Busy Busy!

Things are really moving over here, literally. We spent most of the day this past Saturday getting some things moved over to the storage unit. Our good friend, Ed was a HUGE help. He provided us with a 16 foot container and with his help, we hauled over most all of our business stuff (massage chairs) and a few personal items. We will forever be grateful to this man. He is the most kind, selfless and generous person I think I know. Thanks, Ed. We love you and hope you enjoy your new massage chair this year. You deserve it!

Here we are watching these wonderful men get the container into Ed's work yard. They had to tow it to the yard and then move it inside the yard with this giant machine. I was a nervous wreck watching it all go down. 

Ed is the master. I was practically biting my nails off watching the storage unit sway back and forth as they placed it perfectly on the ground. Whew! Once it was down, we breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. Next, we took Ed's flatbed and drove to our house to get a load. He saved us so much time by letting us use his truck. It would have taken us forever in the Tacoma to haul this much stuff! 

Now that we have the garage cleared, we are working on the rest of the house. Luckily we are renting our place furnished, so that's making our job a lot easier than what it could be. For now, we just have clothes and personal items left to stash. We will be busy, busy for the next few days. We have one week to be out of the house! Crazy. 

Bon Voyage!

We have the best friends! Our good friends, Dan and Lisa Scroggins decided to throw us a "Bon Voyage" party this past weekend and boy was it FUN! Lisa went all out and made such cool decorations. They had a huge world map hanging on the wall with some cute drawings and commentary to go along with it. So creative!

We also enjoyed a delish taco bar with all the fixins and this yummy cake with haupia cream filling. So ono!

This was at the end of the party as we were cleaning up. Wish I would have taken a pic when everyone was still there, but at least I got a snapshot with these beauties. We have such a great ward! We're gonna miss these guys. 

And they even left us with a thoughtful homemade card! 

We feel so blessed to have such great friends and supporters. Thanks again, everybody. We are gonna miss our Hawaii Ohana! 

License To Drive

Well, it's official... we are now licensed to drive in Europe. All it took was $15, an application, a passport size photo and a copy of our current driver's license. Ready to roll. Wish us luck! 

Meet Bertie!

So, we bought our RV this week. Hooray! We have transportation! We've been looking online on Marktplaats (kind of like a Craigslist equivalent in Holland) and for the last few weeks we've been narrowing it down to a few select that we like. Jason really liked this one, so he decided to call the owner to ask him a few questions. I had a good laugh when he told me about how the conversation went down. Apparently, Jason googled a few Dutch phrases, enough to be able to say, "Hello, my name is Jason. Do you speak English?" So with some shaky confidence, he dialed the number and Bertie picked up. Luckily, Bertie's reply was "Yes" (huge sigh of relief). I later joked with Jason asking him what he would have done had Bertie said "No." Haha. His response... "I don't know." Apparently, he hadn't thought that far ahead yet! ;)

Anyhow, we really liked the price and the low miles on this baby, so we found an RV company that would go out and inspect it (with a mechanic) and take more detailed pics for us (Thankfully companies like this exist for people purchasing high price items from across the world). Donna, our trusted 3rd party, sent us out a full report and gave us her sign of approval and we were good to go. So, we finally closed the deal! Meet Bertie (we decided to name him after his late owner)...  our new home away from home!

LWS Academy

Loder World School Academy isn't officially in session until June 3, but we figured we might as well make ourselves some handy dandy ID cards to make it "official." After all, if they get us a discount into a museum in Europe, then all the better, right? Jason spent the afternoon creating these bad boys. They look great, huh?

Now we just have to get them cut and laminated and we are good to go. Tonight at dinner we had a fun discussion about how Mom and Dad are not only the teachers, but the school administration as well. We asked them what kind of rules we should have next year at LWS Academy and what kind of punishments should be enforced when the rules are broken (or someone refuses to do a school assignment). Ahem, Jada! ;) We got some cute responses out of them. Alia said maybe they should do wall sits and Jada said maybe they could just sit in a corner and point a thumbs down sign at themselves. Ha! What kind of school do they think this is? I suggested perhaps writing 100 sentences of "I will do my assignment when I am told." Needless to say, they didn't like that idea very much.

We are getting ready and excited for our crazy adventure to begin. The countdown is on. We leave one month from today! Ready or not... here we come, world!

Powerful Words From a Brave Young Girl

Tonight we watched the movie, The Diary of Anne Frank as a family. We've been reading this story for a few months now (usually at bedtime) and I just have to say how moving and emotional it has been for all of us. At first we weren't sure if Jada (only 7) would be ready for such a serious theme (The Holocaust and WWII) but after talking to my mom and getting some ideas to help prepare the kids, we knew we should go ahead with it anyways. In preparation for the Amsterdam portion of our trip, we knew we needed to read this so we could better understand when we visit the annex. My mom taught this novel in school for many years (she was a teacher), so she had a variety of ideas to share. She suggested we go to the library and check out the book, The Sneetches, by Dr. Seuss. If you don't know, this book is basically about how a group of people think they are better than another group of people and how they mark them as inferior to this supposed "superior" group. We read this as sort of an introductory, then talked to Alia and Jada more specifically about WWII. We explained how Hitler led a group of people who strongly opposed Jews and other groups of people and how they violently persecuted them even to the point of death.

When we began the book, The Diary of Anne Frank, Jada struggled a bit. She had a TON of questions and needed a lot of clarification. We did our best to explain things on her level and she surprisingly did well and understood more than we thought she would. As we continued to read, we found ourselves more and more engrossed and feeling as though we were part of the Frank family hiding right along with them. Anne was about 12-14 years of age during their hiding, so Alia (being 12) had a more unique perspective than the rest of us. This girl was just about her age. We talked about how it might feel to have to leave all that you know, including your home, friends, school and possessions to go into hiding not knowing when or if you would make it out alive. This family was just like any other family. They had their good and their bad days, and being stashed away from the outdoors and life as they knew it, couldn't have been easy. I don't want to spoil it for any that haven't read it, but this is a POWERFUL book. It is truly unique in that it is told through a young teenager's eyes, but the message is raw and real. I definitely recommend this book to anyone that is looking for a powerful story of endurance, courage and faith.

My favorite part is Anne's resounding last few words in her diary. Despite it all, she says, " It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart." Powerful words from a brave young girl.

Practice Makes Perfect

Many people have asked us what we are doing to prepare for all the different languages we will be encountering while in Europe. Well, we haven't been as dedicated as we need to be, but some of the language apps that we have used have been super helpful. Duolingo is one I highly recommend. It's basically a language learning app that gives you multiple languages to choose from. We started out a few months ago trying to learn German as a family. Duolingo has a great reward system using points and medals when you master a certain level. We started by each practicing about 10 minutes a day (You can set it for any amount of time you want and they will email you daily with practice reminders). Jason and Alia got super competitive for a while, waking up each day eager to get their minutes in, trying to stay just a few points in front of the other. ;) Meanwhile, Jada and I hung back in last place, but we got a kick out of watching Dad and Alia compete. Anyhow, it's a free app and I definitely recommend it in case you ever want to learn a new language or even brush up on some rusty high school Espanol.

Another thing we've done is checked out CD's and books from our local library on various countries/languages. We figure the more we know going into this, the better. It's been really fun exploring and learning about different cultures, languages and customs and it gets us super pumped for what lies ahead. On a side note... Our French is terrible, but we are trying!

A few Sundays ago, I was even motivated to create this little Language Collage. I had the girls each draw a picture of the French and German flags and we hung them on our back door (making it easier to see and use). We chose some of the most commonly used words and phrases to create a master list for learning and we've been plugging away with high hopes to be able to communicate. The real test begins when we get there, but we figured we better start practicing now. Anyhow, wish us luck! We're gonna need it. :)