The couch

A little bit of background for those of you who don't know about the trauma of Drexel furniture. When we move with the US government, the house is always furnished. With Drexel furniture. Sometimes, it's bland, not very remarkable, easy to ignore. Sometimes it's kelly green, or bruck plaid, or blue and gold paisley. Depends on your luck. But, we are all affected by it enough to have a facebook group dedicated to how to cope, decorate around it, change fixtures, hide features. 

This time, Zeric gets the Drexel in Kinshasa and I get.. and empty house. It took a minute to figure out the couch situation as many are on backorder for 14 or 20 weeks. Eben had things to say about the lack of possibilities for hanging out anywhere other than his room.. and then, he found a solution: he took over the dog bed.

Then, I chose my own couch!! I was thinking white but Zeric and Mom made me get real. So, it's BLUE! Linen.. wide and deep and comfy.

It was very exciting that we got it in four days, and as it was huge, I waited for the kids to come home to help me unwrap it. When we got all of the plastic off, Eben asked, "we don't have to put it together?" That's when you know you have too much Ikea furniture.

Come sit on it with us!

First day at ASH

 The American School of The Hague, here we come! Grade 10 and Grade 11, already..

Walking the dogs

 One of my favorite things is walking the dogs here, we have a forest three minutes away! Dutch dogs learn early about walking off-leash, so we are some of the only ones who don't run free in the woods. Maybe we'll get there one day? Meantime, there are lots of great smells and canine (and human) friends to meet in these woods!

Eben turns 15! And Jonathan visits

Our first weekend in the Netherlands, Eben turned 15! What a wonderful celebration too as his very good long time friend Jonathan came from Brussels to spend the day. Jonathan's birthday was just a few days before, so they got to celebrate their special days together!!

Eben asked for chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, and strawberries were in season too!

When you don't have enough chairs, a box will do?

We went to the beach, it's only a few kilometers away. It was a hot, sunny day (a rare occurrence) so it was very crowded, but lovely. How lucky we are to have the green and the ocean together! (erm except for that sand patch in the garden where grass doesn't grow?) It's wonderful to hear the seagulls and the church bells together in morning!

Not only did Astrid and Achim (Jonathan's parents) bring a full picnic lunch, but they insisted on helping us assemble the beds that were a little more challenging. Wonderful friends! 💗

 

Arrived: Storm van 's-Gravesandeweg 129

We landed in Brussels early Tuesday morning, and Walter the fab taxi driver loaded all of us and the luggage into his van and drove us the two hours to Wassenaar. When we arrived at the house, our friend Laurence had pain au chocolat in the oven (as fabulous French people do), and she and our other fab friend Celine had unpacked much of the amazon and Ikea boxes that had arrived. 

It was pretty empty for a few weeks (still is!), and we all learned how to put Ikea furniture together. The animals found a lot of places to cuddle and find sunshine, including in our beds before we assembled the frames! We're enjoying the green, and the beautiful village. I was able to make my first loaves of challah so that helped us feel at home!

Now, we just have to learn how to say the name of our street. For now, we call it Storm.

Moving from Dakar to Wassenaar

(Disclaimer: I am out of practice making sure to take photos of things to give the full picture of what was going on, so there are people and things missing in these first posts. I'll get back into the swing of things, I promise!)

After five great years in Dakar, our departure was not an easy one - maybe because the powers-that-be knew that we really didn't want to leave. Having found out in March that Zeric's next posting was Kinshasa, we thought long and hard about the best thing for Jaffa and Eben (especially), and decided that having them finish high school in a place where they could be increasingly independent was the right thing to do. So we could be closer to Zeric, we looked for the right place to land in Europe, and decided on Wassenaar, just outside of The Hague. I am likely to get a job here, and it's a safe place where the kids can ride their bicycles just about anywhere (assuming that SOMEONE learns how to ride one, Jaffa!). 

We tried to leave Dakar on a Friday evening to give us some time to get our bearings before school orientation, but the rain and the flooding in Dakar decided we would stay the weekend. Our basement had taken in 6 feet of water, so it was a fun weekend of cleaning and tossing, but at least we were there to help Zeric with it all. We left Monday evening instead, landing Tuesday morning before the school's orientation on Thursday. 

We had long been thinking about what we were going to do with all of our furry family members when it came time to move, and so, we decided to split them half and half. Two dogs and five cats to Wassenaar, and two dogs and four cats to Kinshasa. It took a lot of paperwork, planning, money and anxiety to make it all happen--but it did! There were a few moments of panic... like Blu and Grace missing at the Brussels airport for an hour (possibly in Freetown ?!?), and last minute confusion with the airline to Kin saying it was not possible to bring any of our animals 😳 but in the end, they all got to where they needed to go.

We had three cats (To, Roger, Domino) in cabin, and two dogs (Blu and Grace) in the hold. And, our friend Keshia, brought Legs and Hyena a few days later. It took a little while for the cats to recognize one another, maybe because of all of the new smells? We're still all trying to get adjusted to the new place, but luckily, we have enough rooms to give everyone a little space.

November 2018 to August 2022 - Senegal (forthcoming)

 We had so many beautiful moments in Senegal, but I couldn't keep up with the blog! Another publication will be forthcoming on these years. For now, I'm going to try to pick up again and get some momentum with our new adventure: The Netherlands and Kinshasa