Another multiple week gap. I need to check my calendar better I guess...

It occurred to me recently that we are closing in on the one year remaining mark. That's an incredibly short time to have left here in Europe, and yet it sometimes feels like forever to go. In particular, I've realized that we will have a tough time making it to even most of the locations we've considered visiting while we're here. At this point, I hope we can add Rome and Berlin to our list, as they are more or less "must see" locations. It looks like this summer's trip will be mostly back to the US, with a bit of Scandinavia thrown in for good measure.

Speaking of which, on Friday the 3rd, we will be on a plane back "home" for two weeks. Home is a nebulous thing at the moment, depending on whether we are referring to where we live, where we grew up, or where our heart is. I'm actually anticipating a bit of a let down when we go back this year. We had it last year as well, and a couple of our close friends have moved away in the last year, so the home coming will be slightly less warm than before.

In addition, the economy is apparently terrible, and I need to spend some time discussing the move back with my former and potentially future bosses. I'm looking forward to this part of the trip, but there simply isn't going to be enough time to do everything we want to do, and this will probably bite into at least a day and a half of it.

Last weekend, we had a work picnic at an old castle near Utrecht. It was a lovely day out, with eight kids and eight adults all running loose. It was a summer festival, and that meant lots of snack stands, some live music and 50 cents for the toilets. Once everyone was fed, things went very well. We also timed the whole day well, as the weather was warm and sunny until we pulled onto the highway on our way home. At that point, the rain came down hard and we were glad we weren't still sitting on our blanket as we had been just a few minutes before.

Not much more to blog about tonight. Sleep is needed and most welcome, and work comes way too early tomorrow morning.

Sorry for the second long break in updates in a row. Things at work have been really busy and I'm too tired on the weekends to want to put my energy here. Here's an all to quick update of our latest goings ons.

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The Boys

The boys are now done with their soccer league for the summer. They enjoyed it quite a bit, but I'm not sure how it will go next year, as they will probably be on different teams. On the one hand, I think that will be a big help for the Younger, as he's been playing in his brother's shadow too long now. On the other hand, I think it might be hard on him as he's still quite shy with new people. Hopefully, he'll get over that in a couple of weeks and enjoy it, but only time will tell.

Drama is also over for the summer. We went to their second performance last week. The Older was the villain, and really got into his part. The Younger was the cook's assistant and did a great job with his lines as well. They both really enjoy this more than soccer, but the good news is that they will not conflict next year.

Scouts is still going strong, and the Younger will attend his first meeting next week. The Older has really been enjoying it, but it's not clear how it will go if they're both in it together. There were some conflicts in soccer when the Older didn't think the Younger was playing up to snuff, but I think scouts fosters a bit more cooperation and a bit lest competition, but we'll see.

Swimming is still going strong with the boys moving up at a regular pace. I'd like them to get their swimming diplomas by the time we leave here, and it seems they are on a pace for that. The Dutch, unsurprisingly, take swimming very seriously, and there are three levels of diploma that you can get. All of them involve a final test consisting of swimming greater and greater distances with more and more clothing on. I think third level essentially involves swimming our and rescuing someone while you're wearing a full snow suit. I'm sure that isn't exactly right, but you get the idea.

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M

M is doing fine. She and I are both struggling a bit with getting things done at home. She's doing a lot of volunteer work at the school and has to haul the kids from one activity to the next, which, with so many activities, can take a lot of time. This weekend, she mended books from the library and worked in the yard a bit.

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D

I've been doing the usual things. Work, work and work. I intentionally left my computer off this weekend, but now I'm feeling a bit stressed about it. I still need to learn to relax a bit more.

I've also been trying to plan our summer holiday. We'll be in the US for two weeks at the beginning of July, then back here for another 10 days of European vacation. Since we bought our tickets late, we'll end up flying out of Bremen (in northern Germany) as it's 300 eur per person cheaper. That means the second part of our summer holiday will start there, and probably head north into Scandinavia. I have a small goal to get us to Stockholm, but it isn't settled yet. We're also considering taking a Baltic cruise next summer, which would make Berlin a better target, but we'll see how it goes. In either case, we'll almost certainly head to Denmark for Lego Land, as that's worth at least a couple of days of distraction.

Not much else to tell. We're doing pretty well, all in all, and we don't mean to worry you with too few updates. We're just busy living our lives at the moment.