Goodbye, 2018

We are ready for a new year. 2018 has been a tough one. Naomi hasn't been able to work. The girls are wonderful but a lot of work. I had to settle into a new job after a rocky start. We had a necessary and fun summer in Michigan. Things seem to be looking up though. Naomi is starting to feel better although now she is dealing with a broken shoulder. She is getting over her burnout though, and that is most important.

Our holiday has been a busy one thus far. Claire and Matt are with us and that has been a lot of fun. We have also been tackling some administrative tasks that will save us some money and simplify and improve our lives. Our lawyer is really helpful when it comes to Naomi's shoulder.

We found out that the big tree in our backyard needs to be taken down. That is another big job. First we have to get permission from the city council, and that will probably take a couple months. We have someone lined up to cut it down, but we will have to figure out where to store the firewood, and all the branches and such will need to be taken out through the neighbors backyard, otherwise it would have to go through our house.

I am also working on updating the bathroom sink/cabinet in our main bathroom and the sink up on the top floor. No surprise, the sink we ordered came with a defect, so that needs to be replaced. Good thing Naomi can't work. She still hasn't had time to do those video tapes, and that was one of the main 'burnout projects'.

We hope that 2019 will be our first peaceful year together.

Had to replace the bathroom dimmer - 120 euros just for the internal switch!?

Santa came!

Coloring with giant sidewalk chalk in the sun on Christmas day.

Naptime.

Yes, a real live sunflower at a latitude of 52 degrees north on Christmas Day.

Christmas dinner.

Fun with Matt.

Stocking up the freezer.

Their first climbing adventure - Amélie wouldn't put on the harness. She won't put on her backpack for school either. What is that about?!

Vacation!

Finally, we made it to the vacation. Not sure how much of a vacation it will be as we don't get any time off from the girls, but I am sure we will have fun. Claire and Matt are coming tomorrow, and I even managed to get Friday off of work. Amélie is sick, so that is a bummer, but I guess there is a flu going around.

We ordered a new sink for the bathroom upstairs. There goes another 500 euros. Now I have a big cabinet to build. That Santos Mahogany is tough to work with, but I think it will look nice. It will make our bathroom so much better! I am almost finished with a little project for Claire and Matt. Bedside tables. Nice to get back into the workshop!

There was a Christmas market at the girl's school this week. They were supposed to sing a song. Of course, they were too afraid, so they stood with me next to the stage. Then we were supposed to buy something they made. I forgot the tokens. Went back home to get them, but they were apparently only for food and drinks. We needed real money. Went back home again. Good thing I had already made dinner...

Bedside tables for Claire and Matt.

The Christmas craft we had to buy. The girls are getting better at drawing!

Abigail's self portrait on the whiteboard.

The First Snow

We woke up to a bit of whiteness outside this morning. Just a dusting. It will be gone this afternoon, I imagine. Fun to see though - the girls were really excited. We will go for a walk in it shortly.

Yesterday we had a Christmas party to go to. That was fun, but tiring. Too much sugar, of course. The girls take ages to warm up and go play with the other kids, even though they know them. Kind of annoying. They are way too afraid of everything and everyone.

We have someone coming this afternoon to take a look at our tall tree in the backyard. It seems like it might be too much of a risk.

School was a bit more intense this week that I would have liked. Turns out I can't just flip a switch and take a step back from the responsibilities I have taken on as people are looking to me for the expertise. It will be a challenge to keep saying no to things, but okay.

Naomi is busy with declaring costs from her injury to the insurance company. Now they said she needs to involve a lawyer. Great. I am definitely getting fed up with all this sickness.

Working on a bedside table for Matt.

Went for a nice walk through the castle grounds after the gym.

Christmas Party!

Transition Time

I have been working really hard at school this fall, and it has been rewarding. A lot of these tasks have been outside my job description, so I asked for a bump up to the next salary scale. Two people from the management said this wouldn't be a problem. I talked to a third on Friday, and she said it would take a while. Possibly years. She was really unhappy about the way the system works. Unless they make an exception for me, I am sure she is right.

This was rather demotivating. Not really interested in continuing to do work that I don't get paid for when the people who are getting paid for it can't or won't do it. I figure it is best to just slow down a bit, enjoy my time at work with lower levels of stress, and wait for the management to ask me to take on responsibilities instead of just doing things autonomously.

The results of my work speak for themselves. Students are much more motivated and they are getting higher test results. Teachers using my method experience less stress and enjoy what they are doing more. I have enough evidence to at least apply for the promotion, so in the next couple weeks I will try to put together the required portfolio. Kind of a letdown to shift gears, but it will free up some space in my head for other things.

Yesterday we had fun picking out a Christmas tree. This morning we will decorate it. The girls had a really good week. They helped mommy a lot! Naomi is slowly recovering. She has a couple doctor visits this week. Still in a lot of pain, but got her first good night of sleep last night.

Playdough time with Auntie Claire.

Everyone had gloves or mittens from Grandma & Grandpa!

Right before the big crash.

Claire & Matt

We had a really nice visit with Auntie Claire. She was here for over a week. Matt was even able to come up for the weekend. They are heading back to Switzerland in a few hours. Yesterday was a bit of an adventure though...

Normally after a work week I am pretty wiped out and need to rest a lot. That wasn't an option yesterday as Claire and Matt wanted to go skiing with the girls. So we packed up our stuff and went. When we got there, the prices were double what we expected. That was disappointing at first, but it also meant that we could stay for twice as long, so that turned out alright.

We got in some good skiing, the girls were doing great, we had a nice lunch, skied more, Naomi and I actually got some time to ourselves as the girls were having so much fun with Claire and Matt. We decided to take one final run before having a snack and for some reason I decided to wait for Naomi partway down the hill. She is really slow.

Good thing I waited, because she got hit from behind by an out of control snowboarder. This is a pretty common occurrence at this very crowded hill with lots of beginners and drunk people, so their response was quite good. They shut down the hill, brought in the stretcher, and got her out into an ambulance. This took a while, so Naomi was freezing cold and in a lot of pain.

Claire went with her to the hospital while Matt and I had a snack with the girls. We had a lot of trouble finding them at the hospital, but Naomi ended up being alright. No broken bones, just a bad contusion on her shoulder and lots of bruises. She hit her head pretty hard too, but nothing really serious. She is in a sling for the better part of a week and can't do much of anything.

Two interesting observations came out of the experience. The whole morning we had been commenting on how incredibly rude people were. Dutch drivers constantly cutting us off on the autobahn, unfriendly employees taking our money at the ski hill, people cutting in front of us in the line for the tow rope, etc. As soon as Naomi got hurt, everyone we dealt with was incredibly friendly and helpful. Even the guy who hit her was doing everything he could to help out.

The second observation was that these past ten days, Naomi kept witnessing random, violent events. A car crash after yoga, a guy who dropped a brick on his hand, crushing it and spraying blood everywhere, and one or two other things. I told her to be careful, because she would be the next one in the ER. Hmmm...

They even had to cut up her brand new shirt!