Is it Spring yet?

I guess that it is time to update my blog, and since my brother thinks that I really need to do it I guess I will. Thanks Andrew. Saturday was the best day of the year so far. It was gorgeous. Perfect weather to be outside for an Easter Egg hunt with the local military Community, which is what we did. What a way for Shania to celebrate her 9th birthday. The Easter event went from 1000 until 1300. There were egg hunts(a whole lot of eggs laying on the ground in a roped off area) for 3 different age groups, and a scavenger hunt for the older kids 10+. Amina and Shania each got to fill their Easter baskets with lots of candy filled eggs. Alex was in the scavenger hunt group and after having a miserable time last year we were prepared with items for the hunt as Alex got 2nd place and a large chocolate bunny. Next year we will have to have 2 times the items as Shania will be in the scavenger hunt age group. After the festivites we came home and got ready to go to a baptism. Chase Wilstead is a boy in my primary class that just turned 8 on the 14th. It was a nice baptism. We came home from that and Shania opened her birthday presents and then we went bowling as a family. We had a good time. Sunday was rainy and the past few days have been cool even with the sun shining. Stay tuned for more reports in the lives of the Norris family. We are taking atrip on Thursday to Bremerhaven, Germany to go pick up our Brand new 2008 Dodge Caravan. I will write about that trip when we get back.

Reflections

The last couple of months has been quite busy and full of surprises and changes. On December 7 after battling cancer for 2 years my mom passed away peacefully at home. Towards the end she was in a lot of pain and just not feeling well, so I am glad that she is now out of pain and able to reunite with loved ones that she has and has not met. Due to her death we as a family were able to return home to Canada for Christmas. Her funeral was held on the 13th of December and was very nice. So we flew home on the 11th and were able to spend time with family. All of us were home for it and it has been a few years since we have all been together. I guess mom wanted all home together around Christmas time. After the funeral as fmaily member headed back to their homes we made a quick trip to Utah to visit with Rick's family. We surprised them as we didn't tell them we were coming and they all thought that we were still in Canada with my family. We were in Utah for a week and it went by fast. I wished that we could ahve visited with everyone of our friends there but the time was too short. We headed back to Canada on the 22 of December and arrived in Lethbridge to see the live nativity that the Lethbridge East Stake puts on every year. this year the peopl involved in it were from Stirling 2nd Ward which is my Dad and sister's ward. My nephew Zach was a shepherd on Saturday so we went to see him be shepherd like. There was a super strong wind blowing and it was a bit chilly, but we still sat and watched for the 15 min presentation. After that we drove around Lethbridge for a bit and looked at Christmas lights. Christmas was good with 2 of my brothers still at home. We headed back to the Netherlands on the 26th. We arrived in Frankfurt Germany on the 27th and came home and crashed due to the jetlag. We basically slept the next 2 days and around 3 am on the 30th we drove to SHAPE near Mons, Belgium (close to the French border) to go on a bus trip to London for New Years. London is a very beautiful city but is super expensive if you are visiting and not paid in Pounds. I definitely want to go back and visit and hope to do so this fall with my dad and brother when they come to visit. We got back late on the 1st (early 2nd) and recuperated a bit from our travels the next few days. On the 6th I dropped Rick off at work so that he could fly to Italy for a week of classes to help him with his job. On the 7th Alex and Shania started back to school after being out for almost a month with mom's passing and the holidays. So now I have updated you from the past month or so. My goal for this new yeart is to write at least once a month if not more on this blog to keep you all updated on our little world over here in Europe. I hope that everyone has a healthy and happy 2008. May God bless you all this year. Until the next time I write. Cheers

Fall

I believe that fall is truly upon us. Leaves are mostly changed to oranges yellows, reds and browns and what hasn't fallen yet is ready to soon. There is the cool crispness in the air that I love about fall. Time for sweaters and mitts and scarves(hats too). Just around the corner Christmas will be here and we will get to celebrate the birth of our Saviour. This is my favourite time of year when we get together with friends and family(when we are close enough to) and celebrate being around each other hopefully with no arguments. I am looking forward to celebrating this holiday season Dutch style and hope to learn more about the traditions that are in this part of the world. Soon we will be putting up our Christmas tree and other holiday decorations. I will have to take pictures and post them on Facebook(maybe even here if I can figure out how too. Have a happy fall Everyone.

More busy, busy, busy!

Well now that we have been into a few weeks of soccer, I have to admit that I am really pleased with my children and how well they have adapted into the playing of the game. Alex had a game in Brussels on Saturday. I wasn't able to go with him as Shania had a game as well here in Brunssum. He said that they won, so I will take his word. Shania did really good as well. She was playing as a defender and blocked a few shots from getting to the goal. I was really impressed. This coming Sat Alex has a game at Shape(Mons) Belgium I don't know if Rick will go with him or if he will take Shania to her game. I guess we need to talk about that. This week I have a lot of things going on for myself. It is the start of all the American Spouses clubs mini clubs. On the 26th there is a cooking club at my neighbours so that will be easy to get to. Thursday there is scrapbooking( I may actually get som pages done:) ). Tuesday night for Enrichment we are having our discussion for our Book Club. We read the book 'Sunflower' by Richard Pauls Evans. I read it in 1 day so I am not sure if I am a really fast reader or if the book was that good. Maybe both. Well that is about all the time I have for my blog at the moment. I need to get my kids off to school. Will write more at another time, maybe even later today. You all will have to wait and see.

Busy, busy, busy

Well I am still trying to figure out what I got myself into this school year. Alex and Shania are both playing soccer(football or voetballin dutch) with the CYS(child youth services). Their first actual game is this Saturday. So we will see how that goes. So with soccer comes practices which are on Tuesday and Thursday after school. I take Amina and we go watch them practice. It gets us out of the house and give Amina some time to play outside. On top of soccer both Alex and Shania are doing after school activites. On Monday's Alex has athletics and Shania has art. Tuesday is Cricket for Alex and Shania is doing jump rope. Which slightly interferes with soccer practice. They only miss about 30 min of the hour and a half practice. Alex is in Cub scouts and is a Webelo 2 this is really his first year doing it so he has to catch up some to the other boys in his group but he should make it. This year for the scouts in April there is a big gathering of scouts from all over Europe in Normandy. Apparently it only happens every 3 years so this is really exciting for us to be able to attend it with him. We have already booked our accomodations for it, so we are set. Shania is starting girl scouts which is the 2nd and 4th Monday right after school so she will miss a few of the art classes but we already talked to the teacher and he said it was alright. The kids are also involved with some lunch time activities. Shania is taking Latin Thursday at lunch and a Roots and shoots class, on Firday at lunch, which deals with the environment. So we are prety busy just with the older 2 kids. This year I joined the American Spouse club (ASC) and signed up for some different groups with them. The nice thing about the ASC is that a lot of my neightbors are member as well so we get along really well. The other neighbors have kids doing things with mine so I have a lot of opportunities to talk with and fellowship them. This morning we had a brunch at one of the homes in the neighborhood and I think this may turn into a monthly thing, we had a lot of fun sitting aroudn and talking and eating. Amina isn't really involved in anything yet but I may sign her up for some things if they are offered for her age group, we will see with that. Well I think that is enough for now. have a great day everyone. Until next time. Tot Ziens!

August ??

Okay this year has gone by way to fast so far. It can't be August already, well according to the calendar it is so I will have to get used to it. We recently returned from 2 weeks in Canada where it was HOT. Temperature wise it was in the 30's (celcius) or for those not used to metric 90's. One day I believe it reached over 100. We had a great time visiting with family and friends. Shania our oldest daughter was baptized while we were there as well so it was a nice way to finish up our vacation. We arrived in Canada on the 17th and took care of my passport in Calgary on the 18th (as it would have expired in Sept) then we went down my parents and had curry for supper. Yummy, I love curry. We had our famil reunion from the 19th until the 21, all of my siblings but one sister was able to make it so it was a lot of fun. The cousins had a great time to gether and surprisingly enough there was only a few squabbles during the time we were there. The squabbles were between Amina and her two 2 year old boy cousins. Rick's Dad and step-mom were able to drive up for Shania's baptism so it was nice to see them. We had a really good time even iwth the heat that we arten't used to living here in the Netherlands. Well I just wanted to update a bit on our life. School starts for the kids in 2 weeks. It will be nice to get bakc into a more structured routine. Though it has been nice not to have to worry about waking up at a certain time. I think we are over the jet-lag now. SO we should be good to go by the time school starts again. We have a bit of shooping to do before then a few more clothes for the kids(stop growing) and then the supplies for the year. Until next time. Cheers.

Time to update

Well there went another month without a post from me. Where has the time gone. We have been busy this past month with the kids finishing school for the summer. Rick and I also celebrated birthdays in June. On the 3rd I turned the big 36 and 6 days later Rick turned 35 on the 9th. We also have a few other members in our extended families with birthdays in june. David (who is my brother Marks oldest) turned 9 on the 6th. Troy(Rick's sister Kim's husband) had his birthday on the 26th (he is 23 days younger than I am) and his son Anthon turned 1 on the 21. the only other thing worth mentioning in this blog is that for the whole month of June and the first full week in July it rained every day. So we don't want to hear about it form you folks over across the ocean. We had a beautiful day today and I think the kids were a bit rowdy in church to day because they were actually getting some sunshine in their life again. Rick and I were asked to speak in our Ward today as well. Our talks were from April Conference. I spoke on the talk given by Sis. Vicki Matsumori entitled "A Lesson from the Book of Mormon" and Rick's talk was by Elder Russel M Nelson "Repentance and Conversion". So that is about all that has happened inour life this past month. As we look forward to a new month the Norris family will be leaving the Netherlands for 2 weeks to go vacation in sunny southern Alberta. Or so I heard that it was sunny there. A full report of the festivities will be given when we return. Thanks for listening, or reading or whatever it is that you are doing at this moment in time.