Houston from the plane ...

This post is of course waaaayyy overdue, but here you have it!
A lot has happened in the last 2 months. We went to Europe for 7 weeks, came back (already for 3), and we moved to a different location, so I've got a lot of ground to cover!
To not make you fall asleep of boredom, I've compromised everything a little, pictures as well as the story, so I hope I've not left too much out altogether. Here we go!

Since we're always tight on funds, I'd usually go back home by myself over the recent years, but when we realized that James hadn't been there in 11 years (!), we figured it was time for both of us to go this time around.
That, and the fact that my mother pitched in for my ticket, and my aunt and niece for nearly half of James'! How awesome is that?!

The two of us leaving caused a lot more plotting and planning than usual, (pet-sitter, truck and RV storage), but the day finally arrived!

Since James was all done with his current job, we decided to leave Hammond 2 days earlier than planned and set up at the Farr equestrian Park in Baton Rouge, at a nice site overlooking an equestrian center with some pretty meadows and horses.






We dropped off Merlin at our cat-sitter Trudy and her daughter Elisabeth, whom we had found through Craigslist, and had met already a couple of weeks ago for a meet and greet.
For the next  couple of days, we drove over in the mornings and evenings to to their home, to teach them how to test Merlin and shoot his insulin.

The weather was beautiful so we also did some golfing at two very nice city parks, and just took it easy for a few days.

At one of the parks, a bunch of guys played cricket. Definitely a first for us, I thought that kind of activity was extinct!

 

We took a stroll through the 'Bluebonnet Swamp', a pretty little city swamp that was saved from being totally wiped out and build up during the building frenzy of the last couple of years.

No alligators here, and because it was the middle of the day not too much wildlife was stirring at all, but we met a few tiny lizards and turtles and as always, there were birds ...

     

                             White Ibis (left) and Cattle Egret

This Little Blue Heron (I think) hang out in front of us on the fence around the meadow ... pretty little dude!

It was tough to leave our precious boy behind, but we felt he was in good hands, so on Sunday we drove to Egan, 140 miles to the west to the Cajun Haven RV Park..

Although we'd planned to store the RV a little further down the road in Lake St Charles, we realized that we probably might as well leave it there in Egan, if they had space to do so. Turned out they did, and for pretty cheap too!

So the next morning we left for Houston, after filling up the gas tanks and setting up the little solar panel we had acquired, in the hope to keep the fridge running while we were gone (little did we know!).

We arrived in Houston around 1 pm and played some golf at the nearby municipal course, until we met with James' cousin Cheri at her house in Galveston, the southern part of Houston, where we stayed for the next 2 nights and days.

We went for a drive to Galveston, a nice little beach town, just an hour south of Houston.

            

Pretty summer houses line parts of the long, wide beaches and several 'pleasure' piers are jutting out into the ocean ...

You can pay for your parking by phone ?!

                          

It was a beautiful day, although windy, and lots of pelicans soared overhead ...

Well, time for us to 'soar' too ... although we had to use one of United's planes to do so.
Fortunately the weather was fine (Houston has it's share of big bad thunderstorms in the summer) and the rest of the 9 hour flight was also rather uneventful.

The yellow in the pictures are actually some late tulip fields near Amsterdam, as seen from our window during landing ...

As planned, I applied immediately after landing at Schiphol for a new passport at a recently opened counter of the city of Hoofddorp, established especially for people who live abroad (previously I'd had to go to The Hague for that). Cool beans!
Right after that we took the train north to Den Helder, where we were welcomed by my entire family who seemed to be happy to see us .... (so far ...).



We went for a celebratory dinner to the Italian restaurant that, as long as I remember, we always visit when we have anything to celebrate, Costa Smeralda.
For the next 7 weeks we stayed at my Mom's 3d story apartment, which is right in the middle of town, on top of James favorite store the HEMA, and from which you have a great view over the city.

OK, first things first (right?), we checked out the local golf course and ended up buying a few 10-round (9 hole) passes over the next weeks.

It's a nice little course, and we enjoyed playing 9 holes together in the evenings. James had fun with the men's 'league' on Monday and Wednesday mornings, they even made him an 'honorary member' in the end!

                                       

But one of the main reasons to go to Holland for 7 weeks this time, instead of the usual 3-4, was to help my Mom spruce up the new garden-plot and 'house' she bought recently. 

Most of the cleaning up and tearing down of the badly overgrown grounds and neglected little cabin had already been done by my sister and nieces in the weeks prior to us arriving.

Now it was time to re-landscape, renovate and paint!
So, the front door got glass:

    

... one of the windows was repaired and the other taken out entirely and replaced by a much larger one!

James did a lot of re-paving:

While my sister Monique and myself successfully put together a little IKEA cabinet!

And than we did a LOT of painting!

I didn't take any pictures while working on it (I know, shame on me) but the end result was just beautiful ...we even put carpet inside!

                                 

We re-designed (and added to) the grass area, put up a trellis and also happened to pick up a discarded little pond that was just the perfect size for one of the borders next to the little patio area ...

In the meantime we battled some serious weeds in the borders and between the pavers, that kept on growing as soon as we turned our backs ...

After most of the work in the garden was done, we worked on a project my sister needed some help with. She has a corner row-house, and the outside wall of what was going to be her 'new' bedroom needed some insulation before winter.

So, James put up Styrofoam and new drywall, eliminating the little window in that wall altogether, painted the ceilings and prepped the walls for new paint as well.
Another project done!

OK, so far about the ‘working’ part of this trip but of course we had some badly needed R&R too.  Since this post is getting a little on the long side, I’ll start a new one and will talk a little about what we did for ‘fun’ (although we really enjoyed the ‘creative’ part too).

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