Final Post

This makes my 100th blog post. 100 is the scroll limit for the blog, which means it may also be the printing limit (I found a website that will turn this into a book), so this needs to be my last post. I now wish I had combined a few posts earlier in the year. But, I didn’t, so this post will have to be the catch-all. Sorry for jumping from topic to topic.

1. Visit from the in-laws! Linda’s parents came to visit for a week. That was really nice. We were pretty low-key with them. We went to the temple and showed them around town, but mostly I went to work like normal and Linda did stuff with them.

2. Henry’s birthday party! We delayed Henry’s birthday party a bit so Linda’s parents could be here. Henry’s party was a big success. Pretty much everyone from his class came. It was a little rough though because no parents stayed, and none of Henry’s friends speak English. We had the party right after Henry got out of school on Friday, which meant that Adelaide was still in school. So, our means of communication were pretty limited: panamime, Google translate, or ask Henry to translate. So, little things like explaining rules for the Piñata or Duck, Duck, Goose were very complicated. But, we survived!

4. Cleaning Checks. We haven’t lived in a rental in 8 years. And, the one that we were in then we had lived in for 5 years. When we were going to move out the landlord told us “Your carpet and paint are both at their depreciation cycle, so we are going to paint and replace the carpet. Don’t bother to clean.”

This experience was very different. The landlord scheduled a “pre-inspection” for us and then gave us a list of things to do. Some of it was ridiculous, especially since they increased our rent from the asking price by $300 because of the “extra wear and tear on the house from having so many kids.” They told us we needed to prune the trees and bushes (despite explicitly telling us when we moved in that we couldn’t do anything to the yard other than water). We needed to wash/paint the walls (which is hard in the Netherlands since they have heavily textured walls). They wanted to charge us $800 to replace the screen door because the mesh had come loose (they told me that I was not allowed to repair that myself; I did anyway). Long list of stuff to do …

Linda was a trooper and worked really hard. When moving day came, I wasn’t taking any gruff from them. For example, when they inspected the screen door, they asked me if I repaired it myself or hired a professional. I asked if it made a difference: was there anything wrong? They reluctantly admitted that it was perfect. I then said that I repaired it myself and that I have taken class in carpentry and it was an easy fix. We had part of the house painted (the kids had legitimately damaged one wall). The painters left right as the owners came. We really liked the painters and they liked us, so they made a big deal of saying “Just finished painting” as they left.

There was another wall that was pretty dirty and the owners wanted painted. They looked at it and said, “This wall looks much better, did you paint it?” I replied, “No, we washed it.”

We had several repeated interactions like that. In the end they still wanted a professional cleaner to come through because, for example, the kitchen floor needed to be mopped. I pointed out that I had mopped it the night before but that it was raining outside and they had just walked inside with their shoes on (I was wearing socks), so they shouldn’t be surprised that it is dirty again.

They also told me in a previous email that I needed to pay August rent (our contract was through August 10) because they would not be renting the house out before then since the house wasn’t fit to show to potential renters. However, when we had the inspection on the 28th, they brought in some potential renters immediately after the inspection and signed a contract for them to move in on August 1st. Double charging rent for the month of August?

I’m not sure if we’ll get any of our $5000 deposit back. I think we deserve most if not all of it back, but we heard from a few neighbors that the owners have a reputation for only renting to foreigners and not returning any of the deposit no matter what. All I can say is that we did our best and felt like we behaved honestly, so what they end up doing is on their conscience.

3. Saying Goodbye. The biggest reason I’m so slow in posting this is all my emotions about saying goodbye. We made so many dear, dear friends in the Netherlands. It was hard to say goodbye. As much as we like Massachusetts, I think we made closer friends in our 1 year in the Netherlands than in our 7 in Massachusetts. Several people threw us goodbye parties or brought us presents.

Pretty much every day for the past 11 months I’ve gone to lunch with these wonderful people. It’s a pretty casual thing. At 12 noon, on the dot, we all go. Some people buy lunch, some people bring it from home, but we sit and eat together and have fun. This was my last lunch with these guys.

Linda and I with the stake president when he released me from my calling.

My last train trip home after selling my bike.

Adelaide at church with two half-American friends.

Henry with his teachers, Annette and Anja. They didn’t speak English (two of maybe 10 total people in the Netherlands who we met who didn’t speak English), but they were amazing. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen better elementary school teachers. As a side note, Henry’s class was a combination of pre-K, K, and 1st grade kids (the school was so small they had to combine all 3), but the teachers handled it wonderfully!

Adelaide and Henry with the whole school team.

Adelaide and her teacher, Miss Quinty. Again, an amazing teacher. She took a 3rd grade student who didn’t speak the language and managed to not only teach her the language, but also keep her on track with everything else (e.g., learning her times tables, writing essays and reports in English and Dutch), all while teaching a combined class of 2nd through 4th graders.

Henry’s teachers threw him a surprise goodbye party on the last day of school. We were invited to join. The kids gave him some gifts they had made, and every kid gave him a goodbye hug. I was crying by the end and am crying now just thinking about it.

A bunch of us from Tilburg went out for a game of laser tag and then dinner before I left. They gave me a nice gift to remember Tilburg by, but I am sure I will never forget them or the amazing time we had together. Lucas, Jeremy, Siesta, Eddy, Cardin, Lobke, Lars, Jesse, Claudia, Wim, and Ajanee.

Harm and Christoph were two of my best friends while I was in the Netherlands. Both of them had to head back to Germany before I left, so we had a little mini goodbye of our own.

4. Heading home. Getting home was a little bit easier than getting to the Netherlands. A little bit, but not much.

First, we had to sell our bikes and car. The local bike repair man was great. He gave us a good price for our bikes. For example, he sold us Linda’s bike and when he bought it back he said, “It’s in just as good of shape as when you bought it. I take a 30% cut for my profit, but otherwise I’ll pay you the same amount I sold it to you for.” He was like that for every bike. Very clear, honest, and fair. Some things he said directly, “This is too broken to sell” or “There is no market for used bike car seats”, but I felt like he was honest. Even those things he said he would take it we wanted and try to give them to someone in need. Overall, it was a good experience and I was glad we could work with him for buying, repairing, and selling bikes over the year.

Selling our car was trickier. We bought it used for almost 9000 euros. It’s a van, so not many dealers buy or sell them. We eventually had to take it back to the same dealer we bought it from. He offered us 1000 euros for it. Unfortunately, he had us in a tight spot and he knew it, so we had to take it.

Our next big challenge was getting rid of stuff. Lots of trips to secondhand stores, friends, and neighbors.

Buying flights was tricky. We initially thought we’d fly out of Amsterdam. Flights from Amsterdam to Boston were 1200 euros a ticket (7200 for the whole family), no matter when we flew. We did a little more digging and found we could fly out of Brussels for only 700 euros a ticket (4200 for the whole family). The funny thing is that the flight was Brussels to Amsterdam to Boston. Yes, adding on the Brussels to Amsterdam leg of the flight reduced the cost by 500 euros per ticket. I guess that’s what happens when companies engage in market-based pricing rather than cost-based pricing. Delta could have saved money if they had not made us take the first flight (the first flight wasn’t operated by Delta; it was a KLM flight that Delta had to buy for us). Econ phrases like “deadweight loss” and “Pareto improvement” kept going through my head, but there was nothing we could do. We ended up renting a hotel in Brussels the night before so that we could be on the 8am flight.

Linda, Henry, Sarah, and Timmy actually went to Brussels (by train) the day before that (i.e., 2 nights in the hotel). At this point we only had a rental car, and it wouldn’t fit all of us, so they took the train. Furthermore, I was concerned about doing finishing touches on cleaning while Henry and Sarah were still around actively subverting the cleaning process (not intentionally, just by nature of their age). So, we sent them off on Tuesday. JJ, Adelaide, and I worked our tails off until the inspection Wednesday afternoon, and then we packed the car as tight as it could possibly go, and drove to Brussels.

The next morning we woke up at 4:30am so we could take the shuttle to the airport with all of our luggage by 5:30am. Delta told us we needed 4 hours at the airport in Brussels. We decided to cut it “close” and still ended up sitting around with nothing to do for a good hour and a half.

Then a flight to Amsterdam, more sitting around waiting (the flight was delayed by 2 hours) and then a long flight to Boston.

While in the airport, I filled out some forms online to notify the Dutch government about our move, cancel Internet and electricity, etc.

Once again, the forms were not set up for a large family. On one page I had to select everyone that was moving with me. I selected everyone shown, but Henry wasn’t listed. When I clicked next, I got an error message that we were leaving a minor child behind, alone. So, I went back. Once again, Henry wasn’t there. I noticed, though, that the webpage put everyone’s name in a box and we filled the whole box. There was no scroll option. I think the website was just designed for a maximum of 5 lines displayed in the box with no scroll. So, Henry was listed but I couldn’t click on him.

I proceeded with the form and, at the end, there was a free text box for “anything else we should know?” I said that Henry was coming with us too but that I couldn’t check the box. Well, a couple of days later they emailed me and said, “That’s not good enough. You need to fill out these extra forms by hand to have Henry move.” Until we fill those out, I guess Henry is still legally living in the Netherlands by himself. He is physically with us in Massachusetts, but legally he is still in the Netherlands.

Once in Boston, we had another logistic challenge. We had sold our van before we left, and we didn’t think we could fit all of our stuff in a van if friends picked us up. So, we had one friend pick some of us up in my little that he had been borrowing for the year. We also rented a truck. Why a truck? Because it was actually cheaper to rent a truck than to rent a van or even an economy or compact car. Welcome to America.

However, the Boston airport is ridiculously crowded. Immigration took about an hour, and then I had to wait about 45 minutes for the shuttle to the car rental. Even then, we couldn’t fit our luggage on, so Linda stayed with the luggage and Henry and Sarah while I went to rent the car and then I came back and picked them up. Then, finally, a drive back to our house. Oh, and did I mention that I didn’t have a working cell phone at this point because I only had the Dutch number? Linda sort-of had a working phone, but some of our kids had tried to break into it and it was locked, so she had to move the sim card to her old phone that had basically no battery life and the home button didn’t work.

But, we made it!

After we made it home we found that our water heater was leaking in the basement and we had a number of other little issues around the house to deal with (e.g., mice in the basement, furniture in the wrong rooms, no sheets), but we got it all worked out. We miss the Netherlands a lot, but it’s also nice to be home.

5. Miscellaneous. Now for some random miscellaneous things that I wanted to mention/show but didn’t really fit anywhere else. They really belong in a separate post (i.e., not coming after the “We’re Home!” post), but I’m at that 100 point limit, so I have to squeeze them in here.