My friend, Robyn

There are a lot of anxious thoughts about moving to another country. Poland is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve been to. I’m really looking forward to it and especially how their views and culture differ from ours. I like experiencing new ways of thinking. I am not, however excited about the unknown walls of discouragement and challenges. When I think about how my responses will be, I am reminded of a friend who married a European and is now living in Holland.

I would like to be like her when I grow up and live in Poland. She embraced the history, challenges and language with both hands. You can tell she made an early decision that she was not going to complain (and I haven’t heard her complain ONCE) and you can just tell she had a healthy adjustment. I have heard some stories of times she could have been discouraged, but her stubborn determination pushed her forward.

Robyn,

You have no idea I was planning on writing this, but you deserve all the praise in this post. I am glad to have you in mt life and look forward to spending time together in the soon future. You have embraced the Dutch with both hands and I will take your example when moving to Poland.

alexis

I don’t lie to myself and think moving to Poland will be all roses and stuff. It will be hard, but my friend has, unknowingly, shown herself to me as a role model. On Monday we will be flying to Krakow, Poland and will be staying there 3 weeks. I am challenging myself with embracing the language (and sounding ridiculously stupid) speaking more to people and giving all of undivided attention to the friends who we meet with. We’ll see how it goes, I’ll be updating this while we’ll be there.

peace out

Yes I’m alive

(push F11 to see this full screen!) And I haven’t forgotten you. I have been wanting to post, but being in Seattle, not always around a computer and visiting EVERYONE has been a bit overwhelming. SO I just focused on trying to document it with my little Fuji friend. All in all, I took over 200 pictures. Yikes.

I first want to show you my good friends Ferry and his wife Robyn. They have an adorable little boy, Josiah. They live in Holland and both our families look forward to hanging out more when we’re in Europe.

Robyn and I

Robyn, I just have to say that I count it a huge privilege to have been able to be apart of your life for the past 4 or so years. I am happy to see how much Ferry loves and dote’s on you.  Having our children be friends as they grow up is just the icing on the cake.  I really really look forward to going on holiday’s together as families and having Thanksgivings together too.  ~alexis

After stuffing ourselves at Claim Jumpers-yum

(I love how pale fair skinned Emma and I are)

Emma and Josiah

OK, and now a huge amount of pictures. I took some on Thanksgiving…but that is for another post. You will understand later. hehehe My sister and I woke up at 4:30am and went shopping the day after Thanksgiving. And it was a blast seeing old ladies push their way tot the cashier and get free little gifts that I’ll either throw away soon or give to Goodwill. For this post, it’s of Trav, me and Emma along with my mom and sister Jamie. (Check out her blog here!) We went downtown for black Friday and saw the Christmas tree lighting. It was beautiful, cold, fun, cold, a great memory and cold. At least Emma was all bundled up.

I can't believe I used to live in this amazing city!

Trav and Emma

cute huh 🙂

Me and Travis in heaven

Travis and my mom My mom and sister Jamie

*sigh, I love my sista

'Rawr' says Jamie

Silly girls on the Monorail Jamie taking MILLIONS of pictures

Monorail Station Here it comes

Clean city

Everywhere we went the garbages were full of people’s trash. As ‘duh’ sounding as it is, Seattle-ites keep their city clean! They use their garbages and there isn’t any lying around on the streets. And of course the garbages were filled mostly with Starbucks cups. But hey, it was a cold night and what else would you drink?!

The tree before it was lit The tree after it was lit

Before and after the tree was lit. They even had fireworks after it! They also had choirs to lead the masses in Christmas carols before it was lit.

The best baby ever

Emma is the best toddler baby ever. She didn’t fuss, want out or anything else. She even fell asleep in the stroller. *sigh, my little personal angel.

Wow beautiful My city man

It was a LONG night and so we went home and snuggled in our fleece pj’s  with your pants stuffed into your socks- don’t judge us we were freezing. (my mom and I) and Trav zoned out on his new phone, Jamie was into downloading her picts, Emma was asleep in her room and there was coffee brewing.

Fleece pj's Trav and his phone

I think we went to bed around 11pm. Long black Friday day. But oh so worth it.