Holland - Keukenhof gardens, wooden shoes and fresh dutch cheese

Early Wednesday morning, at about 1:30am Justin dropped me off in Kaiserslautern at a tour bus so I could take off to Holland for the day. Normally my husband would just LOVE to spend all day at a tulip garden but alas he claimed he just had to work... I was one of the last people on the bus and since the tour was full I didn't get to choose my seat. Fortunately, I ended up next to a lovely 67 year old Puerto Rico lady who was also traveling solo. As soon as the bus started my Dramamine kicked in and I passed out. Next thing I know I wake up and we had arrived in Holland at a hotel where according to my tour guide we were treated to a "traditional dutch breakfast". Basically it was like any other continental breakfast at a nice hotel but what do I know...

After eating we headed over to a local farm right outside of Amsterdam. The farm is famous for home made dutch wooden shoes as well as their delicious flavorful cheese. We piled into the small room for a quick demonstration in shoe making and in about 10 minutes the shoe maker had carved up a perfect shoe! 

Wooden clog demonstration

Cheese Making

We then followed a narrow hallway into the room where they make all of the cheese. The farmer's wife gave us the quick run down of cheese making and then led us into another part of the farm so we could taste all of the different cheeses! They had an entire wall, floor to ceiling of different cheese wheels. Each delicious cheese wheel is sealed in paraffin wax and will last for years. I ended up buying two different wheels, one was made with whiskey and the other was named "Farmers Flame". The Farmers Flame cheese came about because the dutch farm owner married a girl from San Antonio. She always talked about how much she missed good tex-mex so he designed a cheese with jalapeños and chilies. It was AMAZING! Plus is reminded me of good old Texas... 

Our next stop was to finally see the famous Keukenhof gardens. Acres upon acres of perfectly groomed flower displays. Multiple building filled with orchid and tulip displays as well as a giant wind mill which you were able to climb up in order to get an arial view of the tulip fields. Since the weather has been so bad lately the gardens were about three weeks behind of their normal blooming schedule but there was still plenty of flowers to see. 

A couple of hours spent strolling through the gardens in the perfect weather was just what I needed to relax and think about our future. You see my wonderful husband had sprung a little news on me right before I left for the trip. It turns out that do to an Army screw up with paperwork (no surprise there) Justin had just been informed that he was on assignment for Ft. Lewis in Washington State starting on December 10th. Wow... Now this was a huge surprise, we were supposed to be in Germany until October 2014. Justin was given the choice to either fix the army screw up or accept that we were moving early. After a lot of talking and some personal reflection we decided the best thing for both of us would be to move to Washington. We both love Germany and if Justin was stationed anywhere else in Germany we would be staying! 

So to all my wonderful friends and family Justin and I will be flying back in late November, spending a little bit of time in Texas before heading up to Washington to start the next chapter of our life! We love all of you guys and are so blessed to have such a great support system. 

Me hanging out with the tulips