And We're Back East

"Merry Christmas from the Family!"

To get this out of the way early, here is the requisite shot of Westerkerk down the Prinsengracht

It's been an event-filled several weeks. As the end of the school approached, the girls completed some big projects:

Eliza's robot was made entirely from recycled materials! Her class completed a unit on recycling, where she visited a center to see how the "materials" that her class collected were processed.

Lucy's art class completed a unit on Native American culture.
Lucy's contribution to the totem pole was - to no one's surprise - a shark!
No, she has NOT seen Jaws (but she has obviously seen the movie poster).

Another part of the Native American unit was a dramatic performance of several classic stories. Lucy did a great job in the title role of the story Raven, who tricked his cousin the crow out of his winter food supply!

We were an excited bunch on the last day of school, knowing that we were leaving first thing the next morning. Holli managed to get all of our stuff packed up, trying to bring as little as possible in anticipation of the post-Christmas-gifts trip back. She did an admirable job, but we still carry a lot of baggage!

Breakfast at Schiphol - the beginning of a very long day!

This was our children's first experience with a "real" international flight - as opposed to the "unreal" accommodations in Business Elite.

A few things of note in this shot - 1) the fact that any selfie taken in this area proclaims to the world that we are flying in the Economy cabin!  2) The guy behind Lilli. Not sure what he's thinking about... 3) Someone is missing - Eliza had the pleasure of riding 10 hours with me to Atlanta. Woo hoo! At least Daisy got to ride with this group.

Fortunately, Delta (via KLM) offers screens for every seat on long-distance flights, so Eliza got a lot of movie watching in - and a short nap - while I worked on finishing up Clear and Present Danger.

We were in dire need of a stretch by the time we arrived in Atlanta, and were hoping to catch up with the Lewandowskis since they were on our flight to Louisville. We didn't get to see them, however, until we were already on the plane - and then only very briefly.

As we descended through the cloud cover towards Standiford Field, the hometown sights hit me like a ton of bricks. In the weeks leading up to the trip, I knew in a vague way that I was excited to come home. At that moment, I was as happy as I had been in months. As my buddy Barry pointed out - there is no place like home.

The emotions at the house began to overflow when Lilli saw Nana (my Mom) as we walked in. They hugged for what seemed like forever. The Highfields were also there... Much laughter, many smiles, some tears, some wine, some bourbon, and ultimately a hard crash since our bodies were still 6 time zones ahead.

Not normally asleep by 9:00!

We were up VERY early the next morning - and for several mornings to follow - I'm sure much to Mom's displeasure as she was trying to sleep until a normal hour! It felt great to sit in our living room, drink coffee, and watch the news in English (well, mostly Sportscenter) while a real fire kept our toes warm.

The young friends started showing up later in the morning - we were (all) very happy to see Kaitlyn (our neighbor, who made welcome home signs for us), Tenley, and Amelia within the first few hours - and many more times during our stay. The girls were so excited to reconnect!

Those are some big smiles!

Chloe and Hannah walked Lilli home from Kenilworth and stopped in for a minute.

Of course the visit the girls most anticipated was from Leah. They talked non-stop about how excited they were and all the things that they were going to do together... We tried to temper their expectations, but somehow Leah managed to pull a lot more together than I would have imagined! We are so lucky to have had Leah be so much a part of our lives for the last 10+ years, and we are terribly excited for her and Brad as they await the next member of their growing family. Any time now!

The girls could have spent just about every day with Leah

The three weeks passed about as well as we could have hoped for, although Holli worked quite a bit during the first week. We got to see many friends and family, go see some things (including a U of L basketball game - thanks Andy!), celebrate Christmas a few times, hit a party or two, and watch U of L lose both their bowl game and the UK basketball game (well, the trip wasn't ALL good).

We got down to Big Rock for a little while one afternoon. Lilli is climbing up on Big Rock, and Lucy is on the path to the left (hard to see). Eliza is behind the same rock as Lucy but out of sight.
It was nice to have some natural elevation changes for a change!

One of the better dinners we had was at Audubon Country Club for Fried Chicken Night.
Many thanks to the Lewandowskis for inviting us!!

Nana helped Eliza build this wonderful gingerbread house!

Jack and Mary Sterling Anderton hung out with us for an afternoon. We walked the Big 4 bridge and then headed to the Comfy Cow on Frankfort Avenue

Lilli got some archery practice in as well - I love the new slow-mo feature on the new iPhones!

Playing cards with friends, possibly the best part about being home!

Christmas at the Highfields'!

Lilli thinks it's the greatest thing ever that she is taller than Grandma!

Young 'uns table with Katie and John

Christmas dinner!

Old folks on the couch after getting stuffed.

I really can't believe that Santa brought Lucy the skateboard she's been wanting for a year.

Somehow, she took to the board like she'd been doing it for years.

The Uggs Show for (nearly) all the Lewis ladies - current and former!

Holli spotted a deer cruising Casselberry, which confirms why our Hostas are decimated.

Holli and the girls joined the Highfields on a quick trip down to Nashville to visit with the Nickols family (Josh's parents were visiting as well). I stayed behind so that I would be sure not to miss any of the bowl game and to get some maintenance things done around the house.

The animals are on the right side of the bars!

Seems a bit cool for flamingoes, but I guess they know what they are doing...

Lots of girls!

The Lowes were nice enough to invite us to their New Year's party (kids included). We had a fantastic time, even if that did result in a rough morning after. Fortunately my wonderful wife allowed me to spend much (she will say all) of the next day watching football.

As is often the case, I am at a loss. Hands on her hips and look in her eyes that tells you that she owns the situation

The countdown is on!

Daisy enjoyed her time back home as well.

Well, who doesn't like a fire?

Time to go hunting!

The skirt had been under the tree for 90 seconds before she laid down on it.

Not sure what this ball of fluff is exactly.

As with all good things, the trip came to an end on the day after New Year's. We packed up 10 (!) suitcases to their bursting point and headed to the airport for the noon flight back east.

Alpaca? Check. Headphones? Check. ready to roll!

Anyone that has flown any significant number of timezones to the east will relate to this.
We landed at 6:00 am after travelling for 12 hours, and lost another 6 along the way.
We all slept from about 7 until at least noon, probably longer.

We did get back into the swing of things later in the day...

I've never seen this done, but it turns out that felt can be formed into shapes by repeatedly pushing a needle into it. I assume that the fibers tangle amongst themselves somehow, effectively turning a tangled mess into a shape!

The resulting shark!

I can't really tell if Daisy is happy here or not. These two have a love-hate relationship.

Coming back to the reality and daily grind of living in a foreign city was not easy. Due to the school schedule, the girls and I had an extra day to acclimate, but Holli was back to work on Monday. The girls seemed to adjust much better and more quickly than I did - and more easily than when we came in July.

When Eliza doesn't catch a few Z's on the way home from school, she sometimes curls up on the window seat (which houses the heating coils for the room) for a quick nap.

The weather was nice enough for us to get some outdoors time in right after we landed, but it has been pretty cool and rainy much of the time since. 

The sun was out the day after we landed, so I got to take a quick ride to the beach.
This guy was taking advantage of the weather too!

Some heavy rain, which is not the norm. Mostly it's a drizzle. It has gotten below freezing only a few times - so not nearly as cold as Louisville. And no snow at all while we've been in town.

One of the downsides of living in the city is that graffiti will spontaneously appear from time to time.
It turns out that removing such "artwork" from the building is a reasonably effective method of punishment!

It is sights like this pedestrian bridge that really make me appreciate the Dutch culture. This is one of literally hundreds if not thousands of such bridges around Amsterdam. It could have been constructed much more simply and for much less of an investment and very few would have complained or even noticed. But like so many of the construction endeavors here, they show some style to complement the design, making it something appealing to the eye as well as functional.

My Viewpoint
I had a great trip home from top to bottom. Of course one thing that I was really happy about caused Holli considerable angst during much of the time we were home - our new sewer! Fate smiled on (at?) us shortly after the girls had their first showers since getting home. As I was inspecting the water heater to see why it was not producing very hot water (thermostat was turned down to 100) I saw the telltale signs of our recurring sewer problem in the basement: water coming out of the floor drain. Fortunately it was only water!

As we live in an almost-90-year-old house with what appears to be an original sewer system (clay tile pipe outside, cast-iron inside), we have come to expect to have to snake the roots out every 6 months or so. I decided to have them run a camera this time around to see how bad it was. It was pretty obvious that it wasn't going to last very long based on the video, and so the saga began...

Replacing a sewer during this time of year, with 6 people in the house and Christmas celebrations to be enjoyed, was not a popular idea. However, the plumbers (Dauenhauer) and I were able to come up with a plan that would only result in a loss-of-service for a few hours and would not destroy the patio we had installed last summer. It would, however, have an effect on the side yard - and the basement floor.

Those of you that live in Louisville may know about the "law" that essentially requires any major rework of a sewer drainage system to include the removal of gutter downspouts from the sanitary system. I had accomplished this over the summer for all but one of them on our house when I added a french drain in the back yard that is routed to the street. The one that I failed to address was affected by this job, which was not a surprise. What was surprising is that the floor drains in the basement were also affected. It seems that these drains are not allowed to go to the sanitary sewer either - or it may have been more taking into consideration what the lowest "open" point in the system was in case of a backup at street level. In the end, we installed a sump, pump, and separate new PVC floor drain system in addition to the new sanitary system that shares the same route through the basement.

The pictures aren't pretty, but they make me happy regardless - one less landmine to worry about in an old house!

Believe it or not, this looks 10x better than it did when we bought the place!
The guys saw-cut the concrete, which turned out to be only an inch or two thick.

Looking the other direction, here they have removed dirt by hand, carried some of it out in
5-gallon buckets, and laid the new pipes about halfway through the basement. Daisy supervised.

At least the inside was hidden and didn't involve mud. The outside was a different story.
The tie-in point was about 9' below grade.

It rained in earnest the whole time that they were filling the trench in, which made for a huge mess.
But really, you can hardly tell they were even there! Right???

I was most excited about getting on some real single-track during our time back in town. Amsterdam (and Holland in general) has thousands of miles of bike paths, but they are paved - not ideal for mountain biking. I was surprised and very happy to get an invitation to a KYMBA event at the new bike park in the Louisville Mega Cavern, which happened to be the morning after we landed. We spent the first hour or so doing some trail work (like good trail riders will do), and then got to spend a few hours testing it out. It was really amazing.

I think I recall reading that the chambers are 90 feet tall, but with 60 feet of backfill
 so that the ceiling is only about 30 feet up. The area covered is huge.

Lots of neat features including a couple of containers and some wooden platforms.

My man Andy scoping out the course

While the cavern was very cool, it's current version is more of a pump track that would be really fun on a BMX bike. I heard lots of groaning from the guys riding 29er's... It was my first time riding on such a track, so I really enjoyed trying out the (smaller) jumps. I can't see myself going back much, however, unless the weather is nasty and I need a fix. I much prefer the more technical riding to be had at Cherokee Park and the other great trails around the area.

The other exciting biking news - I got my frame back from Ruckus Composites!
The repair they did looks perfect - now I need to find a good deal on a new component set!

I felt compelled to take pictures of the things back home that I missed the most (and turned a couple into a sort-of series on Instagram). But one thing I didn't document on camera was the time I spent standing in front of the beer cage at Old Town. I must have looked very confused standing there with a huge smile on my face - and I kind of was. I had yet to make it into a decent beer place in Amsterdam, and I hadn't really liked any of the beer I'd tried. Having a selection of 20 or 30 IPA's to choose was nearly too much for me. So I picked up a bunch of Founder's All-Day IPA and several other single bottles of various IPA's and winter seasonal brews. I also spied a couple of strange-looking bottles of Old Forester, so I had to get those! Turned out one was a single-barrel and the other was the new 1870 "expression" - a great haul for my first trip!

Well, I enjoyed that so much that I did it again a few days later, this time with a different selection of beers (still had plenty of bourbon left). I started talking beer and Europe with one of the Old Town guys and ended up tasting a couple of the beers they had on tap, as well as some bourbon. Unfortunately, that led me to be late picking up the carry-out from Wild Ginger, which did not make the rest of the family as happy as I was! I did not let that detract from the enjoyment of the fruits of my second trip however!

I could go on - about beer and our real home - but it's probably only interesting to me. Now back in Amsterdam, life goes on. I had a hard time adjusting - both to the time change and to not seeing my close friends. I've resolved to be more social this year - to try and force us into some more activities with other families. So far, so good, but I'll save the details to-date for a later entry.

Here are a couple of random things to end this one:

Our apartment from the other side of the canal - ours is the shortest building.
The gutter from which Daisy fell is on the building to the left, so about 2 feet above the front of our place.

Did I mention that I love the slow-motion capability of the new iPhones???

And also, this cat is not skinny.

Some of the never-ending construction work in the city. As part of a new bridge spanning a canal,
they are driving these poles into the ground for supports. All of them were fully driven within a few hours.

Another trash-collection boat. This one is specially equipped with a scoop in the
front (currently holding a christmas tree that found its way into the canal!).

Next entry - Lilli's first overnight stay with complete strangers in a foreign country!