well, dorothy said it best after she clicked her heels together. . . and it's true, so so true. best things about being home (in no particular order):
1. michael making coffee in the morning
2. owen playing with sierra doggy pretending he's a horse and yelling "kittycatkittycat" up the stairs
3. sleeping in our own bed, even if five bodies are snuggling up on one queen sized bed
4. ahhhh. bathtub. bathtub. bathtub.
5. this, right now. my office hour. closing the door, upstairs, in my own corner of the office with my coffee while michael and owen play downstairs in the garage/playroom.
and really these these bests all have to do with all of us (dog and cat included) being together.
ok, i promised myself a quick post as my office hour today is so i can keep these little wheels of mine turning. i've got an amersfoort paper draft here and various and sundry school-ish things to do. but i couldn't resist sharing these holiday pics.
some best snapshots:
1. owen and mama making cookie dough christmas red--a great opportunity for owen to show off his counting skills "ooooonetwothreefiveseveneighteighteighthoooorah!eight)(while nana pulls the first batch of purple cookies out of the oven off screen): 
2. owen wearing great (great?) aunt fredonia's apron he found in the back of the towel drawer (while mama and nana sweep sprinkles up off the floor):
3. christmas eve-day at the beach:
4. see best-thing #2 above (and owen holding his favorite "bag"--his easter basket from grandma--he carries around with treasures he finds around the house)
5. owen sitting on santa-papa's lap christmas day:
which leads to all the best things about christmas: sal and jenn spending christmas eve with us and then playing with owen and his new kitchen while michael and i opened our gifts to each other on christmas morning, nana and papa playing with owen's new legos, edy and jerry remembering stockings for sierra and izzy, our neighbors joining us for christmas dinner, owen's absolute joy each time he opened a new present "train! tRAIN! EEEEllllmo! ooooooh! circle circle color crayons yellow!" and his continued use of "donkuvelle" along with please and tankyooou and how he stopped and had to play with each toy for half an hour before he would even consider untying another bow.
best things from home
what we like about the dutch--
basically, all things dairy. (which kind of overlaps with chocolate but that's a different video/post--because owen has started to beg and plead for chocolate). but the best part about going ot the supermarket is the yoghurt aisle. and i kid you not, there is an entire aisle for this stuff--and it's better than ice cream. our favoirte is the "booredvol" brand fruitwark volle milk (oh yeah, only the full fat stuff!)--especially the vanilla mango passionfruit. mmmm.
here's fruitwark I--owen enjoying a bowl:
and fruitwark II--owen cleaning up after fingerpainting:
owen chasing ducks
michael caught this at the hogue veluwe park--the amazing wildlife park around the kroller muller museum. we went for a bike ride which started out lovely enough with crisp, but clear skies. we stopped here to see the ducks and the scenic panorama of the hunting lodge in the background. we never made it there--let's just say the ducks were the highlight and owen is not a big fan of being cold while the wind hits his face.
enjoy the quack quacking!
owen puts on a show
Found this resturant with a stage which was perfect to occupy Owen's time while we eat our dinner and socialize with some friends. The stage came complete with a fish-tank background. Enjoy..
rain, rain
it's one of those red stomping boot days, but instead owen and i have stayed inside in our pajamas all morning. the heat is on and the window is cracked open just enough to hear the "drip drop drip drop." and i have to say this is one of those days i'm just happy to be here.
i've been working mornings all week doing revisions on my dissertation chapter (yes, the same one i've been gestating since owen was born) while owen hangs out with wout--an artsy dutch youth who while he figures out his existential place in the universe babysits and writes ironic poems and plays in dutch. his dream is to move to romania with his friend's cousin who bought some abandoned village for 10 euros and they all plan to live off the land as artists. he's the son of one of the inn owners that michael's stayed at these last few months. he comes with pretty good credentials and so far is my favorite dutch person. he finds blue's clues quite illuminating and takes owen to his old elementary school around the corner where there's a big slide. anyhow, it's been a productive respite for me.
but, nothing beats time with owen. he's grown so much here, and not just in the--pajamasaretootight kind of way, but grown into his big personality. he's so loving and funny and i think becoming quite the artist. maybe all those museum trips are having an effect ;) he's napping now after a busy morning with color crayons, elmo and playing tickle "hut one hut two" with mommy (guess who taught him that game?).
anyhow, our time here is getting down to days and i'm anxious to see nana and papa, our friends, and the doggy and kitty. our house will seem palatial after all sharing this one room--i've been dreaming of our big soak tub and our queen sized bed (with no drafty gaps in the middle!) and fluffy down pillows--but there's just something simple and loving about all being in this room together. maybe we'll just all huddle in our living room and sleep on the couch. either way, i hope we take this, whatever "this" is home with us even if we leave the rain behind.
Trainspotter
A video of Owen watching a big train go by -- he's very excited about the trains and good thing this country is full of 'em. We ended up taking the train from Amersfoort to Amsterdam for the day. Ended up at the Ann Frank Huis, where he and her family hid out during the German/Nazi invasion... very interesting if you've never seen it. But Owen did not seem to enjoy it too much, and we "hurried" thru some sections. ... Let's just say that Owen embarassed us a bit...
amersfoort postcards
thought i'd share a few snapshots of our surroundings. yesterday i took these pics out our window. the weather's started turning cold again after an unseasonably warm week but the starkness is actually quite beautiful against the brick that is ubiquitous here in amersfoort.
things are a little slow at b&d so michael was able to log in "at home". we took a walk around the stadsring--the outer circle of the city along the river/canal and let owen stomp in the leaves before lunch. owen and i take this walk quite often and usually get to see some dogs and ducks. just have to watch out for dog bombs, if you get what i mean. apparently people don't carry "doggie bags" like they do back home. but owen's got his red stomping boots so it's all good.
here's owen waving "hi mama! hi mama! hi mama!" and "sitting" with me for a picture at the park bench. these snaps i think are the best part of being here, of being anywhere really with my guys.
so here we are in holland
and no pictures yet of windmills!
so we took a sunday family drive (i can't remember the last time
driving was recreational!) to explore noord holland and see if we couldn't find any windmills. we left amersfoort after lunch and took a 20 kilometer road right over a bay off the north sea. it was amazing and made you realize why people used to think you could drive off the edge of the earth. we made our way up to Enkhuizen
which was a beautiful port city--to the right is a boat picture i took for grandpa ken.
we then looped inland and headed south towards the zaans schanse where we were told we'd see windmills. and we did. it was an entire little windmill village--complete with cute dutch dames making wheels of gouda in little white frocks, a clog museum complete with giant yellow clog for climbing on, fancy clogs for getting married in, and teeny little baby clogs. and ducks hanging out on little bridges quack quacking. but i did promise windmmills, didn't i?
owen meets van gogh
We seem to be falling behind on our posts, so I'll do one from Saturday now.. and we'll try and play catch-up this week -- as we took lots of pictures, and we still have pictures from Brugge to post.. But Saturday we took a quick trip into Amsterdam. After leaving the car at the airport, it was a quick train ride into Amsterdam Central station... but for Owen it was a once-in-a-lifetime ride on the choo-choo. He was pretty mellow on the way out, but couldn't stop talking on the way back -- just very excited to be on the train.
We walked from the train station, past all the frat boys and tourists, to the museum area. We went to the Van Gogh museum, which was amazing, and fun for the whole family. We got there at the start of an exhibit on Van Gogh/Expressionism. Afterwards, we explored the park area behind the museum and thankfully enjoyed the good weather.. although it was a bit windy. Check out the new slogan (Rijksmuseum in the background):
there's no turkey here . . .
. . .but we're still enjoying a little thanksgiving of our own. apparently you can still sit down with loved ones and count your blessings even if you don't have an oven to make stuffing, or bake pie, or make that marshmallowy yam stuff. because if you have a stove top, or even a hot plate you can still make yummy star anise earl grey homemade cranberry sauce, sautee some chicken and apples, boil up some cheese ravioli and throw in some nutmeg to pretend that it's really the homemade pumpkin stuff, and just spread lots of "grasboter superieur" over everything.
so all this to say i had this realization that it was my first thanksgiving away from my family and had just recovered from a nasty
bout of homesickness. but just as i was thinking that, i looked up and there was michael and owen playing football in the seven square feet that is our "living room" and that i wasn't away from my family at all. they were right here with me. bearing the rain and bad dutch haircuts and evil frau. and those damn gaps in the bed. but they were here, we were here, walking down langstraat together with six bags from the plus market hanging off the well-worn maclaren stroller, bundled up in "mittens! mittens!", up the red carpeted staircase and into our room, together.
and we're on our sixth room change but somehow, this morning it seems, it happened. we settled in here in amersfoort, netherlands. michael and i have the tuck-the-six-suitcases-out-of-sight game down pat and as long as owen has his choo-choo-people-train and elmo bed and he's happy to be here (a mini bar fridge is some kind of prereq too). the wireless is up, the flowers are on the table, and since we're all together it's home. but we do miss the sierra dog and even crazy izzy kitty too. and owen says night-night to grandma and grandpa, nana and papa, all his aunties and uncles, and our favorite people before he settles in with mickey mouse (no longer "mee moo" but "micka mou") and elmo. so do we ;)
these boots are made for. . .
stomping cobblestone puddles!
warning: you will need to rotate your monitor clockwise, or lie your head down comfortably--preferably with a cup of tea and a biscuit--on your table.
B is for Brugges
at last some quiet time, with a pot of tea, a telnet wireless connection and abba playing in the background. ah, we must be in belgium. because i kid you not, this is the fifth time we've heard abba here in brugges. and there are cool "b" s everywhere to remind us. anyhow, michael and owen are up in our crazy "studio" room (which means downstairs armoire, toilet room, bathroom and crazy spiral staircase to the place where the beds are) snuggling up to elmo and counting sheep and i'm in the hans memling hotel tea room.
so when i used to keep a diary and i'd miss a week of entries i'd have all this anxiety about
whether or not to go back and 'catch up' with the week or just start in on the present day. and now i'm having hte same because i've taken some cool amersfoort pics over the last week (owen riding a pedal-less bicycle outside the tommeetuppee toyshop in drakken alley, owen stomping leaves around the city ring, and owen eating his first kindersuprise chocolate with i'mallowedtospoilhimandgivehimsweets-janae). but i'll save those for a rainy day back in the netherlands (which i'm sure we'll have many many more of) and get back to those "B"s. so here is michael and owen in front of said "B"--we've arrived just at the beginning of holiday decorating which makes the seven-degrees-to-freezing-weather feel festive.
in the main square of the st. joris cathedral we're a week too early for the ice-skating rink but we've managed to spot some windmills, take a horse and buggy ride (because owen absolutely could not stop saying "more horse? more horse? horse? click clack. horse? more horse?"--that and "more bus" but taking a horse ride seemed cooler than a bus ride), and eat some proper belgian waffles with chocolate sauce. we're hoping tomorrow to go to the chocolate museum and take a canal boat ride. or maybe just eat more waffles.
not so lazy sunday
The weekend was busy. Janae came over to see us in Amersfoort as our first visiter during our stay here. She arrived just as we were moving to the Tabaksplant hotel. We had to be out of the room at 11am, and couldn't check-in to our new place until 1pm, so there was a lot of slowly-moving luggage down the street to the new place... There were 6 suitcases plus other bags and such, so that wasn't a problem.
Sunday we went to the Kröller-Müller museum with is in the middle of the National Park "de Hoge Veluwe". The weather was cold, bet we decided to get some bikes anyway... because you can't go to the Netherlands and NOT do some biking. Unfortunately the rain started when we were at the museum and didn't get around to much of the sculpture garden.
who needs starbucks?
today owen had his first steamer--or "warm milk" as owen calls it. we had just gotten back to the de gaaper from a chilly afternoon out and about (see post below) and jeanaka (i know i'm doing injustice to this beautiful woman's beautiful name) made him a special steamed milk in his special red ikea cup in his "king chair"--what everyone calls owen's highchair that gets left downstairs just for him. today was a good picture day, with the clouds and rain of yesterday giving way to the sun and just a few drops of "drip drip" here and there. enjoy these pics. and i'm sure nobody will be surprised that owen says "mama's coffee" each time he sees a coffee mug. now he's thrilled with his own "owen's coffee." what can i say, start 'em young. . .
owen in the garden
yesterday owen and i spent the afternoon at the flehite
museum which was ecclectic
to say the least--everything from an impressive jukebox collection to a barbed wire holocaust memorial. i really wanted to check out this massive wooden statue outside but when we left it was raining. so, this afternoon after going to the post we spend some time in this funny little garden. you can see the scale on the left next to owen. there's a sign that says paradise, i'm guessing, in dutch. so i assume this is a rendition of eve. owen was pretty impressed by what i think is her knee. and then he mostly pointed out the water hoses inside the little rose garden.
he was quite the little art model though, and his new thing is
to sit down and smile everytime i take a picture. you can see a little of the amersfoort landscape--a lot of cobblestone, muddy little river going around the city and very neat brick buildings. i think this is the closest i'll find to a park in the city but owen seems to make do. just need to make sure he doesn't get the desire to go swimming, as the steps just end at the water.
well tonight is shopping night--everything stays open past five so we'll go out and stroll and get some dinner. tomorrow we move rooms for a night and then switch inns on saturday. so the adventure continues. . .
day three
here we are in front of the de gaaper after having our tea on our way for a stroll down long street or langestraat. today seemed like our first "real" day here in amersfoort. we made it to breakfast, had a nap at naptime, had an afternoon tea and then strolled confidently alongside the bicycles and mopeds. well, we both had on our cool hats and went to some fun shops. i bought owen his first dutch toy-- a cute wooden train that he's been playing with since we got home. hmmm. there is something quite cozy about this little
town that makes it easy enough to call this funny room a home. here's a picture of our window from the langestraat-->
the three rectangularish windows right below the spire. so we've got this crazy sloped ceiling but it's quite comfy.
and i think there's gotta be something ok about a culture that seems to live on chocolate, cheese and little tea crackers.
owen lag
it's 5:07 in the evening, but in california. out here in amersfoort it's 2:07--in the morning. but as michael just said as he rolled over in bed--two is better than four. we started today with 1 am wake up call from owen then we all got up and watched telletubbies and ate cookies in bed until sometime after three 
3. then we all slept gloriously until 1:30 in the afternoon. tonight owen fell asleep at dinner,
around 8pm literally swaying in the fancy dutch highchair until we had to take him out and put him in his stroller for fear he'd fall asleep and knock his head on the table. our plan to keep him up until 10 was thwarted but we had an amazing italian dinner. it even felt like a date.
so it's ok that when we got back and did our bedtime rituals that he only went back to sleep for 20 minutes. this time we all watched elmo's world until we got sleepy, or we minus owen, and he sang his way through everything he knows for about two hours rolling back and forth between "mama!!!" and "dadadadadaaaada!".
and i'm sure it's all because i screwed us up by letting him sleep on the way home from the airport and didn't implement a jet lag regiment. but owen lag is ok, even if it takes longer. because he's just soaking it all in. and really, so am i.
amsterdam didn't feel like much of a change. everything at the airport was in english and my biggest impression was that it was very clean and people queued up in very straight (and very long) lines. and getting into the country was easier than trying to get into disneyland--the passport guy (who couldn't have been more than fifteen) high-fived owen on our way into the country.
being in amersfoort is different, but in a familiar sort of way. perhaps in that freudian heimliech/uncanny kind of way.
partly because i'm mapping the city through the photographs and images michael's described. like when we walked to the hof, i knew exactly where the inn was that we were staying. they were breaking down the saturday market and the brood pirate was stashing away the last of the sweet buns. and i knew to expect that, and the remaining bits of paper and debris that were still remaining this morning all blown into a pile near the fountain.
but its also familiar because i'm remembering languages i thought i'd forgotten and just tapping into that adaptability we all have when confronted with the unfamiliar--which we all have, but it gets rusty i think because the unfamiliar so quickly becomes familiar (or if you live in a perfect little community you are never confronted with anything different that might disrupt its beauty). on our way to the inn we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some essentials--bananas, milk, yogurt and cookies. and everything was in dutch. but we deduced that stretchen or something like that was the sour milk we didn't want and halfvolle was like 2% so we wanted the volle. and we picked up pastries and tea for lunch at a french cafe, and i remembered ananas was pineapple and at dinner where the menu was in dutch and italian i had the most amazing rigatoni with zuchini and eggplant after recalling important words like melanzanne for eggplant and of course vino rosso for red wine. oh, and never forget grazie. or donkuevelle (not sure on the spelling on that one).
and finally it seems familiar because it just feels like where fairytales take place. we took a walk this afternoon around the city--between the brick wall and the river--and i felt like this, walking in the brisk air alongside the bicycles and dogs, was why we came here. owen stomping on leaves, michael pointing out trains, and me happily pushing an empty stroller. these are the pictures i wanted to share, but alas the camera's memory card was still in the computer. i'm hoping though not only to take some beautiful pictures soon but that this is a regular thing.
so my resolve here is to embrace this uncanny, this adventure and not give way into the absolute panic i had this morning when i was trying to unpack six suitcases so it didn't feel like we were living out of suitcases. or that tomorrow--rather a few hours--when michael leaves me and owen here in this room to go to work we'll face our day as one with possibilites and have many adventures to report on at the end of the day. even if it's just walking down long street and admiring the euroboots we're not allowed to spend 150euro on and buying brood instead. . .
we're here
The airport was a breeze, and the plane actually took off early (for a change). Owen was happy playing with stickers, watching Blue's Clues dvd, and playing with the three-year-old sitting behind us for the first 2-3 hours of the plane ride. He was then well-fed by the KLM flight attendants and fell asleep soon after.
Soon after that, Dada and moma became a little tired, and little Owen was very uncomfortable.. although we did have a whole row to ourselves. We gave Owen 1/2 teaspoon of Benadryl which actually wiped him out for the remaining 5 hours of the trip. Overall had a great plane ride, although it was long... They kept the movies coming, but didn't catch much of them.. I think they played You, Me & Dupree, Devil wears Prada, and the latest Pirates of the Carribean movie. That benadryl really wiped out Owen, as he kept sleeping until we got to the passport counter.. Here are some pics from the airport, and when we arrived at the de Gaaper hotel.. where mommy had a well deserved coffee a daddy snuck in a Belgian beer.
things we'll miss in the oc
wednesdays with our wednesday friends in the park, with a ball, and cupcakes.
cookie monster
when you're getting ready to go on a really long trip the best thing to do is make six dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cranberry raisin walnut cookies. owen thinks so too.
time to gogogo!
today is monday and we're leaving friday. which seems completely insane. but it seems completely just right too. something happened when michael left, and i realized it yesterday. home stopped feeling like home. that is, our little abode here in the oc didn't feel like our home anymore. and it made me sad, but it underscored something i'd been feeling, i think we'd been feeling. it's the also thing that's in the back of my mind, that when we come back here, to this house, to this home it'll be different. that really what's the big unsaid, is that we won't be coming back to the same anymore. because the same isn't the same. because
when michael leaves for norway we're not staying here. we can't. because today is also the day i cried four times. not because i couldn't try on cordorouy pants--or i could but really really quickly because dada and owen were done running in circles and dodging sock hooks at old navy. but because owen finally fell asleep 
after we had lunch, all three of us at wahoos, and then michael sat in the decadent dressing room at anthropolgie complete with aromatherapy and fluffy pillows while owen
slept and i tried on half a dozen pants and tees from the sale rack. because for an entire month my laptop sat on my bookshelf, in the outbox, waiting a death sentence and now i'm writing this post tapping hte old familiar keys after michael wiped out the old hard drive, reinstalled everything, and did a do-over so it all works now. because since he's been travelling the only writing i've done have been these scattered posts and the 11 monumental pages i did in p-town sequestered at a starbucks while grandma held good-kids-only daycare for owen. because it feels like this amazing boy is growing, michael is moving, and i'm here just trying to hold on while our family is pulled like playdoh. ok, what i'm saying is this: it just sucks not all being together. and it's really hard. or it's gone beyond hard and just started feeling stupid. anyhow, it's about time we all got on board this adventure and well, it's time to gogogo.
