Isabella just turned 1 year old, what did that time go by fast. A year ago both her and Michelle were in the hospital, Isabella even had to stay for almost a full month as she was born two months too early. And because she was born so early, she had a bigger risk in going back to the hospital (50% more chance than full-term babies).. but, fortunately she stayed healthy as can be, and she is currently catching up to the full-term babies also.

So yesterday, on August 25, she turned 1 year old, but her birthday was celebrated by the family of Michelle’s side (my family is at the other side of the world, so they couldn’t be here unfortunately) about a week ago as there were some family members (who live on the mainland) visiting Hawaii that week and Michelle’s mother preferred to do it in that week so they could join also. Michelle’s mom arranged a Hawaiian buffet, which was very good, and there were about 50 people, it was really nice.

Here are some pictures of that birthday party:

Of course we have filmed a bit with the birthday cake, but you can find that a bit more down

A week later, on her real birthday, Michelle and I celebrated it again, but a bit smaller than the week before First we were on Skype in the morning with her Dutch grandmother. Great invention, about 8000 miles away from each other and still being able to speak and see each other (and free too haha). After that Isabella went for a nap, and after her nap we had to go to the doctor for a her regular checkup…

Yeah, believe it or not, but they planned that nicely on her birthday at the clinic (and we can move the date, but you can easily wait another month before it is your turn again). The doctors visit isn’t so bad actually, but she also had to get 3 more vaccinations…. and that was very sad, to see her cry on her first birthday ..at the clinic they were able to translate it to “getting your health as a present on your birthday”, but we saw it more as a sadist thing, to get the shots exactly on that date… I guess it is just the way how look to it Oh well, fortunately she didn’t cry too long, she is a pretty tough little girl when it comes down to these things.

After the doctor we bought a cake for her, one that was also completely meant to be hers. If we had some left overs after she was done with it, then we could get some, but it was first meant to be hers… well, we found out what she thought about that hahaha!

Before we gave her the cake, we put together a big present for her, in her play area, which she totally loved (thanks grandma and auntie in the Netherlands), and after that we had the cake.. and yes, we filmed the part of the cake, and we made some pictures as well. So, instead of talking too much, here are first some pictures, and below that a fun video.. have fun

Here is the video:

I know.. it is pretty quiet on our blog lately. I cannot do much about it really because there are not that many things happening, and ok, maybe sometimes there is but sometimes I just don’t feel like writing for all kinds of reasons, plus it is a lot of work to write a piece like this, and to translate it. But don’t worry, no news means good news

I wrote in one of my older posts that we would have a new layout soon. Well, that layout is waiting, but I haven’t had much time to actually implement it into the blog. Mostly I am just too busy as Isabella is becoming a handful nowadays. It might take a while longer haha.

But ok, how are things here? Things are doing welll We cannot complain, nice weather and we go out once in a while, like to the beach for example. Isabella really likes the beach haha. Here are some pictures

Last weekend we also went to the Byodo-In temple at the other side of the island:

I don’t think we have that much new pictures besides these (we have them, of course, but they are a bit older by now and they don’t show anything really new in the sense of the backgrounds and such).

Isabella will have her first birthday later this month, so we surely will have some more pictures by then. There will be (and I am not surprised that this amount will be doubled) about 50 people coming to her birthday, we’re doing a buffet through a catering with some Hawaiian food, yummy We will do this a week before her real birthday because there will be some relatives from the mainland who will be visiting the islands, so they can celebrate along (this was the wish of Michelle’s mother). There goes our small party which we originally wanted haha. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, we will still do something small on her real birthday

Maybe we will go back to Kaneohe later this week as we found out last weekend that they are currently shooting for the Pirates of the Carribean on that side of the island.. who knows, we might see some famous people

For several reasons we rather don’t have Isabella to crawl around the place, one of the reasons is because we’re living on the second floor, and another reason is because she always tries to crawl to the power outlets.. don’t ask me why, but she is attracted to them for some reason

However, we feel her playpen is getting too small for her. She doesn’t have the space that we want to give her, so we had something else in mind, to use a part of our place exclusively for Isabella (besides her bedroom, of course). We started on it today, we cleaned the corner completely, we cleaned it and placed a safety gate.

Unfortunately we’re unable to finish it completely, this because we want to paint a large part of our place on the inside, but we also got a mold problem which has to be solved first as it would be a shame to do things twice (meaning the flooring and walls in some parts will probably have to be redone/rebuild). We want to paint Isabella’s corner in nice colors, but that has to wait as well then. I also miscalculated the floor surface, I thought it would have been less big as it is now, so we couldn’t make the whole floor as we wanted to but instead we have added a few quilts to the floor so she doesn’t have to sit on the hard wooden floor.

This is how it currently looks like:

It looks fun, I think. For now she will have enough space there. If only she would know how to sit up after she falls on her belly or back.. the only thing she does now, when that happens, is to cry because she cannot get up anymore (well, that, or she cries because she just wants to be in my arms (and that can be very tiresome)).

By the way, something different.. Our website will soon get a new look as someone made a new lay-out for us, and I will also update some other things when I implement the new lay-out. It might take a while before it is all finished, Isabella really keeps me busy during the day, but oh well, it is coming

..since the last time I blogged. Time for an update

Nothing much happened, well in my eyes that is. Michelle works four days per week, and so we don’t go out as much as we used to do, and when we do go out, it usually stays with doing groceries and such, I can’t tell you much news about the island. It’s not continuously a holiday, of course

This, however, does not go for the little Isabella. She is growing nicely, and she learns more and more things. Last Tuesday, may 25th, when she turned 9 months, she had an appointment with the doctor for a routine checkup.

I would love to show you an update of the graph which I showed before (the one with the lengths), but I am afraid that will be impossible for now. I am currently working on a new computer, and that one does not have Office installed just yet, plus I (uhoh) lost the old file a little bit.. but ok, here’s the current date, so you get a bit of an impression:

Length: 27.25″ (69.2 cm). She is with this at 40% on the length-for-age percentile, and at about 80-85% with her adjusted age (more about this a bit more down).

Weight: 15lbs 14.3oz (7.2 kg). With her weight is she at 7% on the weight-for-age percentile, and at about 30-35% with her adjusted age.

Head circumference: 17.52″ (44.5 cm). With this she is at 67% on the head circumference-for-age percentile, and with her adjusted age is she at 85%. So she has a bit of a bigger head (can fit a lot of knowledge haha)

A small explanation to the xxx-for-age percentile: Isabella’s length is currently at 40%, and in a simple way this means that 40% of the girls in the United States, of the same age, are smaller than Isabella, and 60% is bigger than her. So she is a bit below average with that. However, the first two years we have to look at the adjusted age, since she was born 2 months early, and when you look at that, she is at 80-85% with her length, far above average of the girls in the United States of 7 months old (full term babies kept growing those two months inside the belly, and Isabella had to do that outside the belly since she was a preemie, she is basically 2 months behind schedule).

Then her weight, you can say that this is a bit low. I agree, but it is still higher than the last time we visited the doctor (even though it is that much higher) so she is gaining. Thing is, we still gave her only 1 normal meal and the rest milk (this mainly because the doctor told us last time that he thought we jumped a bit fast to those meals, and he rather had seen it around 8 months of age), plus she became very active. She is rolling and crawling all over the place (although rolling was backwards for a while, she pushed herself with her arms at first.. but now it became a bit dangerous because she crawls where ever she wants, so we really have to watch her!). The doctor told us to make some changes in her routine, plus that we could let her sleep during the night (we used to wake her up for a bottle at night). This so she burns less fat and gets a bit more inside of her. Her feeding schedule is a bit as follow:

In the morning she gets 4oz (about 120ml) of milk (formula, of course), and rice cereal (made with another 4oz, and again formula). After that she goes back to bed, when she is tired, for an hour, hour and a half, and when she is awake again, she gets another 8oz of milk offered (we will add, and later replace, this with bread when she has her teeth). Since this afternoon she gets (if she is awake, which she often is) a few hours later some fruit juice (special juice for babies. I am thinking to replace this with some fruits now and then, one day fruit, the other juice.. she was able, for the first time, to drink all by herself today), and then she gets her dinner a bit later again (pureed vegetables, meats and such). And then, if she is really awake, she also gets some more milk later on again (as much as she wants but max 8 oz), and when she is sleepy, she goes to bed (usually between 7 and 9 in the evening. It kind of depends what she did that day if she is tired or not), and then she wakes up again the day after around 9, 9.30 and everything starts all over again haha.

Oh my, when I read that back, it is like she really eats and drinks a lot right now haha.. fortunately it isn’t all that bad, the meals are really sizes for a baby, so that’s ok. She also likes it all very much, it doesn’t matter what it is, she is really enjoying it all and when she doesn’t get it fast enough (the dinner foods, for example), she then makes certain moan noises as if she wants to say “hurry up” haha.

Other than this she is very healthy, she had to do some blood work, which didn’t show anything special (she had to cry) and a TB test (they put some fluids under the skin), she almost cried at this one but it didn’t go on, she was really tough in my opinion. And that was also perfectly ok, by the way. They do these tests just as part of the routine check, so they can be there on time if something turns out to be wrong.

By the way, last week, when she sat on my arm when I was outside for a bit with her, and when I had a popsicle in my other hand (one made of real fruits, with vitamin C and without sugars), I gave her a little bit of that popsicle. Well, I had a hard time to keep her off it afterward haha, she really tried everything to lick some more of that popsicle (and when she did, she also did it with a very big tongue haha, that was so cute to see). Her whole chin was green (it was lime, so it was not even that sweet, more like a bit sour.. unbelievable that she enjoyed it so much). I think her teeth might have a part in her enjoyment though. Her gums are a bit swollen, and the doctor also said it wouldn’t take long until her teeth would come through (and you can indeed see a bit in the lower jaw).

Right, I don’t think we have much different things to tell right now. No news is good news, or so they say in the Netherlands (is it the same in English? I actually don’t know). We’re planning to go to the beach at Ala Moana tomorrow, during Memorial Day, because they will float lanterns in the ocean which carry the names of lost loved ones, together with wishes and such (as a remembrance but also to send a wish of peace and happiness across the world from the shores of Hawaii). I am unsure how exactly it will go tomorrow, but I want to be there on time, to get a lantern (or at least be able to put some names on them). If everything goes well, and if we really go (you never know, of course haha), then I will write some more later on this blog.

If you want to know more about the lantern floating event tomorrow, you should check the following website: http://www.lanternfloatinghawaii.com/

Isabella already had her United States passport (otherwise she couldn’t join me to the Netherlands, of course), but since she is also a Dutch citizen (because I hold the Dutch nationality), she can also get a Dutch passport and I thought that she should get one also.

I wrote it a while ago that requesting a passport for the Dutch in foreign countries would not be the easiest thing to do, I was kind of afraid that I would forget something, or that we would have to deal with some bureaucratic mess (especially after importing Flamey into the Netherlands). Fortunately it turned out to be a lot easier than expected.

In the morning of February 15, Isabella and I went to The Hague as this is the only place where we could request a passport for her (foreign consulates and embassies not included, but we have to fly a long way to get there.. the easiest is still to do this while we are in the Netherlands, like now).

Once we arrived in The Hague, we went straight to the city hall and asked for a place where we could make a passport picture for Isabella. Normally this is also possible inside the city hall, but they don’t take pictures of babies as these are much harder to take (according to them), so they told us to go to a photographer at the other side of the street (which turned out to be a cigar store that also made photo’s) who might be able to make the photo. The man who helped us (with an enormous Hague accent) asked me right away if Isabella was half Filipina, that was pretty incredible, not many people can guess this right.

After a short wait of about five to ten minutes, we went back inside the city hall to request the passport for Isabella, and to get her foreign (American) birth certificate registered in the Netherlands (if we ever move to the Netherlands, we wouldn’t have to travel all the way to Hawai’i for a birth certificate, but then we can also request one in the Hague).

Once it was our turn, it turned out things would be much easier than expected at first. I gave them my documents, they entered some information in the computer, they looked for a second if Isabella was really her, and the request for the passport was approved. While she (the city employee) copied the necessary documents I went to pay for the passport, after which I received all originals again. Everything went really smooth.

By the way, these are the documents that I needed:

- Passport photo (we only needed 1)

- Birth certificate with apostille (certified)

- Marriage certificate with apostille (certified) (I didn’t really needed this certificate as the Hawaiian marriage certificate was already entered into the Dutch system, I just brought it with me to be certain)

- A signed approval by the mother (and notarized by a notary public) for the passport (as Michelle was not there)

- Identification of the three of us

- My greencard (to prove my Dutch citizenship (a Dutch passport does not prove you are still a citizen))

I turned this into a expedited request as it normally takes about 10 days to pick the passport up again, and since that was a bit short on time. Now it would only take 3 days. It costs a bit more but it is better to be sure with these things (plus, it is always cheaper than 2 airline tickets of minimal 450 dollar each (not to mention the extra costs) when we had to get this in the US).

I hope things will be just as easy in five years from now, when Isabella and I have to renew our passports, but I am afraid it will take a bit more effort by then as, by then, I will (well, when everything goes according to plan) hold both the Dutch and the US nationality, and then I will have to bring extra documents to prove my Dutch citizenship. That might turn out to be pretty exciting again by then, but fortunately it is a long way from now

On February 9, 2010, Isabella and I went to the Netherlands for a visit of the family. They had never seen Isabella before, and they haven’t seen me either since 2008, so it was about time to do this. Michelle was unable to join us as she lost all her days off when she gave birth to Isabella.

So I went alone with the baby to the Netherlands. I can tell you that I was really nervous because of that trip as you have to travel for almost 24 hours. Will Isabella cry or not? That was my biggest fear, that Isabella would cry her heart out while we were in a plane full of people. Fortunately it wasn’t all that bad.

Michelle’s last cat, Flamey, also joined us on the trip as she was a present to my mother. Michelle has a pretty bad cat allergy and we decided that we should give this cat to my mom instead, so it would end up in a nice home. That was another factor of my worries, of course, will everything go well with that little one? Cats can be really stressed, and this was a pretty long journey.

Our plane would leave from Honolulu towards Los Angeles at 9.40pm, where it would make a short stop in order to fly on to Minneapolis/St. Paul, where we had to board another plane towards Amsterdam.

We arrived way ahead of time at the airport, but there was already a long row of people who had to be checked in. Because of the cat, we also had to line up in that same row (otherwise we would check in online). Once it was our turn, we had to fill in quite some papers and we had to show them the (health)papers of the cat, and we also had to deal with a broken printer (I wanted to get a receipt for bringing the cat, you never know haha).

So we had to wait for quite some time, and at the end of it all, after a short but emotional goodbye (like said, Michelle would stay all alone on Oahu), I had to hurry towards the gate. Once Isabella and I arrived at the gate, it turned out that everyone was waiting for me, everyone else already boarded, and they wanted to depart.. I can tell you, you will feel pretty embarrassed when you get on the plane at that time.

I quickly installed Isabella in her carseat on the seat next to me, and after one of the flight attendants told me that the cat was also safely on board, we were ready to depart.

Isabella remained pretty quiet during take off. I fed her during the take off, to avoid the popping of her ears. However, she did cry when the seatbelts light turned off. What I personally think is that Isabella was way too tired, she had been awake for most of the afternoon before our flight because her grandmother wanted to see her. Anyways, I grabbed her and walked up and down the airplane with her in my arms, and thankfully that calmed her down (I thought it was terrible, first to hold up a complete plane, and then a crying baby on board.. oh oh oh).

Next to me there was a man, and his family (wife and two kids) sat on the other end of the walkway in the same row. When Isabella and I were walking for a bit, the lady asked me if she could hold Isabella, and try to calm her down. I gave Isabella to her and I got some time to get some things done for myself, and Isabella calmed down even more. The man next to me said he would move to a seat more forward in the plane (the plane was pretty empty), so he could get some sleep and I would have more space to get in and out of my seat. I can tell you that this was very nice.

Isabella calmed down after a short while (fortunately) and I put her back in her seat where she slept for the remainder of the flight. With that, I had two seats for myself (and of course the space under the third seat of Isabella, to stretch my legs) and I had a pretty relaxed flight. Like said, Isabella slept for the remainder of the flight and after about 4.5 hours, we arrived in Los Angeles.

I ate some breakfast in Los Angeles, changed Isabella’s diapers, fed her and shortly after that all it was time again to leave towards Minneapolis.

I was curious to see how the flight to Minneapolis would be, especially because I did not know if I had someone next to me or not. Well, it turned out that this flight was even emptier than the flight coming from Honolulu (and Isabella stayed quiet also, she also slept most of that flight). We left at dawn and a few hours later we arrived in a very white, and very cold, Minneapolis.

In Minneapolis we had to wait for a few hours, which turned out to be ok as the Delta employees needed Flamey’s papers again, the vet that took care of her during that stop needed it. Once it was time to get on board again, we got into a very full flight. Because Isabella didn’t cry so much, I didn’t know exactly what I could expect, it could stay like it was but she could also become restless. The flight attendants were immediately sold by her and didn’t want to give her back, but yeah, they had to work so that was bit of bad luck for them haha.

Isabella also remained pretty quiet during the long flight to Amsterdam. A few times she wanted to cry, when she woke up from some noise for example, but a quick reaction helped a lot. After a long flight we arrived in the dark, and light snow, in the Netherlands. There was only one runway open at Schiphol Airport due to snow earlier that night, and since the wind came from our side, we went from left to right during our approach (I could especially see this when we drove home on the freeway, the planes landing at that time were bouncing a lot).

We got off the plane and went towards customs. At the passport check, I went through ‘all passports’, because of Isabella’s US passport (it turned out later we could also take the other line) and apparently I have a Dutch face because they greeted me in plain Dutch haha.

Near the luggage belt, I asked how it would go with Flamey, where I could expect her, and they told me that she would either be brought to the belt, or to the desk where I was at that time. I then went on to the luggage claim to get our suitcases and once I had those, they also brought Flamey’s crate to the desk. The KLM employee (I think she is from KLM as she was dressed in blue) asked on the radio if it was my cat, and they confirmed it but it looked like there was no cat in the crate…

No cat in the crate? How is that possible? They gave me a confirmation in Minneapolis that she was on board of the plane. But what do you think? Flamey got scared during the flight (I can’t blame her, it is really something for such a creature) and she hid herself under the blanket that we put in the crate for her, so it looked as if there was no cat at all. Luckily she was there, and fortunately she looked healthy also.

The comments from the girls at the desk were nice. Such a beautiful baby and beautiful cat, I had to be a very happy man haha. That was nice, I received a lot of compliments about Isabella anyways, that she is so beautiful, and that she was so nicely quiet during the flight and also because I was so brave to go on such a journey alone with a baby and cat.

One of the ladies offered me to walk me towards the exit, because I had so much with me (you could say I brought too much haha), and once we got to the exit, the customs stopped me. If I had all papers for the cat…

I did my homework and had all kinds of papers with me (USDA papers, EU papers, all kinds of certificates and so on) that one could think of. The woman who asked me for the papers took them with her, and together with 4 or 5 people they looked at them. I really got the impression that they did not really know what they were looking at, or that they knew at all what they were doing. A bit later they told me that they had to make a phone call, and after that call she came back to me and said she was impressed, it did not happen often for someone to have all needed papers.

At that point I felt a bit like “nice, I can see that I am back in the Netherlands”. I also noticed, during my wait time at the exit, that the customs only stopped a certain kind of people for a luggage check.. Welcome to the Netherlands…

Once we were cleared and got out, my mother, sister and daughter Larissa were waiting for us, and after an emotional reunion we went towards Breda.

My first impressions of the Netherlands at that time? It was extremely cold and it looked like everyone was mad on the road. Everyone was in a hurry and went from left to right on the freeway. It is possible that me being tired had something to do with it, but at the other hand, we are not that much in a hurry on Hawaii and we drive a lot easier. I finally could see why Michelle was scared to drive in the Netherlands when she visited me in 2007.

Yes, I could really notice that I haven’t been in the Netherlands for some time, I felt a bit like a tourist in my own country.

I would follow up with a bit longer post as I said in yesterdays Twitter message.. And next to that, someone also asked for some explanation of what happened, why we want to sell one of the houses and one of the cars so all of the sudden, so let’s do that for now.

Because it wouldn’t be so nice of me to go too much into details, I will try not to do that (also because it would be just too many details haha). However, in short (ahum) it comes down to the following:

Michelle, Isabella, and myself, currently live in a pretty big house which we share with Michelle’s mother (both Michelle and her mother are owner of this house). And for a long time several things happen now and then, which makes it harder and harder each time to live here in the same house (ok, we do have our own part of the house, completely separated, but still, you’ll get the idea.. if you live in the same house, even though it’s big and separated, to avoid each other gets pretty hard, you still see and hear way too much).

So, Michelle and I decided that it would be better to live somewhere else (and this is actually something we’ve been thinking about for a longer period of time, but we never did anything concrete). We thought about all this for a longer time, to see how we would do it, and about a week ago we decided that it might be best to just sell one of the houses, from which half of the house is being rented, and to buy a better suitable house somewhere else with the profit (a large of the people who live there now can then live in our part of our current house so they don’t have to live on the streets).

Indeed, we could of course also go and live in that house ourselves, but to live with the three of us in a house that has 10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and 4 kitchens, that seems a bit excessive.  We also don’t exactly like the idea of living there while other people rent the other part of the house (you still have the same situation, and a lack of privacy). A new home with three to four bedrooms would be more than enough for us.

So that’s a bit the story of why we have that house for sale.

However, Michelle’s mother is not happy at all that we want to sell that house (to say the least) and that created even more friction (and even more so because she did not hear it from us but from someone in Michelle’s family. We told them about it in trust (or so we thought).. nice.. I’m unsure if that person follows this blog also, but if he does: Thank you very much!! Like we tell your mother about what your wife told us that day… geez, talk about creating family problems..).

So anyways, her mother then said with her angry head that she would not pay for the Toyota Matrix anymore (the car story starts here). Michelle received that car last August as a gift from her mother. The car, and the loan, are both in Michelle’s and my name (because, due to circumstances, her mother could not do this), but she would pay for it. We actually didn’t want a second car at that time as we didn’t really need it, we were just thinking and doubting about it. Nothing more. Of course it is easy to have a second car, but there is no real need for it (I work at home and watch the baby, while Michelle only works 4 nights a week).

You could ask why we sell that car, that a loan is not that high. Well, that’s true, it isn’t that high, but we still have to make a lot of other expenses right now (plus we also have to renew some of the things in the other house if we want to sell it, and that costs money too) and that car is also still a bit of an extra luxury. We could also get rid of my BMW, however, because we did a high down payment, we pay less for the BMW each month than what the Toyota costs (and the time frame is also shorter - 3 years compared to 5 years). The best solution would be to get rid of the Toyota. We wanted to do it like this, so we have the least problems with debts, and that we do not have to break our good creditscore..

But oh well, we hang some papers on the inside of the car, to sell it, and we placed it on the net, and what do you think… Michelle’s mother had to speak to us urgently.. why? Well, she saw that we meant business and all of the sudden she still wanted to pay for the car. Where she gets the money is beyond me, but she wants to pay it of in one time (yeah, the same amount which you’ve seen in my ‘tweet’ earlier).

She also still did not want us to sell the other house (she once gave it to Michelle as a present (you might think that you can do whatever you want with your received gifts?)). No, instead she would go for another mortgage on monday, and make sure we will get the house with that..

Yeah, what to do, what to do… that is, or actually: ‘was’ the question. I have had a long talk with my mother a bit earlier (yep, it’s night for her, so that wasn’t much fun for her I think) but she did help me, I think, to be able to make a decision.. Or at least so that I think to know what we should do.

As far as I can see now, there are a few possibilities:

• We sell the house, and buy a new house somewhere else. Michelle’s mother will be very disappointed, and we will get another fight with her.
• We don’t sell the house, and do what her mother offers us, namely that she gets a mortgage over this house (the one from both Michelle and her mother) and that she buys another house for us with that money.
• We go back to the Netherlands (and still leave her mother disappointed behind as she doesn’t want to lose her daughter, which is also one of the reasons why we live here and not in the Netherlands).
• We go to live in the other house, and then nothing will change much. We will, however, live in a house that is way too big for us, and we don’t want to live with others in the same house.
• We stay where we are now, her mother happy but we will not and it might do an enormous damage to the relationship between Michelle and me.

Nice choices, right? Whatever we will choose, either her mother will be disappointed, or we ourselves will be.

Well, I think it will become the first choice, this because of a number of reasons. One of them is, for example, that we do not want Michelle’s mother to be able to keep having some kind of grip on us by paying a mortgage for us. We cannot afford a mortgage of 2500-3000 dollar a month ourselves (yes, Hawaii is very expensive), and I really doubt her mother can (she also pays for several other things, amongst which 3 other mortgages). And then the most important thing is that we do not want to be depending on her, we want to do these things ourselves. It would not be fair either to let her get such big debts.. and besides, what if she cannot afford it anymore? Then we will still have a problem, and then we still might have to sell the other house?

The other three options are also not very good possibilities. The last one is the least of all as it doesn’t change anything to the situation. Out of those three, going to the Netherlands is still the best.

Bleh, no this is not a fun situation. For now we removed the for sale signs from the car, and put that on hold for now. If her mother really has to pay that one for us, ok, we can live with that. But to accept a house of 600,000 dollar is something else, especially when we just know that she will bring herself into a big pile of debts with that, and even might have to work until the day she dies because of that same debt. She would be better off if she would go retire, or at least would take less of a workload on herself, and not always try to make everybody else happy by giving them all so much money (honestly, she could’ve been rich).

Yeah.. what to do, what to do… sigh.. I couldn’t think of a better title for this piece because it is indeed the question what the best will be.

Oh well, fortunately I can go back to the Netherlands for a few weeks, together with Isabella, so I will see  some change then. However, Michelle does not have enough paid days off due to her pregnancy leave, so I will have to go alone (which is pretty scary, alone with a baby, flying so long), but that will be ok, we know what the tax refund will be this year, so most likely she will receive her holiday a bit later this year.

Like I said before in a tweet: wish us luck

In other words: merry Christmas and a happy new year!

I know, I know, it has been quite a while since I last posted a message, and of course posted some pictures. It is not like I didn’t have anything to tell, but the new thing (about me moving here) is a bit gone and to post things double is a bit odd too. We don’t go out too much lately, also because of the H1N1 (mostly becasue it is a huge risk for Isabella), so we miss a large part of things to tell already.

But ok, the end of the year 2009 is getting closer, so it seemed like a plan to write a new post before the year would be over again (plus I received lots of questions of people as they wanted to see new pictures and such of our little Isabella haha, so yeah, that also had something to do with it).

Isabella is doing well, by the way. She is still a very sweet baby, with the hours between 5PM and 8PM as exception.. I think she doesn’t like the transition from day to night that much, because she can cry quite a bit in those hours. Officially she is a bit colicky (a baby has to cry for at least 3 hours 3 days per week, and 3 months to be classified as a colic baby), which was something we could expect as she was so early (it seems to be one of the complications) but fortunately it is not as bad as you hear sometimes about, it is usually not more than three to four hours and it doesn’t happen every day.. oh well, if that is everything, then it isn’t as bad as it could’ve been

Isabella now weighs a bit more than 10 pounds (over 4.5 kilos), so she gained quite a bit. Thankfully she is healthy, and I have to say that sometimes I was a bit afraid as they say that an early baby, such as Isabella, can easily end up in the hospital during the first year due to all kinds of complications. So we can say that we were very lucky so far

My family can call themselves a bit less lucky, though. At first we would go to the Netherlands during the holidays, because I haven’t been in the Netherlands since I moved here over a year ago, and also because none of them has seen Isabella in real life so far. But the H1N1 has made us decide to delay it until it would be a bit less bad, if Isabella would get infected with that flu, it would be very deadly for her as she is still so young and, well, you don’t want to risk the life of such a young baby.

But ok, enough talk for now, I should post some new photo’s of the little Isabella..

In November we went back to Waimea Falls again, mostly because it rained a few days earlier and we could expect a nice waterfall:

91 years age difference:

Recently I noticed that Isabella was sucking on her thumb for the first time.. I wanted to make a picture of it but unfortunately it never goes the way you want it.. oh well, still made the following photo’s:

And then the last few pictures.. A few days ago an uncle of Michelle came to visit Hawaii. They had not seen him for about 12 years (and then I complain about my one year haha), and of course we made some photo’s:

And that was all again for now. I don’t dare to make a promise about me posting a new message before the end of the year, you’ll always see that something comes up so you can’t do it haha.. It will come.

From a sunny, and warm Hawaii (it is still 85-90 degrees during the day, it is a dry and warm winter) we wish you a Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

Brrr.. it’s cold!

Today is the first time since the summer that I wear long pants because I felt it was a bit cold. The temperature of today? Well, don’t be scared, it was about 80 degrees (26 Celsius) haha! Oh well, it is not so much the temperature which made it colder, but mostly the rain which did that as it has been a pretty rainy day.

Last night I really felt cold though. Well, for the folks back in the Netherlands this probably sounds a bit ridiculous as it was about 74 degrees Fahrenheit (about 23 in Celsius). You might think, what a nice temperature, and I would have agreed with you if it was not for me living here for over six months in 90 degrees or even higher. I have, in other words, gotten used to the warmth. And the fact that I have had a shortage of sleep lately, mostly thanks to our little girl, has probably also something to do with me getting cold a bit faster. And what to think about all the windows and doors that are always open? As soon as there is a breeze, we feel it inside our home. And then there is the form of heat, as soon as it gets over 80 degrees in the Netherlands, then it feels way warmer than it does over here as they have a much warmer (humid) heat.

Oh well, it is not so bad that it gets a bit colder now the ‘winter’ is coming as we are now able to have Isabella more in the livingroom. We didn’t really wanted to do this as it was just too hot for her.

Speaking of Isabella, we went to the lactation today again, and everything was really good. Isabella has been weighed again and her weight was now 6 lbs and 14.5 oz (or 3133 grams). She is perfectly on schedule because if she was born on her normal due date, then she would now be a week old. They also told us today that we did not had to wake her every three hours anymore, but the we could just do it on demand. And Michelle does not have to pump and give extra milk from a bottle after she gave the breast, she can now do it by breastmilk alone. So today a few more milestones have been reached by our little girl

Yep, time flies. Isabella is two months old now (and a day), and the funny thing is that she wasn’t supposed to get born until tomorrow (October 27).. that she is already here, and is in good health, can only be seen as a small miracle.

I know, I know, I didn’t post in a while, and with that I didn’t show anything of Isabella anymore. This is mainly due to my busy schedule nowadays, mostly because of Isabella of course, but also because of some projects that I am working on, and because of that, I didn’t see much time to write something again.

Well, Isabella is, like I said, in good health. She has been to the doctor’s office today for a checkup as she is two months old now. They took her weight (she also gets her weight every week at the lactation nurse, because she was born so early and her weight needs to be closely monitored), and they took her length also. According to this scale (I don’t like this scale, as I will show you in a graph), she is now weighing  6 pounds and 2 ounces (2778 grams), and her length is 19.1 inch (48,5 centimeter). When you compare this to when she was only just born, then this is a big difference as her birth weight was only 2 pounds and 10.9 ounces (1220 grams). Yeah, she seems to be on a roll with her weight. I’ve placed her weights in a graph, by the way:

As you can see, there is an odd gap in that graph. This was the other time that they took her weight at the doctors’ office, and not with the (more secure) scale of the lactation office. Two days after that weight, she was weighed by the lactation nurse, and there she was back in her normal line. So if there is such a difference between those two, then she should actually weigh more right now. But ok, I won’t find out about that until next week.

At the end of this visit, Isabella received 3 injections and a small drink. She had to get a number of vaccinations, against things such as Polio, Diphtheria, Hepatitis B, Rotavirus, and more of these things. The nurse who gave her the shots, warned me that she might cry a lot as these injections seem to hurt badly. But what do you think, there were two small screams, and that was it. The nurse was quite surprised and said that normally all kids seem to cry a lot. I told her that it was possibly because her adventure in the hospital, where she had a lot of shots, and that this might have been a minor thing for her. But oh well, whatever may be the case, I am pretty proud of her that she is so incredibly strong.

Those shots made her pretty drowsy, which they told me that might happen. I don’t really mind that this happened as I now have the time to write a message here haha. She might get some fever, as a side effect of those injections, apparently there is a big possibility. I hope she wont get it, I doubt she’ll like it.

Anyways, I also have to give you guys a few new pictures, so you can see she grew a lot. So here are a few new ones of today:

She is currently pretty drowsy and sleepy, sometimes a bit weepy, so I will make some new pictures somewhere later this week, on which she will be a bit more awake, and a bit less weepy