Orange street

I promissed to post a pic of the Orange Street in Eindhoven. Well, here it is. It must have taken those people hours and hours to decorate their street like this. But with great result; it's the most orange street in the region that I've seen.

Last weeks before the move (we hope ...)

Pieter came back from Gorsow yesterday, so I can post a (few) blog(s) today. He will be home for 10 days, before he has to leave for the Tjech Republic, Hongary and maybe Gorsow again. He's having lots of fun now, making the factory work better and supporting the European sales team in acquiring new customers.

One of the workers in our new house sent us a couple of pics from the situation at the beginning of the construction. I hope we will still be able to get hold of the pictures from the brochure, as the house was when we bougt it. With those pictures added to the ones we have already, we can make a nice 'documentary' of the whole reconstruction process.

Kitchen at start of construction
Sitting room at start of construction

In the living room, we took the beam ceiling out, as well as the support column (on the left). The door will be replaced by a more modern version. In the kitchen, the bar is being replaced by an island with a sink and we took out the storage cabinet (closet?) on the right, to be replaced by a 'cabinet-and-appliances-wall'. Hopefully, in a few weeks time, we will be able to show you the 'after' version of the kitchen (and the rest of the house).

The kitchen is the area which has caused me the biggest headaches. The builder who is doing the kitchen for us, has a lot of experience building kitchens, but not as much actually designing them. So, we basically designed our own kitchen. I'm quite happy with the design we (or better, Pieter) came up with, but I'm stil not confident about the color. It's pretty hard to decide which color to choose for a kitchen that's actually part of the living room (a so called open kitchen). We opted for white, but I was not 100% sure that it was the right choice. With white cupboards and white walls, we were worried it would be too sterile. Too much like our bathroom-house in Hsinchu :-) Rather than putting a color on the cupboards, we finally came up with the idea to paint the walls. Most likely red. And replace some of the plain white cupboard fronts with white-wash glass ones. With these changes, I'm much more confident that the kitchen will be to my liking.

Both bathrooms are halfway finished and looking good. The next two weeks, the last ceilings will be put in and the 2nd and 3rd floor will be painted. Doors will be put in, radiators will be installed and light switches and other remaining electrical jobs will be done. The week after next, the floor in the living room will be put in and one week later, the floors on the 2nd and 3rd floor. Even though we have emphasized from the beginning that the floors were the crucial items to be finished on time (being mid June), the last work in the house to be done is ... the floors! Hopefully the container with our belongings will take a few weeks to get through customs or maybe we can delay their arrival in Veldhoven by a few weeks. If not, we'll have to find a place to put the contents of a 40-foot container for a period of two weeks. Anyone with a few spare rooms in or around Veldhoven?

In the meantime, Emma and Janne are enjoying themselves living in our temporary house. There's a little playground across the street and plenty of kids to play with. That will be a bit different in the new house, where they'll have to play more in the back yard. Fortunately, they seem to adapt to life in Holland without any problems. Emma has several friends from school, whom she likes to invite to come play. She also likes to go on a playdate at their houses. This week, we had Aylene, Elliott and Tyler (friends from Hsinchu) over on Wednesday afternoon, and Elke (Emma's friend from school) on Friday afternoon. Once Emma and Janne will start going to some clubs, it will be a little more difficult to arrange play dates, but we will try to leave them enough free time to just play :-)

This week, I also started looking for swimming lessons for Emma and Janne. I was shocked when I found out that even for swimming lessons there is a 1,5 to 2 year waiting list .... Holland, the country of waiting lists. I think that is why Dutch people are so good at planning and looking ahead. We have to! You have to register your child for day care the moment you find out you're pregnant. When your baby is 6 months old, make sure to register it for your favorite kindergarten, otherwise you might be too late. And please, don't try to move house until the kids are grown up, or all your planning will have been to no avail.

Besides these surprises, we're doing fine :-) I survived my first reversed culture shock dip and can see the bright side of the whole move again. Maybe the warmer weather helps a little bit. Although it still is 10-12 degrees at night, day time temperatures regularly go over 20 degrees C. Which is quite comfortable. And I don't want anyone to tell me they've been having 30 degree weather for the last two months in Taiwan, because all my happy thoughts about the Low Country will go out the window ...

Travelling again

That is, Pieter is travelling again. He returned from a one week trip to Poland on Thursday last week and is leaving today of another 8 day trip to Gorsow, Poland. In Gorsow, TPV has a relatively new tv-factory, which is suffering from a lot of start-up and inexperience problems. Pieter is helping them to straigten things out. Quite a different job from 'Europe Sales Support, but he likes to do it. And that's important too. Pieter's frequent trips to Poland also mean that I don't have a computer, because the only one we have at the moment is his laptop. No computer means no weblog up-dates.

As for me and my job, ASML didn't come through in the end. 'Things changed', as they always do at ASML, and my help was not required after all.

EuroSoccer Craze has started officially today. The first match of the Dutch soccer team for the European championships is today (against Denmark). Half the country is coloured in orange and all shops are selling orange/soccer items. It's quite a lot of fun to see the supporters go nuts in this period. And, who knows, the team might even win and it might get really interesting. On tv, they're now replaying the semi-finals and the final of 1988, the last year Holland became soccer world champion. Hoping that it will inspire the current team to rise to the same hight, no doubt. We'll see. If I get a chance, I'll post a picture of a really funny street in Eindhoven, which is decorated totally in orange.

Fun filled weekend

This weekend, we met with friends again. Originally, Monique and Jeroen are Karin's motorcycle friends, but when they moved to Singapore six months after we moved to Taiwan, they also became friends in Asia. They moved back to the Netherlands two years ago, so they can relate to what we are going through at the moment.
In front of the new house (behind the trees)

They were able to fit us into their extremely busy schedule because their 11 year old daughter was competing in the regional (Brabantse) swimming championships (!) which were taking place in Eindhoven. I took the girls to see Evy swim, hoping that maybe it will be a first step in the direction of getting them interested in the sport. I was a competitive swimmer until the age of 13 and I would love for Emma and/or Janne to be able to enjoy the sport as I did (and still do). We'll see. Evy had a good race, she finished 3rd in her series. For me, it was really nice to feel the atmosphere of a swimming competition again. Maybe I'll check with the Veldhoven swimming club Njord, to see if they have so called masters swimming, for 'older' swimmers ...
There's also a really good ice cream shop in our new street

Of course, we also showed them our house, in which now all the walls and ceilings are plastered. It looks a lot better now that everything is white! Within a month or so, we should be able to move. Can't wait to have all our stuff back!
Sitting room looking a lot better

On Sunday, Emma and Janne had their first Dutch cultural experience. We took them to a children's theater performance called 'Dikkie Dik, limonade met prik'. It was a one hour interactive show and the girls loved it. They are already looking forward to the next time we'll take them to the theater. A nice extra was the 'cat play area', which they created for the children in the theater lobby. There were dozens of big soft dog (cat) baskets, some enormous stuffed cats to play on and even an oversized cat litter box (with balls instead of sand) to play in.

We ended the weekend with Pieter's customary raisin pancakes for dinner. Some things never change!

Sunny days

Emma sharing a blanket with Douwe and Pippa

Pentacost weekend was very sunny and warm and we had a great time outdoors; at playgrounds, bycicling, the parrot park and in our own small back yard. That weekend, we also visited Pieter's son Michiel in Arnhem. It was a great day to go there, because they live a stones throw away from a nature reserve, with great walking trails. Plus, they have a backyard with lots of playing equipment, including a pool. Needless to say that Emma and Janne enjoyed themselves tremendously, although the (unheated) water in the pool was still really c-c-c-cold. Karin enjoyed a nice long walk with Marielle and Spats, their dog. Pieter helped Michiel to build a wood shed in the back yard. At the end of the day, we had a very nice and yummy BBQ. A perfect end to a sunny, three day weekend!
BBQ time!

Work on the house is going well, with only a 2-3 week delay. The critical thing now are the floors. They should be in when the container arrives mid June, so that we can move everything into the proper rooms. All the other work is progressing nicely and timely.

Below, a picture of Janne playing bunny rabbit with one of my sweatshirts.

The warm weather has caused all the spring flowers to start blooming and there's lots of colours in front and backyards. This one is growing in our neighbour's front yard. The flowers are enormous, as big as my hand. Really beautiful!

Mother's Day

As in most of the Western world, yesterday was Mother's Day in the Netherlands. For me, that meant sleeping in until 8.30 am (after Emma and Janne played in our bed from 7 until 7.30 am), breakfast in bed and some wonderful gifts. Emma had made a beautiful painting on a real canvas and sang a sweet mother's day song. I was so proud of her, because she kept the nature of her present a secret for over three weeks AND she remembered all the words of her special song, even though they learned it three weeks ago and she had two weeks of vacation. Janne had made a pretty paper tea pot, with a real tea bag in it. She kept her present secret for over a week, but a few days ago, she blurted out 'your little teapot ... oops ... I shouldn't have said that mommy' :-) Pieter surprised me with a house wife-set, including mostly very practical kitchen tools, but also a book and a lottery ticket.
Emma and Janne playing at my mom's cousin's house

Earlier this week, me, Emma and Janne, together with my mom, went to see a cousin of my mom's. When I was little, I spent one week at their place for a couple of summers. Mostly because Stijn, the cousin's wife, worked at the local swimming pool, which meant free swimming every day for me. I remember I always had great fun staying with them. Now, they are both in their mid-eighties and great-grand parents. At that age, every day is even more a gift and I really wanted to visit with them at the earliest opportunity. With Pieter in Poland and the girls having school holidays, there was my chance. It was so great to see them again (after some eight years or so), also for my mom, for whom it had been a year since she saw them. Their house had changed so little over the years, that entering it felt like taking a step back in time to when I was 10 years old. Very weird experience indeed.
Emma and Janne with my mom and her cousin's wife

With the finalization of the house still over a month away and with that, the arrival of Pieter's piano, Pieter has leased a piano. He hadn't been able to play since we left Taiwan for Australia on Feb 1st, so he decided to rent an (upright) piano for a few months. This way, he can start playing again.
Hopefully she will still be this happy when her lessons start :-)

Family weekend

Saturday, my sister celebrated her birthday. It was a typical Dutch birthday party, with family sitting in a circle, chatting and enjoying some bites and a few drinks. Emma and Janne of course enjoyed the attention, as this was the first time in years that my cousin, nieces and nephew saw our two girls.
Emma waving goodbye on her way to oma's

This weekend was also a big one for Emma, because she spent the night at oma's. It was her very first time away from home, without mom and dad! She was very excited about it. So excited in fact, that she didn't go to sleep until 11 pm ... and was awake again at 7 am the next morning. She was a bit grumpy on Sunday, but is already looking forward to her next 'logeerpartijtje'. She'd like to give Tante Elly's a try next time.

When we picked up Emma the next day, we noticed that the yearly fair was in town. As a child, I always loved going to the fair, to ride the merry-go-round and helter-skelter and to see what surprises the other attractions had for me. Emma and Janne really liked the two rides that were there for smaller children, as well as the fire-fighting booth, where they got to shoot with powerfull waterpistols. Besides that, I found the experience rather dissappointing. There were only a handfull of people and a handfull of attractions and rides. I cannot imagine that this was all there was when I was little. Were we so easily amused at the age of eight to ten? Was there so little entertainment in our town, that we got all excited over this? I really hope Emma and Janne's memories will be as happy as mine, but it's a bit hard to imagine ...
Emma and Janne enjoying the ride


Mama was a bit nervous to join this ride, so Tante Elly got lucky

I've got one more photo I'd like to share. It's of Janne walking around with one of my (few) dolls and my toy baby stroller. It's so much fun to see how Emma and Janne are now enjoying all my old toys. Thanks to oma, who kept all these things for all these years!