Aunty Pat and Bday Greetings

Responding to Pat when she noted that she like to open bday cards as soon as she gets them in the mail so she can enjoy them for as long as possible, and how I am just like my dad and like to hoard them until the exact day:

That's funny. Terry is just like you! He opens cards as soon as he gets them. :) We don't really have big plans for my bday. We're going out with friends after work on Fri the 31st to celebrate, and then the 1st is actually the day of Terry's company's anniversary party, so they're taking us to the Efteling, which is this local amusement park we've been meaning to go to. So even though its for work I'm glad to be getting a chance to go when it will also be free entrance and free food! Then that evening we're going out with some Dutch friends because it's one of my friend's last night before moving to NYC for 3 months to work as a journalist covering the election. We'll probably invite some ppl from T's work too because it's going to be at this cool Irish Pub that serves Belgian beers that we were telling them about that they seemed really interested in.

I know I haven't answered fully and would love to write more but it's bed time! Thanks again for the card! You like to enjoy it for as long as possible on the mantle, but by saving it I get to look forward to it for as long as possible. :)

We're engaged!

Was I surprised?

I was SO surprised. I thought he was going to wait until after our travels next year! He said there were 3 reasons he proposed now instead of waiting. First, he didn't want to keep a secret from me. (The secret being that he was ready and was 100% sure...he wanted to make it official!). Second, it makes finances for our trip much easier...instead of having a per person budget, we have a combined budget. Lastly, he wants us to be able to look forward to the wedding, and be able to openly plan, talk about ideas and be full of anticipation during the trip. Good decision!!

I'm in Boston now for my cousin's wedding (Terry didn't make this trip as he's going home in Sept and is coming home with me for xmas), but I'm having fun being able to celebrate with family. So I'll be Emily McDonnell! The wedding won't be until 2014 after we're back from our travels in 2013.

Here's an email T sent around about it:

Emily and I are engaged! J



A little backstory - Emily and I went to Paris to celebrate my birthday, but I had some other plans too.


We arrived in Paris on Thursday morning. I had the ring burning a hole in my pocket the whole trip, though I thought it was probably safer there (with a lower chance of discovery) than anywhere in our suitcases. We arrived at our hotel, one of the 5-star places downtown. I made Emily go find directions to our “next hotel,” since she thought we were staying at a cheap AirBnB place outside of the city after the first night, and I needed time to check in without her overhearing anything. We arrived quite early, and the room wasn’t ready yet, so we decided to go on a walk. We had a quick bite to eat, then strolled down the Champs Elysées from the Arc d’Triomphe to the Louvre. As we arrived outside the Louvre we saw that there was a small fair set up outside, including a large Ferris wheel!

This prompted me with a big game-time decision. I had picked out a spot under the Pont Neuf bridge, but this was a new opportunity. And I still had the ring in my pocket! The Ferris wheel would certainly be logistically easier, since we'd be going to Pont Neuf on the pretense of meeting my mom for dinner, so I'd have to come up with a good reason for us to go exactly where I wanted. I also still had to arrange with the concierge for transport from the proposal location to dinner, which was close to our hotel. However, the biggest factor was that the cabin on the Ferris wheel would be private – and I had no guarantee that the original place would be "right" at any given moment. All it would take is one drunk homeless guy to make it a completely forgettable experience. So I called an audible and went with the Ferris wheel.

We got on, and I decided to wait until we got to the top. The wheel stopped at the 90-degree point for f*cking forever (it might have been fifteen seconds or two minutes, I have no idea, but it felt like a lifetime). When we got up to the top I got down on one knee and popped the question. Emily was completely surprised – in a good way. Neither of us remember that much else about the rest of the ride. We’ll have to go back some time and actually see the sights.

We then returned to the hotel, where some champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries were waiting. We took a nap, then got ready for dinner. Our reservation was for an 8-course meal at one of the best restaurants in Paris, which we made full use of over 4+ hours.

Someone we talked to (I forget who) mentioned that an engagement is just the start of something new and amazing. Considering that we had the rest of the week in Paris to see the Louvre, Versailles, Notre Dame, Montmartre, etc. (and stay in our nice hotel), we certainly had a good start. J

Hamburg!

http://kvisit.com/a1PIZ

Pics!

Of Emma's visit with us to Delft, Den Bosch & Budapest!!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.837542266554.2205793.13306003&type=1&l=22b91d0e24

Poland!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.837547246574.2205794.13306003&type=1&l=de65e99b22

And please, don't look at the following pictures of my trip to Auschwitz Birkenau unless you have an appropriate amount of time to be able to respectfully reflect on their gravity.

http://kvisit.com/amsAZ

Upcoming Fun Stuff!

It's getting close to bed time here, and I've got a full week ahead of me! Tomorrow I'm going to dinner at my friend's house and we'll watch BBC documentaries, usually about space and planets. We mostly do that every other Tuesday when her boyfriend has late meetings. It's super cool.  We usually order pizza, but she's cooking pesto pasta w/ chicken, feta and sundried tomatoes for a change. YUMMY!! :) Wednesday is someone's last day at work so 18 of us are going out for dinner at an Afghan restaurant that is supposed to be really good. Not sure if I've ever had Afghan food! I'm looking forward to it!! Thursday I'm going to try a new Body Pump class with a friend, and on Friday with the same friend I'll do Zumba, and then we have a women's club we'll go out to drinks with, and then Terry comes home on Saturday!! Then Sunday is Queen's Night (lots of wearing orange and partying), Sunday is Queen's Day (more of the same, with live music and whatnot), the Mom and Dad fly in on Tuesday! We won't see them until that weekend when we meet in Brugge, but it feels like they're almost here! I hope they have good weather for their hiking trip!! And the Thurs before Brugge I'm going paintballing with work! Buzzy bee! What do you have coming up?

Flower Parade!

http://kvisit.com/arIsZ

Response to pics.

I'm glad you liked the pics! That number of tulips is definitely not natural. A lot of them have names that are just letters and numbers which I think means they've been "bred in captivity" if you will. Basically just created. But they're BEAUTIFUL! How creative of people to be able to MAKE a species! Or a sub-species. :)

I'm also really glad to hear that gma is looking forward to skyping with me! That's nice that she's spending the night so she can do that. Too bad I'll be asleep when you're all there for dinner. It would be such fun to be able to call while you're all there! 9 hours is a pretty big time difference though...

I also hope they find something wrong with grandma's knee, because, as you said, then they can fix it! The worst is going to the doctor and not being given a diagnosis. When I would get sick while working at the preschool I would go to the doctor hoping that a test like for strep throat, for example, would come back positive so I could just get on the right meds and start feeling better! Doctors are a little useless here because they tell you to go to bed, have tea and take time off work and come back in 2 wks-1 month if you're not feeling better. Trouble is, I always go to the doctor only as a last result, so by the time I'm at a doctor's office I already will have done all those things and waited that long and just want to be fixed!! Another interesting thing here is that if you call in sick to work it's the government that pays your sick leave (but only starting on the 3rd day...you get no compensation if you're sick only 1 or 2 days in a row...), but because the government is paying they send inspectors to your house to make sure you're actually where you say you are and are actually sick. Crazy, huh?? I don't really like that, even though I don't think people should use sick time as vacation time, because I do believe that some people might need a mental health day now and then when they should be allowed to stay home even if they're not conventionally "sick" ya know? Maybe they have something else going on that demands they take some time off. I think that should be allowed.

I'm super excited for my parents to come. We've been looking forward to this for a while now! I'll only partly be a tour guide because they're doing Amsterdam on their own and then we're going to Brugge where I don't know my way around either! It will certainly be fun for all of us, though! You can bet there will be a lot of pics after that trip!!

We had to avoid the large groups at the Jewish museum. It just ruins the experience when there's this massive group that can hardly fit in a room and the guide is holding up their brightly colored umbrella and shouting, "AND THIS ROOM IS BOUT THIS OTHER HORRIBLE THING THAT HAPPENED DURING THE HOLOCAUST BLAH BLAH BLAH LET'S KEEP MOVING ON TO THE NEXT ROOM NOW." It was kind of insensitive too and seemed hardly worth it. I like to do museums at my own pace and visit the exhibits that interest me, and actually be able to see some of the displays, believe it or not! :)