Alex had a camp in New Jersey in mid-August, so we were lucky enough to spend some time in the US. Before camp, we met our friends Susan and Greg in New York City. It was stiflingly hot, but we persevered, fueled by friendship, air-conditioning, and the knowledge that eventually the sun would go down. We toured the UN with our friend Jonas, who gave us an amazing insider’s look, and also visited Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History. At the UN with Jo

[Laura again…] It turned out that getting home was a bit of an adventure in itself—because apparently we hadn’t had quite enough adventure yet. By this point, Mike’s leg wasn’t getting worse, but it wasn’t a lot better either. He had been taking sponge baths, with me helping to wash his hair, and we’d been cleaning out his wound once a day. But it felt like it would be good to get him back to a place with a medical system that spoke English—or at least the Dutch approximation

[Laura this time…] Our third and final camp was called Sango. Leaving Kala, we did the reverse of arriving: truck to boat to plane. The pilot told us that the runway near Sango had flooded because of the abundance of rain that year, so we had to land at an airstrip a bit farther away. After a 20-minute flight, we were met by yet another Land Cruiser and headed for Sango, about an hour’s drive away. At this point, Land Cruisers were beginning to feel like our primary mode of t

[Still Mike...] The next day at Kala Camp we broke away from the rest of the group to go do something I'd only dreamt of and didn't find out about until the night before. There is an orphan baby elephant sanctuary that saves the babies and trains up entire surrogate families to be released into the wild once they are old enough to fend for themselves. Yes - you get to go hang out with 20-30 baby elephants … without their mothers! I got so excited when I found out about this

This year Southern Africa experienced one of the heaviest rain seasons in decades. Water starting deep in Angola collects from a rash of tributaries and forms the Kwai River that snakes its way through the Kalahari desert crossing from Angola to Namibia, and ultimately into Botswana where it diffuses into the Okavango Delta. This water never makes it to an ocean - It simply diffuses and evaporates over time. Because of the Kalahari sands, dense Papyrus vegetation and other fa

[Mike again...] We moved from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to Chobe, Botswana along roads. Botswana is very protective of their border, so they restrict cars from entering, and force all people to wash their shoes. Many years ago, they had an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that wiped out much of the country's cattle and wild animal herds. What this meant was that we were driven to the border where we walked on foot through 4 checkpoints before we washed all of the shoes we tr

[Written by Mike] Last summer we had to cancel a trip to Africa so that we could fully close down our California life and commit to our life in Amsterdam (for the next 4 years). We would not miss this trip again! With less than a week to go, we had all the safari gear we would need, SIM cards for South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana, malaria medication and everything else we thought we might need. Since traveling to Southern Africa takes half as long (actually quite a bit les

First of all, yes…it has been very hot here. One day it was over 100°F. Luckily we have air conditioning in three rooms (and Alex’s room is nicely shaded on the ground floor), so we’ve mostly been fine, although the air conditioners have been earning their keep over the past week. Thankfully we’re back down to highs around 75°F now, so everyone, including the electric bill, is much happier. It has been a while since I’ve talked about the Dutch medical system. We recently had

Believe it or not, Alex is going to be in high school next year. As we embark on this journey, we're doing what most US parents are doing at this stage: starting to think about the path to college. At this point, Alex is interested in exploring colleges in both the US and Europe. Because of that, Mike and I are doing what we always do: completely over-researching everything until we have developed strong opinions about systems we knew nothing about three weeks ago. Here are a

We’re in that time of year again in the Netherlands, lots of holidays. Basically, every time you turn around, it’s another long weekend. Alex had a 5-day weekend, so we decided to spend part of it in Berlin. I had been to Berlin in 2004, but neither Mike nor Alex had ever been, so we decided to make an adventure out of it. It’s about a 6-hour drive from Amsterdam, but there is a 5.5-hour train. We hadn’t done a train ride like that before and figured it would be a good experi

Greetings from Europe: where the views are stunning and the gas prices are…character-building. Let’s start with a fun little fact to make those of you in the US feel slightly better about life: yes, your gas is expensive. But over here, it’s practically a luxury item. Right now, regular gas is about €9.80 per gallon. That's euros. When you convert to the (not very strong at the moment) dollar it is ~$11.47. And because Mike is Mike, we of course buy premium, which at one p

For those of you who are interested in how we've updated our yard (called a garden in Europe), here is a video. It includes some pictures of the yard when we moved in and then a quick tour of all of the changes we've made. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/9AX0LRBBPVY BTW - those really are birds chirping. That's not part of the background music.

Big news! Mike’s dad, Denny, is here visiting. He bravely crossed an entire ocean on a cruise to spend a couple of weeks with us. It’s been really great having him here. And, because we are opportunists, Mike and I took advantage of the built-in childcare coverage and escaped for a trip without a 14-year-old in tow. After scanning the map for somewhere warm-ish with decent hiking, we decided on Tenerife. For those unfamiliar (including me until recently), Tenerife is a Span

Apologies for the lag between blogs. I know, I know. My silence was deafening, but this spring has been quiet . So quiet, in fact, that the biggest news is that we are settling into our new house. Alex is conquering the world of extracurricular cross country, which, tragically, involves no actual competitions. So, the drama has been strictly non-competitive, until you look at our home repair list. Which brings me to another cherished aspect of life here: the Dutch Contractor

Now that we’ve been in the Netherlands for about 18 months, I’m starting to notice things that probably wouldn’t have registered if we’d only stayed a year. One of those things is how the Dutch think about brands. Unsurprisingly, Dutch brands are very… Dutch. Which is to say: aggressively straightforward. For example, one of the main hotel chains here is called—brace yourself— Hotel . That’s it. Just Hotel. They do have a toucan logo next to the name so you know it’s their H

Now that we've mostly stopped flinching at phantom New Year's Eve fireworks, it's time for the next dramatic Amsterdam event : snow. ❄️ On average, Amsterdam gets about five days of snow a year, with a grand total of what meteorologists lovingly call “negligible" accumulation (which is Dutch for "it fell, then immediately gave up and became water"). This year, however, is not average. On the 3rd, we got a light dusting. It was the normal amount, but strangely, it didn’t disa

Welcome to the first installment of 2026! We had a great trip to California (and Phoenix and Vegas) and found ourselves back in the Netherlands for New Year’s. You may recall that last year we were in India (for a reminder of our very amusing vow renewal, click here ), so this year marked our first New Year’s in the Netherlands. And… whew…were we unprepared. Our first hint that things might be different came courtesy of our next-door neighbor. When we ran into her she casuall

Happy holidays everyone! We hope you all are enjoying a fun and festive holiday season. A quick update from us. We are now settled back in Amsterdam after a whirlwind summer of selling everything in California and having to find a new place to live in Holland on short notice. Good news - we bought a house, transplanted our cat, received our shipment from California, and are well on our way to redoing the yard in our new house. Alex continues to thrive at the international

A couple of weeks ago, our giant shipment from the US finally arrived. Side note: the shippers clearly mistook our only piece of furniture for a stress-test dummy, because they broke it. Thanks, guys! Anyway, among the truly essential, life-sustaining items we shipped were peanut butter M&Ms. You can find the basic, sensible M&Ms here: regular, peanut, crispy. You can even get the bizarrely terrible peanut butter and jelly ones if you are willing to travel to the UK (seriousl

Let’s take a quick break from the fall sports lineup and our travel blog to revisit our new house; which, for the record, is now officially smarter than we are. In addition to our Arabic-speaking dishwasher (who politely refused to speak English) and the gold bathroom fixtures that are now worth more than Bitcoin, we’re beginning to understand the quirks of our high-tech habitat. Let’s start with a short list of our own personal “Internet of Things”, which, at this point, cou