The joys of relocation

I'm happy to say that it is over. I am also happy to say it wasn't nearly as painful as the USA --> Amsterdam move. Here's sort of how it went...

Prior to leaving, Scott and I had a quick weekend getaway to Brussels, Belgium. We had a great time just hanging out in the old world streets and squares and drinking a few beers. We had a great dinner and Scott used his frequent travel points (again we benefit from his travels) to score us a great hotel right in city center. What a great city. A definite must for a quick stop during a European adventure.

Following our trip to Belgium, Scott, Caden, Keali and I loaded up on a plane and flew to Manhatten, USA. The attempts to get our UK VISA in Dusseldorf were painfully unsuccessful, but we were bound and determined to make the USA trip work. We arrived in the US on July 4th morning in preparation for our July 5 appointments for fingerprints, document drops, etc. Because we planned to only be there for 4.5 days, we decided to keep the kids on Amsterdam time. I am happy to say we were successful at this, but shocked at how difficult it was in New York City.

Due to the six hour time difference, this meant the kids being in bed at 3:30pm for the night and waking up at about 12:30am. Well for all those fellow NYC fans, the city that never sleeps, well, it sleeps. It sleeps soundly but for the few partiers out running around on their way home. The only thing open at 2am for breakfast are some (sketchy) 24-hour diners. Even the playgrounds are locked until 8am. Well, maybe my kids are trickier than most, but entertaining two kids in a small NYC apartment from 1am to 8am is impossible!

So we did what anyone would do... Ate breakfast every morning at around 2-3am at the local diners (gathering stink-eye glances from on-lookers for not having our children in bed at that hour)...

We crashed Central Park and their climbing rocks, careful to avoid the homeless people asleep every few feet (you don't see homeless people overseas very often), took a much recommended cable car ride to Roosevelt Island (opens at 6am!) and played at the local parks (you can tell we have become more European by the picture below where the kids have very little clothes on...).

Once everything opened, we played in the water parks and went to the top of Rockefeller Building and checked out the amazing views, all while we were waiting on the British Consulate to either give us a YAY or a NEE (Dutch spelling).


We generally had a pretty good time, once the sun came up. The flight back, I have to say was fantastic. We flew business class (my first international business class trip) from EWR to AMS. Let me just say: Wow. After I sufficiently fed my fat on a four course dinner, my seat laid all the way flat like a bed. Amazing. What a treat!

Then came the move. Literally. Four days after our arrival back in Holland, the movers went to our house. They packed for one day, loaded the next, and arrived in London at our new home the following day. My saint of a husband handled ALL of it as I had to attend my first meeting as "boss".

We have settled in nicely and the kids are loving it here. It seems much warmer than Holland, and it's nice to understand the menus, signs, and mail again. I already miss my new friends in Holland and miss the no-car transportation style, but I think we will settle nicely into London.

In nineteen days, we all flew to the USA, were issued visas, returned to Holland, were packed and moved to London, unpacked AND had Caden's 6th birthday (which gets its own entry). Busy. Very busy.

All in all, a successful relocation with a few hiccups along the way, but sooo much better than our last that we won't complain a bit!

Here's the video of pics...





Honorable mention:
Belt and suspends in real life


Entertainment can be many things in the wee hours of the morning - even stickers on a toothbrush...

Beautiful kids...

The goods and bads of the next adventure...

The Hoopers are gearing up for another big move. This one won't be quite as far as the last one, but an international move nonetheless. We are terribly saddened to be leaving Holland. We ended up absolutely loving it here. There is so much to love. In honor of my friend Stacy I., I was going to do a top ten list, but I have a hard time trying to narrow down my loves to ten. The easiest way to describe why we like it so much is several -er words. Compared to where we came from, Holland is cleaner, healthier, safer, family friendly-er, and more moderate. Throw in that it is a quick 2 hour drive to Belgium, Germany, or less than 2 hours by plane to virtually anywhere in the European Union, and you have a winner!


Of course there are a few things we are eager to get rid of and quite frankly took for granted while living in the US. For example, when we went house hunting in London, it was almost a strange feeling to be able to read the store front and know what the store was selling. I had become quite used to peering in windows and completely avoiding reading the long, too many consonants, unpronounceable Dutch words, all of which ended in winkel, to determine what kind of "winkel" it was.

Also, it will be nice to be able to read our mail, without taking it to work and asking my Dutch friends to tell me if it is a bill or an announcement, if it is direct debited, or if we need to pay it. I haven't bothered to add up late fees here on bills because I am afraid of what we might calculate. The good news is that the tv, water, internet, and electricity never were shut off. Not even once...

The last thing I believe will see an improvement on is customer service. For my American friends, to truly understand what the customer service here is like, the best example I can give you is this. Imagine that you have Comcast service which is always dreadful, throw in that you have to pay to call customer service (per minute), sit on hold for several minutes (10-15), get someone who doesn't care and may or may not speak moderately good English, and is pretty sure that whatever you are calling about is your fault and not his concern, and try calling back tomorrow. Seriously.

While I am excited a great deal about our new adventure in London and even more excited about my new job, I know that we will miss Amsterdam...

Moving on, London has so much to offer! English (albeit the "Queen's English") and proper "American sized" grocery stores and refrigerators are two of the many things I am looking forward to. Caden will quickly tell you he is looking forward to Legoland in London, and Keali is excited about going to an all girls school. Scott is happy to go somewhere new and is thankful to reduce his commute and time difference by an hour.

We will be living near Heathrow Airport in western London. In fact Kew Botanical Gardens are about a block from our new home. We will have a bit more space in the new house and even a back yard with a patch of grass in it. The house is in a great location by restaurants, Kew high street, and the underground stop. One stop away is Richmond Upon Thames, and just a few stops away is Waterloo.

Pending our NYC trip and our visas being approved, we will be moving July 14. If we like London half as much as we like Amsterdam, we will be happy ex-pats in the UK!

A journey in Germany...

With our imminent move to London coming up, our family had to go Germany to get our visa application submitted. Due to some timing problems, we ended up going for a 3.5 day trip prior to the trip to go submit applications.

We spent our first night in Düsseldorf. The driving on the autobahn was far more exciting than Dusseldorf itself. In fact, the highlight of the Dusseldorf stay was a cool park where the kids played in the sandpit. Suffice it to say that Düsseldorf is not coming from this family as a recommended destination.


The next day, we drove on to Köln (Cologne for us Americans). What a beautiful city! It started out right when we arrived because we walked into the coolest over the top apartment for our 2 night stay. A beautifully redone giant apartment right in the heart of old town Koln made us excited about our newest adventure. Our first stop was to go explore the Dom Cathedral. We were all eager to climb to the top of one of the towers. The picture doesn’t allow full understanding of how tall it was. We climbed 566 steps to the top. (For those of you who don’t think 566 steps is far, it is close to 28 floors of stairs.) Keali was by far the smallest/youngest kid climbing and she made it up without any problems. It was extremely fun and cool and the views were spectacular.




We watched a free Amnesty International concert in the square – Tom Beck was even performing. It was fun walking around the square and recognizing the songs being played in the square. The concert brought out lots of interesting people. After the kids took some candy from “the guy in the white balloon”, we explained to them what he was dressed up as. They didn’t stop talking about it for a few days. (Stellar parenting, I know.)



Köln was cool and relaxing. We met a friend of Scott’s for lunch one day and did cable cars another day to ride over the Rhine River and see some new parts of the city. If you are ever in Europe, Köln was a nice stop.




We ended up going back to Düsseldorf the following week to submit applications for the visas there. After literally all day trying to get the visas submitted, dealing the German (lack of) customer service, and even an international internet café stop, the ultimate reason for the trip was aborted. The immigration consultant company advised improperly and our visas would have been denied. This of course provides the reason for our next adventure: New York City July 4-8. As much as I am dreading the flights and jet lag for such a short stay, I am looking forward to being back in the States with the kids. This will be their first trip to the US since August 4, 2010.

Honorable mention:

A lesson in Roman history...

We were fortunate enough to spend five days touring Rome with the family. It was an interesting place and we were able to take a few private tours. While not cheap, I believe this is the best way to tour Rome. The history makes the buildings, art, and even religion much more interesting. (But let's not get ahead of ourselves as the most important thing is the food: fantastic.)

I learned a great deal on this trip. For example, I was unaware that St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican was built by the Barberini family literally destroying and taking all the artifacts, marble and gold out of Rome and delivering it to St Peter's building ground. I was also unaware that Caesar's Palace was built long after Julius Caesar had died. The Caesar salad isn't named for Julius Caesar, but rather after all Caesars (rulers) going forward. Who would've thought...

Perhaps some of the biggest learnings came from touring the Vatican (believed to be the richest "state" in the world). Hmmmm? It is comprised largely of Roman artifacts stolen by the Barberini's. Hmmmm a little more? Michaelangelo (painter of the Sistine Chapel, among other things) was literally forced to paint the chapel. He was previously only a sculptor and architect. The Pope insisted he painted it, so he spent four years in misery painting the chapel. What isn't widely publicized is that Michaelangelo was a known homosexual... Seem inconsistent? To add to that, the women that he painted appear to be (as our tour guide said) men with breasts. Also, through a crack in the door, you can see into the (current) Pope's residence. Amazing and baroque and over the top. Seem inconsistent yet? It goes on, but I will stop now. Below a sculpture by Michaelangelo inside St Peter'
s Basilica.


Probably the coolest thing we saw was the Pantheon. Words don't describe it, so I won't bother. Suffice it to say that the engineering that went into this building is simply amazing.

The Coliseum was interesting. It is simply amazing that this big and complex of a structure could be built 2000 years ago. Just recently they have opened the underground of the Coliseum for private tours where you can see where the gladiators, slaves, and animals were kept. They even had elevators then!

Of course the kids' highlights of the trip were the zoo and the horse drawn carriage ride. We had a curious horse.


All in all it was a great trip. I had always wanted to see Rome and am thrilled that we had the opportunity. It is rich in history, art, architecture, and religion (Pagan and Christianity). You can't help but learn while you are there. It is a must see for a European traveler.



Honorable mentions:





Toga Party!

A tragedy...

Imagine. Imagine for just a minute your worst possible fear coming true. Can words even describe how the very thought of the events at that moment make you feel? Does your vocabulary even allow you to voice your hurt or your fear or your pain? Mine does not.

For the last few years, I have followed a foundation set up due to the untimely death of a little girl Layla Grace. She lived in Houston with her family and as a baby was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a deadly and aggressive cancer. Through her foundation, I have been following a little boy’s journey as well as his family’s journey through his diagnosis and treatment of cancer. He was 4 years old when he died on Monday from it. Reading his mother’s words, I am unable to even finish a single entry without tears streaming down my face. So sad for her. So sad for her other two little boys. So sad for her husband. So sad for the little boy Ronan to have fought such a battle and to have lost and never to be a healthy ornery boy’s-boy little boy.

The story is a sad one. It’s one of many sad ones of families losing their children to childhood cancer. You may think that this is the introduction to some terrible story about our beautiful and wonderfully healthy children Caden and Keali. Of course I am happy to say that it has nothing to do with them physically. They are healthy and doing well. I can only hope they continue along that path.

However, this little boy’s story in particular has made me appreciate even more the life and health that we live. Some would probably say we are blessed, lucky, fortunate, etc. I tend to disagree with all of those. To say that means, that the other family was not blessed, not lucky, or not fortunate. Why would they be selected or “chosen” to endure any of those things? The saddest thing I have ever been through in my life was my sweet Brewskii dying. I was sad for weeks and years. Sad is inadequate. Heartbroken doesn’t fully explain it. Broken seems closer, but still not fully descriptive. What if I had to see my little baby girl or boy slowly dying before my eyes as this mother did? Although I have not personally lived through that grief, the words that come to me are hopelessly inadequate to describe how I thinkit feels. I hope I never know for sure.

I am thankful everyday that I have my husband, my kids, my parents, my brother, and more. I am not perfect and still get irritated with the kids, but this little boy’s journey has taught me to appreciate all the little things even more.

Holiday in Barcelona

As I begin this entry, I realize that the last entry I made was a holiday. To those who don't know us very well, it may appear that we just jet around and take holidays in various beautiful places. I so wish that was the case... I will admit that we are so lucky to enjoy these experiences. We are all healthy, happy, and fortunate to travel as we are and experience such a different life than we were used to in the US.

Mom and KC made a trip over to visit us all, although their biggest desire was to see the kids. The day after their arrival, we all left for a seven day vacation in Barcelona.

Barcelona is an amazing, busy, historic, giant city. We stayed in a fabulous 4 bedroom apartment a block off of Las Ramblas. The crowds, people and street performers were in full effect throughout the day and night.

Since we were all so busy prior to leaving on the trip, it was one trip that we essentially did not prepare for at all in terms of "what to do's". So we basically started walking around. It didn't matter where we went, we came upon a historic site or a something amazing to see. Some of the favorites were the cable cars overlooking the city and leading up to Castle Montjuic, the Olympic Stadium, Picasso Museum, and generally the beautiful architecture and buildings everywhere. We all loved seeing the GIANT farmers market
Unbelievable and amazing, and there is nothing I can say to fully describe the mammoth size of this structure (Segrada Familia), or the beauty in every detail and every corner. Just as amazing is that it was started under construction in 1882 and is still under construction. I simply cannot imagine how big it will be when it is finally completed. (If you look in the pic below, you will see to the back the Segrada Familia from the far outskirts of town on the hill where the Castle is located.)

Overall the trip was a successful trip for site-seeing, eating, sleeping, and drinking. We all spent some great time together. For anyone considering a holiday in Barcelona, I think that 5 days is a good amount of time to spend there. Seven was a bit long, unless you feel good about hanging close to the house and relaxing for a day or two without feeling guilty about "squandering" your vacation.

Honorable Mentions:

Below - Mom and KC as we walk down the stairs from the top of the Segrada Familia.
Below: Caden and Keali where Keali actually looks taller than Caden (he still has about 2 inches on her...)
Below: Caden at Segrada Familia
Below: Scott and I outside the Picasso Museum.
Below: Our "crew" overlooking Barcelona...

VIDEO:

A Canary Island Holiday

The newest adventure: the Hooper family took our first 7 day family holiday. After I had a very positive meeting in Lanzarote (Canary Islands located off the coast of Africa), the rest of the crew flew down to meet me at the end of my meeting.

We rented a fabulous 3 bedroom villa with our own private pool. The kids loved the pool!

We spent several days on the beautiful beach of Playa Blanca. Suffice it to say that it looked a little different than the Texas beach!

The entire island is volcanoes so we decided to ride camels at the large national park of Timanfaya. The landscape looks like moonscape. It was amazing to see. One of the neatest things we saw at Timanfaya is where they have found a hole (literally) that goes deep into the earth. The heat that comes out is so hot that they have built a restaurant around it. They use the hole to cook the food. Directly over the hole, the temperatures stay around 400 degrees Farenheit. Pretty amazing to see.

Next to that oven hole was several small holes. The nice man there would dump a bucket of water down the holes. After three to four seconds, a bit of gurgling, and then a loud boom, the hole would shoot the water/steam straight up into the air about 20 feet.

Perhaps one of the coolest things we saw was a giant cave made by lava called Cueva de los Verdes. Words and the photos simply can't do this place justice. It felt like you were walking to the center of the earth... Legend has it that the inhabitants of Lanzarote used to hide in the caves when the pirates cam ashore. Unbelievable place.

The kids were fantastic the entire trip. On our several hour trip back to Amsterdam, Keali slept while Caden sat in his seat and drew pictures and wrote lots of words. As he always does, he struck up a conversation with the person next to him. Just before getting off the plane I heard him ask her if she would like us to walk with her through the airport. So cute!

As we spent our time in Lanzarote, Scott and I both were simply amazed by even being there. Still feeling like a Texas panhandle farm girl, I never expected to have the opportunities that we have had. In just a few short months, we have vacationed in Paris, Belgium, Scotland, Venice, and the Canary Islands. Our kids have seen more in six months than both Scott and me combined. The adventure continues in a few weeks to Barcelona.

Below you will find a few other honorable mentions from our holiday.

The first 1000 piece puzzle I have ever participated in. Teamwork! More to come on the puzzle later...

The beach where we sat in El Golfo to eat a delicious lunch. It doesn't get any fresher than this. You can see the man who cleans the fish beachside that they serve in the restaurant. It was delicious!

This is how Alex spent seven days:

An example of (non)-stellar parenting:

Just an absolute beautiful place.