First time for Bas in America

Here I am snuggling back into life in my beloved city Amsterdam. We have had an exciting, thrilling, relaxing, interesting, and enjoyable two months away from "normal" life at the base now. I know not all of you are aware of what transpired over those two months so I will attempt to give you a short but entertaining rendition:

After our absolutely perfect wedding day on 9 April, we had a few nights in our new little home in Amsterdam. A friend of ours loaned his car for us to use and we drove to our honeymoon destination=southern Switzerland. After driving 10 hours through amazing scenery (I recommend anyone to drive through Switzerland), we arrived at our quaint little villa the Casa Flora. We spent three weeks in the Casa Flora which is situated in the Alps and overlooks a lake and valley. I will just say that those three weeks were everything that a honeymoon should be!

We had a great idea on our drive back home to try to visit as many countries as possible. So we started in Switzerland then drove through Lichtenstein (great place to get your false teeth from...they're the world's largest exporters of dentures! Who knew?), Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium before arriving back in The Netherlands. The drive home took us much longer than going, so we came up with the brilliant idea of saving money and just sleeping in the car. Uhh, not a brilliant idea. We were cold all night and could not get comfortable. I was so cold that I was curled up on the front seat in the fetal position with gloves, sweaters, scarves, shoes, blankets, and anything else I could think of bundled around me and even covering my head yet I shivered the whole night long.
I don't regret our trip back one bit, but I think next time we may want to seriously consider shelling out the 70 euros...even if only for a short nights rest.

Back in Amsterdam, we had a relaxing 6 days of sunbathing, fishing in the canal in front of our house, hanging out with the neighbors, and barbequeing with friends before we flew off to America.
This was Bas' first trip to America and I was really anticipating to see how he would experience it all. I think the hugeness of it struck him like a wrecking ball since his first place to visit was Costco! He was amazed by all the free food samples and gleefully zipped about to each sample station. It was quite amusing for me during the whole trip to observe him being "baptized" into our food culture. He did enjoy many things and some of his favorites were: frosted mini wheats, Uno's pizza, Dr. Pepper, cheese crackers, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, macaroni and cheese, and many varieties of chips. He also loved the cheap coffee prices.

We had a really great time in America and want to thank all of you who were able to come to our Blessing ceremony in Kansas City. We truly felt blessed and even a little overwhelmed by the generosity of you all.
And thanks to all of you that we were able to see and spend time with during our stay. You helped make our trip wonderful.

We love you all!
Michelle and Bas Rijksen