Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas


In what is becoming an annual tradition, our holiday greetings come to you from yet another new location.   We are living in Wassenaar, The Netherlands, which is a small village north of Den Haag.  Due to intercontinental postage costs, higher environmental awareness and general laziness, we are utilizing the internet to post our Christmas Card this year.  We hope that you are not too offended.

Our opportunity to move to Europe arose when Lori accepted a position with Shell Corporation, which is headquartered in Den Haag.  She joined Shell in May and is responsible for their refineries and chemical plants in Europe and Africa.  Being new to the job and the company she’s on the road quite a bit, but luckily most of it is on the same continent. 
 
Mark, Grant, the cats and dog joined her in late July and three weeks later Grant began seventh grade at the American School of The Hague.  In the Dutch tradition he rides his bike to and from school, rain or shine.  But mostly rain.  He played baseball this fall and is swimming this winter.  We’re still adjusting to the 6:00 am swim team practice time.  He also stays busy playing piano, oboe and a variety of video games.  


Kate is a senior at Vanderbilt University studying Chemical Engineering.  In addition to being busy with Senior Design classes she works for the school coordinating a study of autism detection in 9 and 18 month old children.  Her other full-time job is filling out medical school applications – she has just about reached her limit on answering essay questions.   One bonus of our relocation was that Kate upgraded her car.  She’s now driving our BMW X5 and is already putting the heated steering wheel to good use. 

To date, Mark’s Netherlands career has been as a house-husband.  Despite all that time on his hands, our Dutch neighbor keeps asking if we’ve found a gardener (yardman) yet.  That’s a pretty clear indication that Mark needs to step up his landscaping performance.  Perhaps it’s all the time he’s spent on golf lessons, cooking classes and Dutch language classes.  Whether being a stay-at-home Dad becomes a permanent career is still under review. 

 We are enjoying our life in Europe and invite you to visit.  We are only 25 minutes from the Amsterdam airport and have plenty of spare beds and bikes.  We have relearned how to drive a stick shift (on our only car) and would be glad to show you around.  You can also visit virtually, via our blog, http://www.wassenaarliving.blogspot.com/. 

Our best wishes for a beautiful and blessed holiday season.

Mark, Lori, Kate and Grant






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