Friday, May 30, 2008
setting up in memphis
Hey y'all. We've been out of e-contact for a week as our internet in our temporary apartment wasn't set up until this morning . . . a lot has happened since we checked in but highlights include arriving in Memphis and buying a house (if the inspection goes through ok) and two cars in a few days. Ryan's folks generously came down with us and wore Ellie out with stories and swimming while we frantically made those major life purchases before Ryan started work on Wednesday. Then our friend Sara graciously jumped in-- she and her son Alex played with Ellie while we completed putting the offer down on the house and while I got to meet the woman who will deliver Owen. So we've had a lot of help and it feels like if this baby isn't too early we may even be sort of settled when he arrives. So much more to do, but the momentum seems to be going in the right direction. Cheers and more soon!
Monday, May 19, 2008
made it
Hey all--writing from our hotel in Minneapolis where we're here for a short but sweet stopover on our way to Memphis. All went well with the flights, baggage (11 check ins, 5 carry ones!), customs, etc. and we are bleary and jetlagged and so happy to be home. Sadly, I don't think we'll have time to catch up with folks while here in Minneapolis--that will have to wait until this fall when Owen is here and we're settled in Memphis and can take a trip up for fall colors. But for you Memphis friends, it's ready or not! And Maastricht friends, we already miss you. As we packed up our last tidbits the morning of our departure, Ellie walked around the apartment forlornly saying, "good-bye Maastricht, good-bye Maastricht". What a great ten+ months that was for us. More from Memphis . . .
Friday, May 16, 2008
trying not to go into labor while moving . . . the good, the bad and the funny
Good morning all. We leave tomorrow and it's been a complete and utter circus. I'm up early again after not being able to sleep and thought perhaps that rather than look at this mound of stuff to do, I would take some time with my tea and cereal and write a little bit. So here's a little of the good, the bad and the funny of Maastricht and our saying good-bye to it to go to Memphis.
Starting with a couple bad things (getting it over with). Obviously, our time line has been a little crunched as we found out 5 days before we leave just where we'll be moving. There are a b-jillion things to do, but for me the biggest priority has been finding health care as I'll be 33 weeks when we arrive in Memphis. I had the same fabulous midwives who delivered Ellie all lined up in Minneapolis and was a little frantic when call after call to Memphis area Ob/Gyn providers (midwives can't deliver in hospitals in Memphis!) found me rejected because I was past the 20 week mark. What?!?!? And this is with health insurance! More about this in the next section.
One more "bad" . . . mostly because it's comically indicative of our week in that it ends fine but with so much hoo-haw in getting there. When we shipped out from Memphis we were given a 500 pound weight shipment that we were WAY under (the sweet Memphis movers asked us if we wanted to go shopping or something before they sent it!). We recently sent home 4 suitcases of stuff with guests going before us and haven't bought hardly anything here (well, I guess we're adding a bike!) , so we were confident that we'd have no problem. Well . . . on this end the shipment is measured by cubic meters, not weight. Hmmmm. So the packers arrive yesterday, find we have gone over our allotment, their boss says take it anyway, they drive away with our boxes, then the moving company in the States talks to their boss who says don't take it, who calls Ryan to come pick up the extra boxes when they arrive in Amsterdam (that's hours away and practically impossible to drive to and we leave tomorrow morning!), who begs the Dutch boss to have the movers pull over, the movers pull over an hour north of Maastricht and wait for Ryan who's frantically driving to catch up with them, and finally everyone meets in some parking lot in the middle of the Dutch nowhere and Ryan grabs boxes off the truck and we'll just have to pay the overage at the airport to get them home. Whew. Can you hear the background music playing in this bad comedy movie?
Now for the good. I don't mean to be a cheese ball, but there are such fabulous good eggs everywhere. We've had a lot of support from folks here in Maastricht--good friends and neighbors, co-workers of Ryan's, my Dutch midwives, merchants whose businesses we've supported while in Maastricht, it'll be with mixed feelings that we get on the plane tomorrow and say good-bye to all of this. More comedy this week in that I have neither a working phone or transportation (bike's shipped, Ryan's got the car at work . . .) so folks have stepped in with rides, making sure we're eating, bringing us great bags of baby boy clothes, keeping us laughing etc. etc. Ellie's school graciously accepted her two days this week so we could get some stuff done even though they were over their numbers and she wasn't registered for May. Ellie's been doing fabulously herself, even amidst all her toys suddenly disappearing--the unseasonably warm and dry weather has meant that every evening she's been out playing with the neighbor children while I fast throw something else in a suitcase. We'll miss this life, these friends.
But Memphis is full of good eggs, too! Friends have really stepped up with offers of places to stay or babysit Ellie while we house-hunt, sneaky ways to get me in at a good doctor, etc. etc. . . . one couple even created the Friends and Family of the Crunchy Granola Relocation Front in Conservative Tennessee (or FFCGRFCT for short!) that has promised to quickly put us on the "right path" after we arrive from "one those god-forsaken liberal countries". These FFCGRFCT folks have helped us find a quality school for Ellie for the fall (most places are full already!), a realtor we've just contacted but so far love, and so many more things. The most recent bit of good moving news arrived last night--one of the very highly recommended doctors has agreed to take me on as a patient. Yahoo! I can't tell you what a relief that is. So we still don't know where we'll be staying in Memphis (Medtronic's coming with that), what we'll be driving, etc. etc. but suddenly all those things feel like peanuts because at least we have good folks there and a good doctor in case this babe decides to come early. Oh--and after all the circus with the movers, the Pancake bike is on its way! OH--and our sweet families in Minnesota and Iowa have agreed to step in with respective large vehicles to haul a trailer relay style to Memphis so that we can have, soon enough, all our belongings in one spot. All really shall be well!
Maastricht is so funny, the Dutch here in Maastricht are generally quite fun--amidst this all we've been laughing often. On Monday morning as we sipped our cappuccinos and ate our French breakfasts (2 croissants with jam and butter) outside in the sun at Coffeelovers, worried about where we'd land and how life would go from here, a music video was being shot just feet away on steps of the elevator bridge, for those of you who know Maastricht. It was a total eighties flashback. There was a singer who looked truly pained with emotion as she sang, a guitar player backing her up, and six dancers in matching outfits (men with spiky Euro-mullets in black "wife-beater" t-shirts and long black shorts, women in color-coordinated halter tops and long shorts). They were really really getting into it. It was all done so earnestly and they were working so hard at it--but it was so funny that I honestly couldn't watch and had to look at the items for sale in the Blokker next door to try to ease some of the discomfort of being embarrassed for them. After three dancers non-chalantly walking down the bridge and three walking up discovered the others in the middle of the bridge, they all turned toward the camera to dance--spinning, shaking, clapping, waving hands in the air and then ending with, disco flashback!, fingers pointing up to the sky. Just like John Travolta in Greece at the end of "Those Summer Nights". It was such a snapshot of the Netherlands . . . while these antics were going on with complete seriousness, the rest of the Dutch folks just kept on going up and down the bridge, pushing bikes laden with children and groceries and only rarely stopping to stare at the dancers next to them, and those of us at Coffeelovers sipped our coffee and ate our pastries while looking on passively. We will miss this place!
There are more things to share, but now my tea is cold and my cereal eaten, I should get to work. I'll get back to individual e-mailing soon, but for now know we'll make it to that plane tomorrow and hope to connect with all y'all, whether via phone, e-mail or in person, quite soon. Love from us--love from (and to!) Maastricht!
Starting with a couple bad things (getting it over with). Obviously, our time line has been a little crunched as we found out 5 days before we leave just where we'll be moving. There are a b-jillion things to do, but for me the biggest priority has been finding health care as I'll be 33 weeks when we arrive in Memphis. I had the same fabulous midwives who delivered Ellie all lined up in Minneapolis and was a little frantic when call after call to Memphis area Ob/Gyn providers (midwives can't deliver in hospitals in Memphis!) found me rejected because I was past the 20 week mark. What?!?!? And this is with health insurance! More about this in the next section.
One more "bad" . . . mostly because it's comically indicative of our week in that it ends fine but with so much hoo-haw in getting there. When we shipped out from Memphis we were given a 500 pound weight shipment that we were WAY under (the sweet Memphis movers asked us if we wanted to go shopping or something before they sent it!). We recently sent home 4 suitcases of stuff with guests going before us and haven't bought hardly anything here (well, I guess we're adding a bike!) , so we were confident that we'd have no problem. Well . . . on this end the shipment is measured by cubic meters, not weight. Hmmmm. So the packers arrive yesterday, find we have gone over our allotment, their boss says take it anyway, they drive away with our boxes, then the moving company in the States talks to their boss who says don't take it, who calls Ryan to come pick up the extra boxes when they arrive in Amsterdam (that's hours away and practically impossible to drive to and we leave tomorrow morning!), who begs the Dutch boss to have the movers pull over, the movers pull over an hour north of Maastricht and wait for Ryan who's frantically driving to catch up with them, and finally everyone meets in some parking lot in the middle of the Dutch nowhere and Ryan grabs boxes off the truck and we'll just have to pay the overage at the airport to get them home. Whew. Can you hear the background music playing in this bad comedy movie?
Now for the good. I don't mean to be a cheese ball, but there are such fabulous good eggs everywhere. We've had a lot of support from folks here in Maastricht--good friends and neighbors, co-workers of Ryan's, my Dutch midwives, merchants whose businesses we've supported while in Maastricht, it'll be with mixed feelings that we get on the plane tomorrow and say good-bye to all of this. More comedy this week in that I have neither a working phone or transportation (bike's shipped, Ryan's got the car at work . . .) so folks have stepped in with rides, making sure we're eating, bringing us great bags of baby boy clothes, keeping us laughing etc. etc. Ellie's school graciously accepted her two days this week so we could get some stuff done even though they were over their numbers and she wasn't registered for May. Ellie's been doing fabulously herself, even amidst all her toys suddenly disappearing--the unseasonably warm and dry weather has meant that every evening she's been out playing with the neighbor children while I fast throw something else in a suitcase. We'll miss this life, these friends.
But Memphis is full of good eggs, too! Friends have really stepped up with offers of places to stay or babysit Ellie while we house-hunt, sneaky ways to get me in at a good doctor, etc. etc. . . . one couple even created the Friends and Family of the Crunchy Granola Relocation Front in Conservative Tennessee (or FFCGRFCT for short!) that has promised to quickly put us on the "right path" after we arrive from "one those god-forsaken liberal countries". These FFCGRFCT folks have helped us find a quality school for Ellie for the fall (most places are full already!), a realtor we've just contacted but so far love, and so many more things. The most recent bit of good moving news arrived last night--one of the very highly recommended doctors has agreed to take me on as a patient. Yahoo! I can't tell you what a relief that is. So we still don't know where we'll be staying in Memphis (Medtronic's coming with that), what we'll be driving, etc. etc. but suddenly all those things feel like peanuts because at least we have good folks there and a good doctor in case this babe decides to come early. Oh--and after all the circus with the movers, the Pancake bike is on its way! OH--and our sweet families in Minnesota and Iowa have agreed to step in with respective large vehicles to haul a trailer relay style to Memphis so that we can have, soon enough, all our belongings in one spot. All really shall be well!
Maastricht is so funny, the Dutch here in Maastricht are generally quite fun--amidst this all we've been laughing often. On Monday morning as we sipped our cappuccinos and ate our French breakfasts (2 croissants with jam and butter) outside in the sun at Coffeelovers, worried about where we'd land and how life would go from here, a music video was being shot just feet away on steps of the elevator bridge, for those of you who know Maastricht. It was a total eighties flashback. There was a singer who looked truly pained with emotion as she sang, a guitar player backing her up, and six dancers in matching outfits (men with spiky Euro-mullets in black "wife-beater" t-shirts and long black shorts, women in color-coordinated halter tops and long shorts). They were really really getting into it. It was all done so earnestly and they were working so hard at it--but it was so funny that I honestly couldn't watch and had to look at the items for sale in the Blokker next door to try to ease some of the discomfort of being embarrassed for them. After three dancers non-chalantly walking down the bridge and three walking up discovered the others in the middle of the bridge, they all turned toward the camera to dance--spinning, shaking, clapping, waving hands in the air and then ending with, disco flashback!, fingers pointing up to the sky. Just like John Travolta in Greece at the end of "Those Summer Nights". It was such a snapshot of the Netherlands . . . while these antics were going on with complete seriousness, the rest of the Dutch folks just kept on going up and down the bridge, pushing bikes laden with children and groceries and only rarely stopping to stare at the dancers next to them, and those of us at Coffeelovers sipped our coffee and ate our pastries while looking on passively. We will miss this place!
There are more things to share, but now my tea is cold and my cereal eaten, I should get to work. I'll get back to individual e-mailing soon, but for now know we'll make it to that plane tomorrow and hope to connect with all y'all, whether via phone, e-mail or in person, quite soon. Love from us--love from (and to!) Maastricht!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
And this week we'll be moving to . . .
Memphis. It has been a really long process, not always easy, but as of yesterday it's official that we are moving to Memphis. We still land in Minneapolis this weekend and will spend a couple days there before driving down via Austin and Pella, hoping to arrive Memorial Day weekend to our new home where we'll feverishly find a house, buy a couple cars, gather things scattered in three states and shipping from the Netherlands and do what we can do to get settled before this baby arrives. So, lots of mixed emotions here amidst good-byes in Maastricht and the let-down of not going home to Minnesota and excitement for what Memphis holds for us. The good news is that we have great friends in Memphis and Ryan's job will be one that we anticipate he'll really be challenged by and enjoy. I wish I had time to write more and e-mail folks individually, but as you can imagine it's a little crazy right now so thanks for your e-mails, thoughts, prayers, etc. More when we catch our breath. Love from us!
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