Introducing Doctor Owens

Kat here-- having just gone through the intense/scary/exciting business of the dissertation. YAY!
Here are just a few photos of the day for your enjoyment


Walking into the room with the pedel (the sort of master of ceremonies) and my paranimfen (assistants, Simone and Gesche)

Giving my introduction

With my co-supervisor Valentina Dinica and promoter, Hans Bressers

Congratulations from my paranimfen Simone and Gesche

hapjes -- a little snack at the reception thrown by the University following the ceremony

When do you jump from a sinking ship?

This is the question we're asking ourselves lately. Apparently there is not a clear answer. Our dutch house continues to give us a bit of stress and confusion. I have written letters, emails, made phone calls-- and our friends the Grefhorsts have also called and had in-person appointments-- but our bank says they will not let us rent the house. I called last week after talking to some Dutch friends for advice, to try to help the bank understand the gravity of the situation. I explained over and over again that we will not be able to make the mortgage payments in the near future. I am actually surprised that we have been able to pay rent and a mortgage for 8 months. I thought they would have some interest in helping us keep the house. I hoped this would encourage them to let us rent. But they made it very clear that they are not interested.
I was surprised because I thought they would care-- I realize it is a business, but at least I thought they had an interest in helping us avoid forclosure. I found out, however, that the bank does not have any incentive for helping us avoid forclosure. I spoke to a good friend and she told us what we can expect to happen. She said the bank has no real incentive to let us rent. As I have mentioned here previously, it can be a risk-- but of course people do rent in the Netherlands without always taking advantage of the situation. Instead, what will happen is that the bank will take our house after 2 months of failing to pay, then they will sell it for a really low price to get rid of it. So, for example our mortgage is 120,000 euros, they will sell it for about 70,000 euros and bill us for the remaining 50,000 euros. Then we are (naturally) declared bankrupt and they have insurance or whatever to protect them against that balance of 50,000 Euros. We, however, still are obliged to pay this sum-- and it shows up on our records for the rest of time.
I have spent months trying to figure out how to solve this problem. I have tried agencies that help people in trouble-- the ones in the US don't help if the property is foreign, the ones in the Netherlands don't help if you work in another country. I have tried everything with the bank, but it is clear they cannot/will not help. I have spent weeks not sleeping, and generally freaking out about it, but after this weekend I think I am okay with whatever happens, on some level. I think for a while I held on to the belief that if I just showed them how desperately we needed it, they would let us rent. I had to let that dream die this weekend.
Now the big question is when do you jump from a sinking ship? At what point do we just close the door on what is going on there and try to move on/deal with the consequences. Any advice would be appreciated.

With all that sadness we still have some great things to look forward to. I leave on Wednesday to defend my dissertation, and hopefully come home a Doctor. Mike is taking the boys to meet Aunt Madeline and Uncle Bill + boys at the beach, and I think it will be great for them to get away and see some family. We are really excited about being here and starting the Fall. Mike has been accepted to the program in Engineering at the University of Hartford-- his tuition is free b/c of being family of a faculty member. He wants to pursue Architecture, but needs to take some undergraduate math to qualify. We're not sure if he is going to be taking a class this term or not-- it depends on scheduling and his work obligations.

The boys are doing so well. Will has definitely shifted from "baby" to "boy" in the last weeks. he is starting to do some really funny stuff-- things that give us a glimpse of the little personality that is in there. James is also flourishing. His new teachers came by to meet us at home last week. They seem really nice. He continues to crack us up with what he says and does. He has recently started preceding statements with "actually" -- it is pretty cute.

More Birthday and Kat's Big day at the Stamp Convention

We are wrapping up a nice weekend here. The birthday party on Saturday was a LOT of fun. More photos below, including our awesome cake attempt. James was able to recognize Thomas, so we counted it as a success.
I spent this morning at the American Philatelic Society Convention, held at the Hartford Convention Center. We received a flyer in the mail that the stamp show was coming to town so I thought I would go check it out. I enjoyed it immensely-- these guys are way beyond my level of moderate philately, but it is always interesting to hear people talking about something they love. One of the most fascinating booths was a guy who specializes in letters that survived shipwrecks and train wrecks. Very much a niche market, but really interesting to see.

I was without a DOUBT the only woman under forty and over eleven at the convention. Maybe there were more during the earlier days of the event, but I had the distinct feeling that there are few women interested in general. I did hear that the Chinese are the largest growing population of stamp-o-philes in the world. Apparently they were not allowed to collect in the past, and have really gotten into it now that they can. Very interesting day all around.


thomas the chocolate cake engine


birthday crowns, early stage


Willy and his birthday guest, his new bear. We don't have friends, yet-- so we had pretend guests.


James and his birthday guest, his new monkey-- a gift from Corinne, our new babysitter.

Happy Birthdays

Since Kat will be away for Will's, we celebrated both the boys' birthdays today with a nice little party at home.

Family Update

******If you haven't seen it yet-- Mike links below to his other blog where he writes about the barnraising this weekend.




more pics from us at Thomas' day out (above), and the infamous Peter Sam (below)

We have been busy as usual-- for the most part with fun things, occasionally with frustrating things. Despite the help of our dear friends the Grefhorsts in the Netherlands, it looks like the authorities will not let us rent out our house there. It has been vacant for several months, and for sale for a year with few interested parties. We'd hoped to at least break even on the venture, renting for a year while waiting to see if the market improves. Alas, the bank will not let us rent the property-- they claim it is too risky to allow a renter to take residence there, as Dutch law strongly favors the occupant of a place. Hmmm. I get that the law is different, but at the same time it seems strange to assume automatically that our renter would try to break a contract. People do rent in the Netherlands all the time, and it seems to work often enough. But, it is not our decision to make... so we continue to wait for a buyer.

In fun news we are getting things ready for the duo birthday party this weekend. James' birthday is the 15th while Willy turns one at the end of August. Since it will be a family-only party this year (we don't have any kid friends yet) we just want one cake in a 2 week period. James became very upset yesterday when he realized he did not have Peter Sam the train (one of Thomas' many many friends). When we went on our 'day out with Thomas' James was allowed to pick two trains to buy as his birthday gift, and had narrowed it down to three-- peter sam being the odd man out. Finally yesterday, a full 8 days later, James realized he did not have Peter Sam. We tried to explain that we'd never bought him... but it was difficult.

Thankfully earlier that day we received a letter from Grandma Maier with some birthday money. She'd also sent James some 'ice cream' money several weeks before, and together-- this 9$ was enough to get Peter Sam. So, we ordered him together online and James immediately said: "Where is Peter Sam?".

Hmmmmmm.

Then a great long description about how Peter Sam would be making the journey through the mail... blah blah blah... way too much information for an almost three year old. Crisis somewhat averted.

First thing this morning, James came down the stairs and, you guessed it, asked for Peter Sam. He's a minor character for goodness sakes! i don't even think he's in one of our videos. How did he become so important???

I have explained it may be the END of the week at the earliest... it should be an entertaining and question filled week for us all.

Check out the barnraising!

Here.

Sing it with me... "Thomas and his FRIENDS" or We are officially UNCOOL

We went this morning to our family celebration of James birthday (he will be 3 on 15 August). Since we don't plan much of a b-day party here on the actual day-- we will have a cake, but not a big friends-invited shendig at the house, primarily because we just moved here and don't know any other kids yet. It is fortunate that he is not old enough to really realize... it is all the same to him at this stage.
A few weeks ago I looked into railroad/railway museums in CT because I thought it may be fun to take a little train ride for his birthday. Well, who could have guessed that Thomas' Day Out would be in town in Thomaston, CT-- conveniently named, for sure-- but based on the NUMEROUS giant clocks dispersed throughout the town we presume that Thomaston is named for Seth Thomas the clockmaker.
Anywho-- we headed this morning to Thomaston at 7:30 AM-- which I am sorry to say was at least 1.5 hours after we woke up... Willy has dropped the morning nap and is not yet in sync with a good wake-up time. It will happen soon we trust.
About a week ago we told James that today we would be going for a 'special birthday suprise'. We told him it involved Thomas but didn't go into the details. He was pretty excited nevertheless.
The event turned out well considering the potential for major child meltdown/bank-account-draining-commercialization. We signed up for the earliest train (9AM) and it was not overcrowded, hot, or full of fussy kids. It was delightful-- a really fun train trip through the CT countryside-- towns, hillsides, streams and rivers galore. The extremely marketing-savvy folks who run this show then give you a "coloring sheet" on which you should obtain stamps at 4 of the different booths at the event, namely the photo-op with Sir Toppam Hat, the Storytelling center (featuring readings of Thomas books, or playing of DVDs), the coyly named 'imagination station' (where they show you ALL of the different railways they make featuring Thomas), and not surprisingly the "Gift Shop" tent, where you can buy ALL of the items featured in the other tents. Once you get your four stamps you receive a FREE picture frame! But of course by that time you've blown your birthday budget at the Gift Shop.
They also had a live (small) animal tent and the typical fair food booths. The train museum was super cool, and we will definitely visit again with James' grandad Peppy the train enthusiast.

James and Will holding hands on the car ride to Thomaston

James in orange on the right staring intently at Thomas

Tree Frogs!

Mike was mostly interested in the timbers used in the building...

Mom and James enjoying a model-train enthusiast tent

James not really interested in standing still for a photo...

Sir T-Hat

sugar-infused train set-up by James and Mom