Keukenhof

Here we are in front of the Den Haag temple in the Netherlands. We took a trip to Amsterdam, which is about 2 1/2 hrs from Brussels with the Pankratz. They needed to look at an apartment for themselves as they're going to be moving up in this area. We had a wonderful day, first driving through the Netherlands for our first time, seeing some windmills, beautiful scenery, little villages with the church spires poking up, but then you'd see, close by, modern, funky architecture buildings mixed together. We stopped for lunch and I found you have to pay (sometimes) to use the restroom! I also found a bakery and bought three different pastries to try later, which we did.
After checking out a couple apartments for them, we headed to Keukenhoff, a very famous 80 acre park of tulips and other flowers. It was pretty incredible - I think the most beautiful garden I have ever seen. We commented on how we felt like we were in the Garden of Eden! We walked around for about 3 hours, sometimes with our umbrellas as it would rain. We dressed warmly and were really comfortable. Rain doesn't stop anyone here. This park is only open for 2 months of the year, so we were so happy that the Pankratz took us here. We kept commenting on how we hope family and friends, when they visit, can see this beautiful park. It also felt so great to have the Pankratz do the driving and just be able to sit back and relax and enjoy everything. I've found that when Loel and I are driving, we are so intent on figuring out where we're going, watching and listening to the GPS, trying to figure out street signs, lights, read street names in a foreign language, etc, that we can't talk or visit at all, or we'll miss our next turnoff!!

I'm not very good at this blogging stuff as I can't make the text fit around the pictures!!! Sorry about that! The last two pictures show the Pankratz - they are the sweetest couple who are training us. Sis Pankratz and I have become great friends - we laugh a lot, she's a great listener, very interested in everything I say, is full of faith. She prays about everything, like even how to make good cookies, and has a recipe she calls "Chocolate Chip cookies from Heaven" that I found on the computer. She said the Lord told her what ingredients to put in. She prays about how to get better from an illness, reads about it online, and then usually does some kind of natural cure that works for her! Currently, she's had a bad cough and read about making a ground up onion mixture so she takes that now and it has really helped! She laughs about her bad breath because of it, but she eats lots of lozenges, etc, that covers it up. She is always complimenting me on how well I'm learning, and is so humble, if I make any suggestions, she says, "Well, that's a great idea, let's do it!" Elder Pankratz is great, too, is so helpful to both of us. He's always making sure we are well taken care of - some of my lights went out in my office, so he went down to the "cave" 16 floors down from our office and got me a lamp and fixed it so it would work so I would have better light until the maintenance people fix my light next week.