’s like the San Francisco Exploratorium, with hands on science exhibits and exploratory fun. Even though it was a crowded Christmas holiday off with everyone there, we used our museum cards and enjoyed a couple hours together playing and having fun.

Afterwards we met up with Jeff at his office so the kids could see where he works. We went for dinner at THE Mexican restaurant in Amsterdam.

It’s hard to come by Mexican food here and we sure miss it! The restaurant was called Los Pilones, in case you are looking for Mexican food too, or know of another place to recommend. We enjoyed a margarita (but it tasted nothing like Steve’s!!) in honor of Stacey’s birthday, and ate some chips and salsa and guacamole. It was pretty good and the ambiance was definitely nice. I think we’ll go back until we can get good Mexican food back in Cali!

Happy Birthday, Stacey!

Amsterdam, Central Station

We left Sunnyvale three weeks ago today and by all means, I think we’ve done a good job getting settled pretty quickly and efficiently, until today.

Today just didn’t feel right and we had a few things go wrong and a few plans changed. No big deal, but you know the feeling when you just feel off? That was our day.

We made plans to meet up with the Peterson’s today, but both Scott and CJ weren’t feeling so hot. We were going to meet at the Nemo
Museum, but then plans changed.

Instead we went over to the music shop to buy CJ a musical keyboard. I had promised we would buy him one for his birthday when we moved here and we finally had a break in our schedule to get over to the music shop. All went well until we got home. The stairs at our house are very small and narrow and curve upwards. I was bringing up the keyboard stand in it’s box and missed the last small step and stumbled, spraining my big toe and bruising my right hip. I hate getting hurt and hate falling. This put me in a sad mood. We ended up hanging out for another hour or so, for me to recover and to give CJ some time to play on his new toy.

It was so hot and humid today and sitting around the house all day with three kids wasn’t in the plans either. My foot felt a little better so we decided to take the tram to Central Station and see the Nemo anyway.

I was so glad we actually got out to enjoy the day, even if it was later than we had thought. Central Station was busy as ever and the sun was shining brightly. We started to walk over towards the Nemo and enjoyed seeing the floating Chinese restaurant and the brand new Starbucks in the Double Tree building. There was a walking bridge that pedestrians and cyclists could use to get over to the Nemo. While we were walking, we had an incident. Juliana fell on the non-slip, sand-paper like surface with a little help from a “friend” and skinned her knee so bad and so deep. When I knelt down to help her, I fell over from the pain in my big toe that I was ignoring. We were a mess. And I didn’t carry the first aid kit today because we were just going to an indoor museum, and didn’t think we would need it. So much for our plans.

I ran over to a little floating boat bar and asked for a napkin and perhaps a large bandage. The man was so sweet and told me to bring her in. I cleaned her up with what he had and offered him a tip. He would not accept my money. I was thankful for his kindness and help.

He didn’t have the right type of bandage so we walked back to the Starbucks to cool off and for a drink and to see if they had a first aid kit. They were so helpful and sweet to us and bandaged up her knee for me. I was so thankful and appreciative, especially because they spoke English too and could understand me. That was comforting.

By this time, Nemo was about to close and I was just done with that idea. We made our way back at rush hour to the tram and endured a jam-packed filled ride, along with three loud, smelly, uncivilized drunk men that scared us and made us almost get off. But if we would have gotten off, we wouldn’t have seats for the two injured girls, so we just rode it out. Go with the flow, right?