Wooden Shoes and Cheese!

When possible, on Sundays we try to take a bike ride somewhere as a family. Today was a little rainy, but we did it anyway. We rode to a place that makes wooden shoes and cheese in Amstelveen. The website for the place is http://www.claramaria.nl/?lang=en

For the record, I've yet to see anyone in the Netherlands actually wearing wooden shoes (except for the guy that showed us how they make them today)!
The place was only a few kilometers from where we live. It is a 160 year old farm. We were shown how they make wooden shoes. They can also make them completely by hand, but since that is much more time consuming, most of the time they use a couple of machines. The man told us he can make a pair only by hand but it takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours.



They also make their own cheese. The Dutch word for cheese is kaas. In fact, you can come and help make the cheese sometimes during a weekday in the morning. We are definitely going to come back and do that hopefully sometime soon.



We enjoyed tasting some of the different cheeses and we bought a few different types to take home.



There were a few other American families at the farm/store. They were military families stationed in Germany and were siteseeing in Amsterdam and the surrounding area.

We then headed back toward home and stopped for lunch. I love how everything is so green right now. Also, white asparagus is in season here and I had a salad with it that was very good! I should have taken a picture!



Back at home, our tulips are continuing to bloom. The owner of our house planted these and several additional pots of tulips around our garden before we arrived. So beautiful to have here at home.

Soccer Update #2

It has been a while since I last posted. I wanted to let you know what was going on with the girls' soccer since I last wrote a soccer post. It's a little detailed but I thought our soccer friends would be interested. You'll probably see another post soon about our Paris trip as well.

The girls officially joined SC Buitenveldert last month!

Amanda has joined ME2. M stands for meisjes which is the Dutch word for girls. E is the age group (Birth Years 2003 and 2004). The club has 6 teams of girls for this age group. They had a set of twins move away so they had space on the team for her on ME2. She practices jointly with ME1 and has played one game with ME1 when they were short a player. All of the other soccer clubs use the same abreviations so you always know whether it is a boys or girls team, the age group, and ranking of the team for the club (1st team, 2nd team, etc). Honestly, the level of play is not quite at the level of her team from Ohio, but we are so glad she has a team and gets to play soccer with a Dutch club. She continues to play one half in goal and one half on the field. We look forward to the fall where she will move up an age group and be one of the youngest players. The club uses the month of June for evaluations to determine what team she will be on in the fall.

It is interesting that many of the rules are just not enforced at all at this level. No offsides, no attention to where feet are or if they are pulled in throw-ins, and usually no goal lines drawn for the goalkeeper. Goalkeepers can punt on a goal kick. At half time, a parent will bring out a pitcher and a set of cups for the girls that has water or a gatorade type drink (Aquarius is the sports drink here...no gatorade or powerade!). It is very laid back and there is not a lot of serious discussion of what they need to do in the second half. Also, it is my understanding that at Amanda's age group they are not allowed to practice headers. It is ok if they head a ball during a game, but it is not practiced.

In Grace's age group, all of the teams are full. There are five teams in her age group D (2001 and 2002 birth years). They decided to have Grace train with MD1 and then if there is a girl that cannot make it to a game for MD1 or MD2, Grace plays for that team. So far she has been able to play all weekends but one. We really appreciate that the club did that with Grace. It is tough to join a full soccer club half way through the season. We have been told that they have turned other girls down completely and then there are a few others that are allowed to train with some of the lower teams but don't play in games. Grace plays more often with MD2 because players from MD1 are not absent very often. Last weekend, though, she actually played with both teams so that was nice for her. MD1 is closer competitively to what Grace was used to with her old team. They play in a boys league for regular league play.

They also compete in the Cup which is when they play other girls teams. I don't know the official name of it. It is the closest thing they have to State Cup that I have seen. They also do that for Amanda's level. It is a tournament that lasts the whole year (fall to spring). It is single elimination. They play a game about once a month. The team Grace practices with (MD1) has won all of their Cup games and is still in the tournament. Amanda's team (ME2) lost before we arrived in the Netherlands, but the ME1 team is still in the tournament. During their last Cup game, Amanda played with ME1, scored a goal, and they won.

One thing that we absolutely love about it here is the club has one location for their fields and a clubhouse. Our club has three full-size turf fields and two smaller turf fields. We are lucky that the girls practice on the same nights each week and while they are practicing, I often sit in the clubhouse. In fact, I am sitting in the clubhouse right now working on this blog! Having a clubhouse is great! Each club has one. It is a wonderful place with WiFi to hang out with other parents, grab a snack or a meal before or after a game, and a place to get work or homework done during practices. Ok...so sometimes it is still a little difficult for me to hang out with the other moms at the club. Individually they are all extremely nice to me and we have good conversations in English. When they are all together, though, naturally they speak Dutch and I kind of just stand there since I have no clue what they are saying!! My Dutch lessons start on Monday but I'm sure it will be a very long time before I will be able to follow their conversation in Dutch!! The clubhouse has a bar as well so you can get a beer if you want too! From the front of the clubhouse you can see field 1. Here are a few pictures:

Finally, the girls soon have tryouts for the spring soccer team for their school. Their school (ISA) has a U15 team and a varsity team for girls in the spring. The tryouts are supposed to be for grades 6-12, but they have said that Amanda can try out. It is our understanding that these teams aren't as competitive as club teams but are fun and a great way to make friends at school. If they both make the team, they will play against other international schools and will have their end of the season tournament in Bonn, Germany in May.

Swimming Update

After over 6 months out of the pool, the girls joined the swim team at ISA (their school).



It has been nice to see them back in the water. They enjoy competing for their school. They only practice 2 times a week for 1 hour. No dry land. They don't love getting up early in the mornings....practice is at 6am on Mondays and 7am on Tuesdays. On Mondays I drive them, but on Tuesdays they go straight to school from practice and we all ride our bicycles to the pool and then to school.


Don't they look cute? You'd never know they were grumbling the whole time I took the picture : ). The competition level is much lower than what the girls were used to, but that's ok. Many of the kids are swimming on a team for the first time...its more like summer swim league. This has been more about just staying in the water, meeting new friends, and being a part of the school community.

The first swim meet the girls attended was in Brussels, Belgium. In their league, they compete against other international schools. For the age groups in this league, both Grace and Amanda are considered U12. It was based upon their age as of August 31. It is their first time having to compete against each other. Grace won all of her individual events and the girls swam together on a relay and finished first as well. Amanda is pretty much one of the youngest in the age group. She still had top 5 finishes in all of her events.



Grace also swam in another meet in Antwerp, Belgium. She enjoyed riding the team bus in addition to the swimming. Amanda was not able to attend due to a soccer game. Grace again won all of her individual events.



The pictures above were taken by another mom at the swim meet. The swim team has given them a chance to meet people, represent their school, and to help others that are swimming for the first time. The coaches have had them demonstrate strokes, flip turns, etc. for some of other swimmers. We are proud of the girls and appreciate all of the coaches the girls have had at OSSC, Buckeye, and Westerville JC. Without you they wouldn't be the swimmers they are today.

The girls have their championship swim meet in Luxembourg at the end of March. They will travel with the team and we think they will stay overnight in a youth hostel!! There are twin sisters at their school that swim competitively and will swim with our girls for the first time at that meet. Hopefully they will get to all do a relay together. Dave and I will travel there too to watch them. It is about 4 hours away. We'll be sure to post a few pictures after the meet!

One Month!

Today we have been in our home in the Netherlands for exactly one month.



Hope you have been enjoying the blog. I've enjoyed making it and I've found some websites that make books out of blogs so I know this will be a great keepsake for our family as well. To mark the one month, I thought I'd list a few funny, embarrassing, or interesting things that have happened since arriving here:

1. Unintentionally ordered eggplant on our first pizza delivery order (the girls were not pleased!)

2. Wrecked my bicycle in front of the school after Amanda wrecked right in front of me (we were both fine!)

3. Used what I thought was "extra lean" ground beef in a recipe. Later I did the actual translation and it was "extra cheap"...Yikes!!

4. The girls and I have all almost been hit by a bicycle while walking. It truly is a separate lane of traffic you have to be aware of at all times!!

5. Thought I clearly ordered fish and chips (off of an English menu) and somehow ended up with an interesting looking fish soup.

6. Had a great time at the Heineken Experience as my first group outing with some parents from the International School!

7. Surprisingly have not killed my engine while driving a stick for the first time in 20 years.

8. Had a hard time finding brown sugar - took a wild guess and picked the right thing.



9. Have had more family dinners together in one month than we probably have had in the last two years combined. :)

10. Have met interesting people from all over the world.

Dutch Pancakes

Today we took a nice bike ride and stopped to get Dutch pancakes. As a family, we honestly never took bike rides like this in the US and we all enjoyed it. We rode to the Amsterdamse Bos. It is a forest and recreation area that has many bike paths. Our total trip today was a little over 15 km. The restaurant, Boerderij Meerzicht, is in the Amsterdamse Bos.



The pancakes were great! You could get sweet or savory. The girls and I chose sweet pancakes and Dave had one with bacon, cheese, and syrup. For the sweet pancakes, the actual pancake was not sweet like American pancakes, but the toppings were very sweet.



We obviously enjoyed them. Here's a picture of Grace's clean plate :)





All of my pet lover friends would love being in the Netherlands! From what I have seen, you can pretty much take your pet anywhere! There were multiple dogs with their owners at the restaurant today. I've also seen them in the mall and in stores.

On the way back, we rode a different way and went by a place in the park known for its rowing regattas. There was a group practicing today.

Resident Cards and new phones!

Yesterday we finally were able to go get our Resident cards for the Netherlands. We applied the first day that we were here. You then have to wait to get a letter for each person in the family that says they are ready. Once we had the letters, we had to go to IND and pick them up in person. To do that, we chose to take a tram and then had a little walk. I loved the view in Amsterdam as we walked:



We were the 2nd family there, but somehow we ended up waiting for 40 minutes for our turn. Oh well...I am getting used to getting a number and waiting here!!! They give you a print out of a letter and number (like D901). You then wait until a screen lists the number. Different reasons for being there have different letters and they don't appear to go in any certain order so you never really know when your number is going to show up on the screen. Had to do the same thing trying to get the car registration and at IKEA the other day to return something where we had bought the incorrect color.

The photos on these cards are horrible. You had to tuck your hair behind your ears and weren't allowed to smile. I look a little scary in mine!!! I'll show it to you when you come to visit :)

The resident card allows us to get a cellular phone and plan here!! That is why I have been anxiously awaiting its arrival!!! After school the girls and I went and got new phones and Dutch telephone numbers!! So happy. Before, I would be at the store and wanted to translate a word and couldn't because I only had internet when there was WiFi. Same way with Google Maps!! It also allows us to start communicating better with our new friends here since we now have local numbers.

With our new phones, the girls and I will be slowly contacting everyone we have information for by texting you. If you have an apple phone or ipod, we can use IMessage to keep in touch for free. If you do not have an Apple product, please consider downloading the free WhatsApp app and we can use that to keep in touch for free. Please email me at poorbaughs@gmail.com if you want us to be able to text each other or the girls and have any questions. We would love to keep in touch with everyone from home!! Please do remember there is a 6 hour time difference, though. Don't be surprised if you text us at 8pm your time and we don't respond right away!

New Car!!

Yesterday I got my new car!! Although I have said that you really don't need a car for day-to-day living, I've never not had a car and with Dave working an hour away from our house, I wanted to have one. I'll mainly use it to make trips to get items too big for the bike or if the weather is too bad, etc. You usually have to pay for parking almost everywhere you go and it can sometimes be quite expensive.

We decided to lease a car and chose something small. I was used to driving a minivan but I'm really happy about the small car! Parking and even some streets are really just easier with a little car. After reviewing some choices online, we chose the Volkswagen Up!. I don't think that it is available in the US. It is smaller than the Golf and has a 3 cylinder engine. I won't be winning any races with it!! I had thought I was getting a 2-door, so I was pleasantly surprised when I ended up getting the slightly larger 4-door. Makes it easier with the girls. I do have to get used to having a manual transmission though!! I haven't driven one since my little red truck (in college).



I actually think that picture makes it look larger than it really is. Here's a couple more pictures:



Getting the car was actually a little bit of a process and our first exercise in frustration here. The car registration needed to be put in Dave's name. Typically you can do that at the post office here. We went there with the car dealership representative and was told since Dave still didn't have his residency card that they couldn't do it there because of a change that had occurred Jan 1. We then drove to Amsterdam to an office that could take care of it. We waited 1 1/2 hours and when our number was finally called, the woman typed in a few words into the computer and said, "I'm sorry, the server is down, you'll have to come back another time." After multiple phone conversations and a few more stops, Dave was finally able to have success several days later. He had to do all of this during working hours and I really appreciated his persistence on getting it done.

Since we are in the Netherlands, the car came standard with two hammers to break open the windows if the car ever becomes submerged. It's been years since I got a new car, but I don't think they come automatically in new cars in Ohio? I guess you need to have that when you live in an area under sea level and constantly near the water with canals. I will be sure to make sure I don't ever need to use them!!



If you are wondering about what Dave is driving, he received a nice temporary car (Volvo) our first day here and is in the process of picking out his car. He'll be getting a nicer car since he unfortunately spends quite a bit of time in it each day!!