Au Revoir Geneve!

It is not very often that you can close a chapter of your life with truly bittersweet tears; a heart overflowing with appreciation and gratitude for the opportunity to live in such a beautiful city, yet also filled with giddy anticipation to return home. Our last days in Geneva were graced with beautiful weather, walks through the city, great times with great friends and a 5th grade graduation.  It is hard to answer the question we heard so many times, "So, are you ready to go?"  Yes, of course!  We love and miss the US and all of our family and friends there.  But we also love Geneva and made many wonderful friends and memories.  Every minute of living there was an experience.  The challenges, the school, the trips, the visitors-each made our time in Switzerland a once in a lifetime adventure that we will each treasure.  It was a blessing from beginning to end and we are all so grateful for the privilege of living in a foreign country and sharing in the lives of the people there.   Here are some pictures that show some of the fun things we did the last couple of weeks in Geneva.  What they do not show is how difficult some of the good-byes were.  We miss so much of it already!

Kathryn's last days with her fifth grade buddies.  They were obviously a highly intelligent group:)

Kami with Eliza, her amazing teacher and my friend.

Our farewell bible study lunch.  Are those mimosas??  Yep!  That is how we do it in Geneva!  Such a great group of women who taught me so much this past year!

We all had "filet de peche" (the favorite dish of the region) .

Joshua at the end of the year breakfast with his best buddies, Tolga and Tatyana

5th Grade Graduation

The Speaker:  The World's Most Interesting Man

Proud Parents of their straight A student!

Ms. Darbyshire, Kathryn's teacher

Our last supper in Geneva with good friends!

Hey, Go Big or Go Home!  Actually, we did both:)

Oh, we did.

Pack It Up, Pack It In

Let me begin by saying that we have a great moving crew taking care of getting our things from Geneva to Atlanta!  They have worked hard, are very friendly and doing a super job.

They are loading the last of the boxes as I type.  We had our final dinner from our Geneva kitchen on the patio last night (wait a minute...does this mean I can go back to not cooking???). And yesterday, even the sheep arrived to tell us good bye.

Geof is really going to miss these sheep.


Now we just have to close up our suitcases and head to the hotel for the next week and a half.  But first, Joshua had to scrub his own bathroom because if the cleaning crew were to see it, they surely would notify the Swiss authorities!

Hees Town

Most people go to Amsterdam for, well, a lot of things.  But this weekend, the Voorhees went to Amsterdam to return to the Mother Country!  Yep, we rented a car and drove to the town where the Voorhees ancestors lived before they immigrated to America in 1660.  

It is still farm land, just like it has been for about 1000 years.  We also went to the nearby town, Ruinen, where the church is still standing that the original Voorhees family attended.  They actually had to pay rent for use of the farm land to the church prior to the reformation.  After the reformation, they had to pay the government.  The church then became the Dutch Reformed Church and this is where the family worshipped.  So apparently, our forefathers were Presbyterian.  I am not making this up!!Check the website, www.vanvoorhees.org.

This was a memorial outside the church remembering the Jewish members of the community who were taken and killed by the Nazi's in World War 2.

Speaking of which, we also took a very sobering tour of the Anne Frank House, the home where the Frank family lived and hid before they were discovered by the Nazis and taken to concentration camps where they all, except the father, eventually died.

And here is Jackson, eating traditional "Voorhees" food at the McDonalds where his ancestors actually ate over 400 years ago.  It was delicious.

We did lots of other really fun things in Amsterdam,

Like drink Starbucks

And visited the Van Gogh museum, where there was a bar and live music, of course. 

This is our ship! Can you see the name?

We had a great dinner at the Hard Rock and got to join in the excitement as the city got ready for Holland verses the Danish in the Euro Cup.  Sadly, they lost-but it was fun to see everybody in their orange spirit wear!

We are certainly getting excited about eating American food again!

We certainly enjoyed this beautiful city, but I am a little relieved to say that the next time we get on a plane, it will be headed to the good ole US of A!