12 September is the date

We are now ready for the big trip. All the odds and ends have been sown up and we are both getting excited as the days go by. We have not packed yet but know what we will put in the suitcases.

The train ride early in the morning will be the start of a very long day. Thank god that our first hotel is close by so we can relax for the start.

We both got into looking what we want to see and we will both continue to look become we have not planned to the end. There is so much to see that we will miss a lot, but we can travel there again.

I will do my best to stay calm and look before I drive so we do not lose time driving in the wrong direction, which I seem to be very good at.

We both aare looking forward to the breakfast donuts, the drive, the first stop for 2 eggs over easy and hash browns.

The celebration as we have read will be a lot of fun and will be active and inspired.
Of course will will have a lot of pictures and stories to tell.

Til we land in the states
Bye from BRI

Fast Life Changes

After I talked to Drachenfänger, I had to think back on our life and how it changed so drastically a few times. Hard financial times in the US. Job losses and often not knowing where the next Dollar came from. How it felt for Bri having to tell bram once more that a job was lost. The awful job at Howard Johnsons where they used bri to the brim (74 hours a week for peanuts and the insurance business (just to hold the family over water till something else occured). Finally the close of the nightshift after bri finished college. Jobs for graduates were paid so lousy that a family of 4 could not have lived from. Bram looked for jobs but the pay would just have covered the babysitter. Finally the decision to go Germany. Both found a job - good ones - but the price was high. The kids ripped out of their regular life. Trying to find a home, living with relatives for 6 months. Oh, we had help, but also for a price. Our (especially brams emotional) freedom was sharply reduced. After 10 years our marriage was on the verge of collapsing. It took us quite a few years to find our peace. 17 years ago, we made another decision. It also cut into our lifes.

But with all the big and small decisions, we always grew, changed attitude and outlook on life and - hopefully - grew more tolerant concerning our immedate and larger surroundings.

Drachenfänger, you once told me that parents are there for giving advice. Here is one from me:
Your approach to the kids: 1. Be sure in your heart that your decision was right and necessary for your own development and that you had the RIGHT to act accordingly.
2. Give them the straight facts why it didnt work and that you also had the RIGHT to reverse your decision. 3. Teach them that decisions, even if they dont always work out, dont need to be classified as mistake but are challenges in life and that without them you really dont have a life.
You are teaching them that you are responsible toward your family but they also have to learn that you have to take the same kind of responsibilty for yourself. This might help them to discover (maybe not right at this moment) that they have to take responsibilty for their own action and later life. Dont worry too much - we all survived our own parents somehow, right?
Love - Bram