23/365

I haven't talked about it at all, but for the past 21 days, Zach and I have been doing the Beachbody Ultimate Reset. I haven't said anything because I wasn't sure how it was going to go, didn't know if we'd actually finish, and also, it was just something I wanted to do without others really knowing too much about it. I have to say, I'm SO glad we did this and I'm certain we will do it again in the future when we feel we need it. Hopefully that won't be for a long time though because we plan to eat MUCH healthier. While we aren't ready to commit to eating ONLY clean foods, we are going to incorporate a lot of the foods we ate for the past 3 weeks into our daily lives. We will continue with a couple of the supplements as well. We both have a TON more energy and while neither of us did this to lose weight, we have both lost 10 lbs each. I feel healthier than I have felt in a very long time. We also discovered some amazing recipes and new foods (roasted fennel bulbs are delish and quinoa is now a staple in our home). With that, I leave you with one of our daily supplements. 

Hey! That's not Baileys! That's wheatgrass! Yum.

22/365

I'll be honest. I didn't take this yesterday. I took this today because I didn't think to take one yesterday. However, the sentiment is exactly what I wanted to represent our day yesterday. For those non-military people out there, this just means that we are 99% certain of where we are going. We won't have official orders until 1 Feb at the latest. Once it's 100%, I will tell you WHERE we are going. For now, I'm just glad that WE know! And for the few that do know, please don't tell.

We know where we're going!!!

21/365

Wow.....I'm really behind, but I'm going to do my best to catch up. I had a migraine and went to bed at 6 pm on the 21st. Which really stinks, b/c due to said headache I wasn't even paying attention to the date and forgot that it was GOTCHA day. The day that the monkey landed on US soil and we got home to Kodiak with two children. We were met with a wonderful welcome from the Griffin's and we will never forget that wonderful day. This day, we did take a few minutes to go outside. I tried to play a lot, but ended up sitting and taking pictures instead since running around hurt my head. I did get some good pics, but I do need to work on them. Not up for that tonight, but it will get done. Here are a few to make up for no pictures for a few days.

20/365

Today was a pajama day. We played Legos, watched some tv, watched the snow...and snuggled. My sweet girl asked to take a picture of us while we were snuggling. How could I refuse?

19/365

Had a party with the Honeys tonight to celebrate the beginning of the 2013 season. We had a great time  and I love seeing how big our team is getting. On the way home, I decided to stop by to get some pictures of the Erasmusbrug. MAN, it was FREEZING (around 20º with a feels like of 9º). In just the few minutes I had my gloves off I felt like my fingers were going to fall off. It was the biting cold that makes your fingers throb and feel like needles are poking you all over. It was worth it though. I got a couple of nice shots. I'm ready to take the Photoshop class with Amy from Simply B Photos this weekend (starts at 2 am my time, I hope to make it, but I may just end up watching the class when she posts it) so that I can really start to improve my images. YAY!!!

My lovely team mates 

One with me (pictures of me don't happen much)

Erasmusbrug

18/365

The aperture was open too much, but I love how you can see how much soup is falling back into the bowl instead of going into her mouth. 

Miso messy. 

17/365

The kids were singing Mary Poppins songs ALL DAY LONG. So tonight, I let them watch it and they were so excited and sang along with the songs. Princess even had to grab a broom to be her chimney sweep. And then when the kids got their pajamas on they decided to be creative. I believe the picture speaks for itself. They are so cute. 

my chimney sweeps

Silly pajamas night

16/365

There was only one in the family brave enough to weather the FREEZING cold today to play in the snow. I felt bad, but I was cold just staying inside, so I didn't let it bother me too bad. The monkey had a GREAT time though. He was completely covered in snow and when he came inside he asked why his hands were so pink. 

15/365

This is what trying to schedule 5 more work trips plus a few vacations looks like.

14/365

SNOW!!! We got SNOW! I was so excited and so were the kids. It didn't snow TOO terribly much, but enough for us to go out and play. The kids had fun trying to make small snowballs, catching snow in their mouths, and just having a great time. Who am I kidding? I had a great time doing all those things too. 

I'm going to get you!!!

Yummy snow. 

13/365

Nothing like a good game of Risk with the family. Kiddos are learning early. The monkey gets distracted and comes and goes as he's needed, but the princess is ruthless.

Now, I'm going to finish up, so we can play it just the two of us since the kids are in bed. I'm going to kick some boo-tay.

What nation shall I conquer next?

12/365

Today started out pretty lazy. The kids even slept in until 8:30, which was nice. It was still beautiful today, so we decided to head to the markt to see if we could find some produce. The kids had salmon kibbling for lunch and some pitaya. Pitaya always reminds me of Guatemala. Our escort, Rambo, took us to a market and told us we had to try it. He was right - delicious. What an amazing memory. The pitaya here is a a bit different though. The inside is white instead of fuscia. Sorry I don't have a picture. Just a special memory that the markt brought back today. Anyway....the pictures for today. 

a boy and his dog

houses at Blaak

11/365

I was too tired to post last night. I got to actually participate in my first derby practice since August. Still no scrimmaging, but I did the drills. The picture isn't from derby though. It was a gorgeous day and not terribly cold. The kids played outside for quite a while. Look at that blue sky!!!

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!! (he yells as scootering around)

10/365

Today was a productive day. We folded laundry (as in the princess folds all of the kids clothes and does everyone's socks - that's her job and she LOVES it), we tried on wigs, and the kids gave us a show with dinner. My kids rock my socks.

folding and putting away their own laundry

fun times

A Lego story over dinner. We got dinner and a show!

9/365

Tonight while getting the kids ready for bed, the princess had me switch her baby and bear's pajamas. I put them on her bed and I noticed that Song (the bear) is a limited edition. She got number 703/1500 from Santa (Seymour VFD) when he came through my sisters neighborhood. May be a collectors item to some, for us, it is a reminder of a magical Christmas Eve.

8/365

Made a final bucket list of places we want to try to visit (or revisit) before we leave this summer. Not all will make the final cut, but this is our initial list.

7/365

Tonight was a great night.

As we were working on dinner, the princess started writing on paper and tearing the pages out. We couldn't quite figure out what she was up to, but then she asked if she could have a party. We asked what kind and she said, "a dinner party!" We said yes and she extended her invitations and set the table for dinner. We even lit candles. As we were eating, we talked and laughed and the monkey grabbed a pencil that was missed while cleaning the table and wrote the princess's name on one of the "place settings" she had left at each of our seats. As he handed it to her this conversation followed:
Princess: What does this say?
Monkey: I don't know.
P: It says, "I don't know?", that's funny.  *giggle*
M: (after a little prompting) It says, "Thank you for the dinner party."
P: *gushing* Oh! That is so sweet! Thank you for my note!  

She proceeded to excuse herself to get her own pencil and they start writing notes to one another and to us.

It was precious and I hope I never forget tonight. They were still eating dinner and were so fun. They even helped clean up and got ready for bed easily (rare times in our house). Of course, what I didn't mention is that when we left the room the princess was throwing a fit and crying because daddy refused to hold her upside down all night so that she could sleep like a bat. Yeah, apparently we still have to have SOME tears during the night time routine.

Dinner Party set up

6/365

Took the kids to the toy store. Let the princess pick out replacement Legos for the duplicate she got at Christmas. The kids love taking the metro and had a great time today. It was their first time since we've been home. 

You get two today, so the second one is one that I found amusing. I wanted to get some distilled water, but the closest they have is demineralized. Was it found with the rest of the water? Nope. It was with the cleaning supplies. The bottom line basically says that it's not fit for consumption. It's water, people. Just without minerals. And it tastes great. Yeah, I'll buy it for €.47 per liter bottle. MUCH cheaper than even a half liter of their drinking water. 

5/365

Last night was supposed to be pizza and a movie night, but the grown ups weren't feeling it (like I said, I was in bed at 7 last night). SO, tonight was pizza and a movie night (grownups opted for yummy salmon and asparagus) and my love made personal size pizzas for the kids to fix up how they wanted. I love how it looks like Bert is watching little man put on his toppings. We LOVE this movie!!!

4/365

A day late posting this, but I did take the picture yesterday. I just went to bed at 7 pm last night and didn't wake up until this morning. The princess asked if I could do her nails, so I opened up Mommasan's Nail Salon on the bathroom floor. She was getting ready for her practice wedding (the real wedding will be later this week, since the groom wasn't in the mood to get married). The white dress she is wearing was mine as a little girl. After her nails were done, she asked to do mine, so this is my sweet girl doing my nails for the first time ever. Apparently the polish is water soluble because it came off when I took a bath last night. Strange. Oh well....it was fun and she loved it as much as I did.

3/365

Living here in the NL, when we need to see a Dr or have tests run you get the normal paperwork, but of course, here it comes in Dutch. SO, every time I have something to get taken care of I spend however long it takes in front of Google Translate typing everything out. Today was one of those days. I had several things to translate (info about my allergist appointment next week, bills, etc) and it took me a couple of hours. I have noticed though that I'm a lot faster at it now. When we first moved here and I had to translate things I would make countless typos due to not recognizing how the word was written, now I can translate a few paragraphs at a time without stopping to check that everything is right and most times I can gather the gist of it without even translating.

2/365

Today we drove to Schinnen to get some groceries and pick up our mail. Can I say that I HATE having to drive 2 hours to get mail? Ugh. We will have to go twice a month, so if you mail us something and don't hear that it was received right away, it will probably be because we haven't driven down to get mail yet. We got mostly stocked up for our next two weeks of meals and my love got a new toy (a digital drawing tablet). While he was taking some books to be mailed (yay for Paperbackswap), the kids played on the playground for a few minutes and I caught them in the act. They were giggling so much that it was contagious.

There's always time to play!

1/365

We rang in the new year the same way we have since we've been here - sitting on our roof watching the whole of Holland light up the sky with fireworks. I swear, everyone does them. If you want to see what that looks like, check here. That was my post from last year. I didn't get any good shots last night due to the rain and not wanting to get my camera wet. We did take the kids bowling today and the kids had a BLAST! The monkey is actually pretty good at bowling and the princess is just so excited for herself and everyone else when you knock any pins down. SO cute.

Bowling in the New Year