Busy and productive!

 Hello friends! It's been a busy and productive week here, which I love. 

This week, I took my driver's license certificate and exchanged it for my actual driver's license. I can't say that I'm impressed with the photo. They used the same one as my Protocol ID, which I got on a day Arturo scheduled an appointment, but failed to mention that there would be a photo involved. Ha! It's ok, the photo is only used on my two main IDs here. It will keep me humble. 😉

I had an eye exam this week, and it turns out that I will need my first pair of reading glasses. I was finding that reading small print in dim light wasn't easy for me anymore. For those of you who own reading glasses. Drop a picture and let me see how cute yours are. 😍

One of the hardest things when moving to a new place for a woman is finding a new hairdresser. I did my research while still in Washington and had an appointment waiting for me. The woman I found here does hair out of her cute little home. She is from the Netherlands, but her husband works here at SHAPE. I told her how I usually get my hair highlighted, and I don't know if it was a translation error or what, but she ended up coloring my hair with permanent hair dye. It's a bit more strawberry blonde than the ash blonde I'm used to. Highlights meant I could go up to 8 weeks in between appointments, all over color usually means more frequent appointments. We will hope for the best and see how things go. 

We were able to pick up our second car on Thursday, which we shipped on June 4th. Since we shipped this one ourselves, it wasn't taken directly to us. We instead had to go and pick up at the port in Zeebrugge. The drive is 1:30, but we decided to make a mini-vacation of it. After Arturo was done with work on Wednesday, we drove over to the coast. I was thinking I would get a hotel on the North Sea, but I instead found a monastery from the 1100s that was a hotel/restaurant that was ideal.  

When we drove in, I knew I had made a wonderful choice in where to spend our evening. The room was really nice, and for the first time in two months, we were sleeping in a bed bigger than a double. 

We got settled in our room and then went to the outdoor restaurant for one of the most delicious meals: Flemish stew and roast beef with mushroom sauce. Our dessert was just as amazing, with fresh berries, chocolate, and ice cream!

We had brought our computer with us to watch some TV, but we were so tired and full after that amazing meal that we called it a night and slept soundly. In the morning, we had breakfast waiting for us in the dining room. Our room came with breakfast, and I am not sure what I was expecting, but they gave us so much, and it was all wonderful! 

After our meal, we checked out of the hotel and went to pick up Arturo's car. Our appointment was at 10:30 am, but we arrived at 10.00. They took our paperwork and told us they were waiting on another family to arrive, and once that happened, they would take both of our paperwork to customs. They told us to come back in 1.5-2 hours. With the time we had, we drove the 10 minutes to the beach. I was excited to see the North Sea! It was almost completely empty, and we wandered down to the water and explored. 

It was a good workout walking on the beach, and by the time we walked out and back, it was time to pick up the car. We went back to the office and paid our fees, and were told where to pick the car up. It was 15 minutes away, which wasn't bad. Once there, we waited our turn, along with the truckers, and finally had our car with us a half hour later. While we were waiting, we ran into the other family who was mentioned earlier. What a coincidence that they had just arrived 3 weeks ago from Washington (JBLM) as well. What a small world!

The ride home was uneventful, and it reminded me of the same amount of time I had driven home from work in Washington, but this time I wasn't stuck in traffic. 

On Friday, we started to panic a bit because the people who would be watching the dogs while we are gone next week told us they wouldn't be back for the dogs the day we leave. We decided to take them with us. Problem solved, right? It turns out that in Europe, your dogs need a passport to travel. I called around and was able to find a vet that did walk-ins and was able to do our passports for the dogs. Arturo and I talked about how it would make the dogs, who were just starting to feel settled, nervous again, thinking we were moving. We asked our landlord if she knew of anyone who could come by in the morning and evenings and let the dogs out for us. She gave us the name of a woman who came over yesterday with her son. They are such nice people, and they live just behind us, so she was more than happy to do us this favor. We felt 100 times better when this was all settled. 

We are all packed now and ready for our trip tomorrow! Liam said he is 9% excited and 1% nervous. That's to be expected since he doesn't know anyone, but he will for sure make a bunch of new friends during the days he is at camp. 

I'll try and update on Sunday, but if we get home too late, it will be Monday for sure! Enjoy a fabulous week, friends!!!