The rest of the story.

So, Ive decided to go ahead and just write out the whole story, best I can. I'll eek it out in blog posts as to not overwhelm, but I feel like time is running out and I need to get this all out of my heart.

When we moved to the States, I continued the Dutch habits I'd picked up... and so did my husband. He didn't try to fit into the culture. He is who he is and you take it or leave it. He had the advantage of speaking English quite well (in fact he corrects me at this point). He was also familiar with much of the culture from television.

Utah wasn't my first choice. As I said, I've lived all over. The one constant was my family, and here they were, so here we were. I didn't think too much of it at the time.

We arrived late June 2001. 2 weeks later, he had secured a terrific position at an insurance company as one of their network technicians. He works there to this day, having moved up in position to the top of his field so long as we remain here.

I feel fortunate he was able to secure that posistion as quickly as he did, as not long after were the attacks of September 11, 2001. Many foreigners were turned away for work after that.

September 11 affected all Americans in a very, very deep way. For me, it was something completely surreal. I had been away from the States for 2 years. I wasn't back 2 months when it all changed so drastically, I didn't recognise "home" anymore.

We found a home to rent, and about 6 months later I found I was pregnant again, this time with our daughter. Because the home we were living in had mold and was causing problems for our son, we moved. We rented another home for an additional 6 months while we built up our credit so we could buy a home. In July of 2002, we bought our home.

Our daughter was born a couple months later.