Yes, it's me...

ok, so chris has been telling me that i have to take over the blog for about 2 years now, but I knew that if I just left it, he would do it. He even posted when we got here, but said I need to finally take over, so here I am. picking up where Chris left off, yes, we did go to the grocery store. And yes, he did find some Dr. Pepper, which he was over joyed about until he brought it home and drank it. You should have seen the look on his face. He keeps telling all of us it tastes like toilet water, which we are all dying to know how he knows what toilet water tastes like? I tried it as well, and yes it was nasty, but it tastes like candy mixed with soda water. I think he will wait until we get back to the states to drink another Dr. Pepper. for now, Coke will have to do.
We were able to go into Amsterdam this weekend, which was awesome! we took a canal tour around the city and walked down a couple of streets in the tourest section of town. I have never seen so many people jammed into a tiny street! we have decided to go back this weekend so that we can discover as many places as possible to show everyone when they come out to visit. we also discovered that there is a Hard Rock Cafe near the train station. And the food is 100% American! Lets just say that Chris has decided Hard Rock will be our weekly date night dinner. sounds good to me. Holland is gorgeous and a fun place to be, but the Dutch are definitley not known for their culinary skills. I will have Chris post some pictures as soon as he gets a minute. I guess I haven't let him off the hook completely with the blog :)

Getting the hang of things

It has been 3 days now and I think we are starting to get adjust to the time difference here in Holland. (8 hours ahead of Utah) Yesterday Gentry and I decided that we would be adventurous and we went to the grocery store as well as the gas station all in the same day. First we had to go to the bank and get bank accounts set up which by the way is very difficult here in Holland since the US government doesn’t allow them to give Americans accounts here unless you are going to be here for a long time. Thankfully 2 years is sufficient… After setting up accounts we decided we better get some food for the next few days and took a trip to the grocery store. This was an adventure as the store is very small and as we soon noticed everything is in Dutch. Needless to say we will be translating some items before going next time. The highlight of this trip was I found some Dr. Pepper! I thought I wouldn’t see this wonderful beverage until the next time we flew to the states, but I was pleasantly surprised. Our grocery shopping experience was interesting as we found you have to pay for a cart as well as bags for your groceries. Oh ya you also have to put everything in your bags and bring them with you every time you come to the store. Once we move into our apartment we will be about 3 blocks from the store so Gentry will ride a bike down a couple times a week for grocery shopping. (We will make sure to post a picture of this.) Oh ya you also have to pay for parking wherever you go here which I can tell is going to get both annoying and expensive.

After our trip to the store we had to get some gas which was also a new adventure since my company car is all new to me I didn’t know what kind of gas our what side the tank was on, but we figured it out and oh ya gas is killer expensive here. 1 liter is 4 euros. It cost about $100 to fill up a normal size car like a VW passat…. Good thing we are buying bikes here! Anyway to finish off the day there was a priesthood session for the stake which by the way was most of the country. There were about 50 men and it was all in Dutch so I didn’t get much, but it was nice to meet some of the people in our branch. It is amazing how the church makes the world a smaller place. All in all so far so good! We will keep you up on what is happening today we have to go and get visas and fill out all the paper work so we are legal residents here in Holland. We miss you all and love you thanks for taking some time to read our blog.

The Netherlands!

Gentry and I got on a plane Monday afternoon looked at each other and said "Are we really doing this?" Well...we did it and we are now here living in Amsterdam for the next 2 years. So far everything has been great and worked out perfectly, but there is still a lot to do for visas, bank accounts social security #'s and etc. Hopefully Gentry is going to start using blogger more and you will be hearing from her about this new adventure, but for now we are here and life is good although it was very difficult to say good-bye to everyone at home. We love you and we will see you soon hopefully!

Chris