Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Sooooo much going on

First of all, I had a major breakdown, or as we say, een dippie.
With everything going on I felt like being stuck in the house, all I did was being busy with the house and that was it.
Even for a little thing as a carton of milk, I had to ask Jack to get it on his way from work.

Those are the joys of not having a drivers license or a bike.
Honestly, I miss my bike the most. Giant and Dollartree and a hairdresser are close enough to get there on the bike. But there is this nice highway in between.
Oh well, effe doorbijten, soon we can start lessons.
LOL, Jack still thinks he can teach me.

Also, we have a new floor downstairs, it is beautiful but takes a bit getting used to, specially for the dogs. They have these long legs and no traction on this floor...

And, Monday we are getting married. In Gettysburg in a nice little inn.
Turned out it was not easy to find someone to marry us in the place we wanted without getting religious parts involved.
But, we found a bhoedist priest who will, hopefully give us a nice ceremony. We have a very good feeling after meeting her.
Getting our marriage license prooved to be harder.
They had never mentioned that they needed a certified translation of the divorce records until the moment we came in to get our license.
So we had to find someone to translate and put a nice seal on it.
Sometimes I wonder if that is all they are looking for, something shiny that gives them the feeling it is official.
It took a few days before we had it, but, it arrived just in time.
So now we have permission to get married, LOL.

Right now I am waiting for Jack to come back from the airport. If all went as planned, my parents and one of my sisters landed just a few minutes ago.
Just in time to celebrate Halloween with us.
We had so much fun getting the house decorated and what is even more fun is that my 14 year old son decided he wants to dress up for handing out the candy during trick or treat.
Don't have pictures of that yet, but I will make sure we will get plenty.
Do have a few of the house already, so enjoy.

In the meantime, I will get ready for the visitors and will talk to you soon.




Wednesday, October 14, 2009

6 Hours ???

That is the difference between the Netherlands and Dillsburg Pennsylvania.


But some times it looks years in stead of hours. Like last week, a windy day.
A very windy day and that means power outages...
At least two and both of them lasted for more than an hour.
Fall only just started, not really looking forward to real winterweather with icerain.
Reason is the American habit of having all wiring for electricity, phone and internet for example, above the ground. A drunken driver can cause a whole neighborhood to loose power for hours. Sigh, with bad weather you can at least predict a possible outage.
Now, mind you, we live in a pretty new development, all wiring under ground.
But...only in the development, the lines leading here are still above.

And that isn't the only thing I feel like I stepped back in time.
Looking for having one of my pictures printed on canvas turned out to be rather expensive and not yet widely available.

On the other hand,people seem to put an old fashioned effort into cooking and baking.
Which puts me into a bad spot, I am a horrible cook. But, in this case, I am willing to learn. So many good looking receipts are to be found everywhere, that I already had to try some.

For the last few weeks we have been looking at replacing some stuff that Jack has.
Like forks, spoons, that kind of stuff, some nice lamps were on the list and with our new laminate floor installed next week, we needed some carpets.
And don't tell Jack, but the kitchen is out of date and has some water damage.
So I had been keeping an eye open when at Lowes or Homedepot.
But man, that is scary stuff, so old fashioned.
Just like much of the furniture we saw or the tableware.
So I had to put my foot down on some stuff, we were gonna wait for our trip to ...


Ikea!!!


Ha, Jack thought we would be done in a morning.
Yeah, right. Anyway, last weekend we went to Baltimore, a drive, just over 1,5 hours.
Do-able, specially when you are in dear need of a Europe rush.
And that is what I got, honest, the meatballs are the same here as they are in Groningen.
Jack got a culture shock...but in a good way.

After 4 hours of shopping, we will combine the old fashioned, but sometimes charming American stuff with some real modern European style.
Jack is in awe over how cheap some of the stuff is, I am just very happy with the straight, simple lines and the fact I can pretend I am in Groningen when I am really desperate and go for a trip to Ikea.
Because Ikea is like Mac Donalds, they all are the same.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Fall in Pennsylvania

Deze keer weer een Nederlands blogje. Veel foto's om een beetje een idee te geven van de omgeving.

Het begint hier zolangzamerhand herfst te worden.
Qua temperatuur overdag zitten we nog niet op Nederlandse herfstwaardes, maar 's nachts begint het toch behoorlijk fris te worden. Dus laten we de ramen nu iets minder wijd openstaan.
Herfst in PA betekent oogst tijd, we zitten hier midden in appelcountry en een van de grote appelharvest fairs word hier vlak bij, in Adams County gehouden.
Vorig weekeinde was het zover. Van verre ruik je de cider die gemaakt wordt en zie je de rook die onstaat als giga stukken vlees op de bbq's liggen te garen.
Het was er smoor druk, iedereen kwam om zich te vergapen aan de rijen standjes met kitscherige artikelen, in perfecte staat verkerende stoommachines en glimmend gepoetste oldtimers. Ondertussen werden de vele voedselstandjes aangedaan.
Alles op het gebied van appels was er te krijgen, taart, lollies, moes, cider en vele soorten appels in natuurlijke staat.
Maar ook de meest bijzondere voedsel combinaties, zoals gefrituurde uien en bloemvorm, gefrituurde oreo koekjes.
De democraten verkochten fudge en even verderop werd reclame gemaakt voor bijbel en hun specifieke interpretatie ervan.
Mocht je niet geinteresseerd zijn, dan kon je nog altijd je eigen vogelverschrikker bouwen of een ritje maken op een pony aangesloten op een systeem dat het enkel toestond een klein cirkeltje te draaien. Of je ging naar de petting zoo waar een 5 dagen oud kalfje in een hok van 1,5 bij 1,5 m lag naast de kittens die in een draagkennel zaten.
Mochten jullie het idee krijgen dat ik dit gedeelte van de fair minder aangenaam vond dan hebben jullie gelijk.
Maar verder was het leuk, mensen kijken op een heerlijke warme dag eind september , wat wil je nog meer?

Verder zitten er bij de foto's een aantal die een idee geven van de omgeving hier, van ons uitzicht als we 's avonds op onze frontporch zitten. Jaaaaa, nog steeds.
Dit weekeinde schijnt het zelfs weer warm genoeg te worden voor shorts.

Maar nu de foto's: