Busy, busy, busy!

So as the title looks I was pretty busy this weekend. I had a ton to do and too little time to do it all! Friday was a "work" day for my CARAT team (the evaluations I was doing on some of the Child Development Centers) which really turned out that one girl finished her work, I did a ton of work and the other 2 didn't really do anything. It's all good though I got the stuff I needed to get done, done. Friday we also went and got new Instelation Passes, which has turned out to be a problem for me. My card doesn't like to scan so I always have to have a second form of ID on me- my driver's license does NOT count- so basically that means I'm carrying around my passport with me everywhere instead of being able to lock it up safely in my room. The rest of Friday was just spent hanging out, doing laundry, and taking naps.

Saturday I left with Alyssa at 1:30 in the morning to head back to the Netherlands (Holland) to see the Tulips. Did you know that it is actually called the Netherlands and Holland is really only 2 states within the country? Northern Holland and Southern Holland- just a little fun fact for you. So we were off at 1:30 in the morning tired as all get out, but we brought pillows and blankets for the 6 hour bus ride and were able to sleep most of the way

to our first stop. BREAKFAST! Now this breakfast was included in our tour price, so we assumed that it was going to be the bread, lunch meat, and cheese that we were used to having on these trips. You know what happens when you assume though! We actually ended up getting a buffet line for breakfast. I had an amazing omlet, bacon, a muffin and orange juice. I wanted milk, but no one knows how to do it the American way. It may have just been that it was thicker milk, or at least that's what it tasted like. The place where we ate breakfast was pretty cool. It looked Japanese or Chinese, something like that and inside was really nice.

After breakfast we got back on the bus to head towards our next desination, a cheese and shoe farm. Again we assumed here. We thought that were were going to go to the same cheese and shoe farm from the week before, heck I would have been ok with that! We all thought the Dutch boy who gave us a shoe demonstration was a little more than ok looking! We didn't go there though... we actually went somewhere else that also does cheese and shoes on the same farm. Crazy thing I learned, there are a lot of farms around Amsterdam that do that.

After enjoying some more cheese, buying more souvieners and watching that machine work with those shoes, we were once again off. This time to a "small" fishing village called Volendam. When we first arrived Alyssa and I were excited to do a lot of shopping, because that's what our tour guide said this stop was for. We were walking around, doing a little shopping with some georgous rays hitting our faces when we stumbled upon the harbor. OH MY GOODNESS it was amazing! There were sailboats everywhere and I don't really know how to describe it. I took a bunch of pictures, but they are nothing like the real thing. I mean it really honestly looked like we were in a movie, but we weren't.

The beautifulness that is Holland didn't stop with the shore. Bring on the tulips! We went to some gardens called the Keukenhof Gardens. It was a beautiful day with beautiful flowers all over. I don't think I would have traded it for anything else.

Sunday continued some tripping from me. I went on a trip called the Rhine River Cruise. I would talk a lot about it, because we did a lot of things, but I didn't really enjoy myself like I should have on this one. I think I was probably too traveled out from the day before. We got back in the barracks around 1:30am where I decided to take a shower before I got into bed. It ended up being about 2 am when I finally passed out and then I had to get up at 6:15am to head out for the Rhine River. Like I said I didn't really like it, so I'm not going to be negative and talk about it.

Now brings us to today, Monday. I am LOVING it. I am back with my kids actually working again. This week is weird too though because all of the kids have spring break. This week is a SAS week, so no preschoolers. I'm ok with that though. I've missed my SAS kids and another positive... it's now 2:37 and I didn't even realize that they day had gone by so fast! Tonight is racquetball and then tomorrow is bowling with the SAS kids.

On a different note, I said something about the day going by fast. Did you realize that it's already April? Close the the middle of April? That means I only have 5 weeks left!! Have I really been here that long? Amazing? Yes. Real? Yes. Believable? Not really. It's been a stressful, glorious, obnoksious, crazy 12 weeks and I'll be sad to see it end...

*******Sorry I wrote this last week and it was never posted********