7 weeks or 55 days is how long I was given to move the 9 of us to The Netherlands. “Sure,let’s go it will be fun” was my response. I am always up for some sort of adventure so I figured it couldn’t be that bad. Plus other people have loved their opportunities to live overseas. On Friday we boarded the plane for Amsterdam and thats when I realized I was prepared. Don’t get me wrong we have a place to live and the school stuff is all taken care of but since this has been a whirlwind ride trying to get us packed and over here I have given very little thought as to what we would be doing day to day actually “living” here. So on the plane I started to realize all my planning was up until August 10, nothing really afterwards.
In this I turn to my friends and family. I haven’t had the opportunity to really travel much outside of the United States. I take that back we have been to parts of Asia and to London but other than that my knowledge of the best places is very limited. Feel free to email your must see places with your family or without (just in case we get a weekend away). I don’t know how much we will be able to squeeze in during our time here but we plan on taking advantage of traveling as much as we can until they send us home. I do have a long list of historical places we want to go but really would also love more “local” destinations not just the tourist hot spots.

I will spare y’all the details of the flight since it was pretty uneventful other than an incident involving an exploded diaper. All I will say is every airline should have a changing table that fits a
21 month old kid–yuck! Anyone who travels overseas with kids should make sure to have some melatonin with them. My kids were out in minutes no joke! Cheapest way to settle them down–that and a little lavender oil and they were out cold and awake happy 5-6 hours later.

The car service Shell arranged must have thought that we were joking about our family size because they hired one driver with a small van to pick us up. He was pretty confused as we started to load up and said there wasn’t room for all of us. I am not sure if he thought half the kids with us were just following us or what because he kept saying there are only supposed to be six of you. LOL He called another driver and soon we were on our way from the airport. I guess in the future more than 3 follow up calls and emails will be needed to secure the proper size rental.

We went for a walk after a short nap at the hotel and I saw a lady trip and almost fall because she was watching us walk past and then a lady almost crashed her bike as she drove by us counting the kids. The kids were really into the street that is lined with artwork. Some pretty cool statues and other pieces. The rental van Shell got us is HUGE–I can walk around inside of it without bending over at all. We already can’t find anywhere to park it and all the parking garages are too low so I guess we better find a smaller one ASAP. Since it is Holli’s birthday and fatigue was setting in quickly from jet lag we let her pick our dinner location. Where does any 3 year old want to eat, but McDonalds. After a fast dinner rather than a two hour typical Dutch dinner we were back in the hotel for showers and bedtime.

Just thought I would add a few pictures of our travel day which also happened to be Holli’s 3rd birthday.