Well, not us personally, but our dog bowl is. The issue of People magazine that hit newsstands today (cover date December 15th) has a two-page spread starting on page 124 about Barack Obama collectibles titled Obamarama. One of the 10 things shown is our Poodles for Obama Dog Bowl from our democratic CafePress store Leftique. There’s a picture of our design with the text “A Dutch expat who couldn’t vote cocreated a dish to show support – 25 breeds available”. That Dutch expat they’re talking about is me! 🙂

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Today was Black Friday and many stores were open very early with special sales. Some even as early as 4 o’clock! When we got up at 5:00 we turned on the news and they were already showing helicopter views of huge lines of people in front of stores and malls. Roads around big malls like Woodfield and Gurnee Mills were already jammed. Some Best Buy’s in the Chicagoland area had people camping out in front of their doors from 3pm in the afternoon the day before! Big stores like Best Buy and Target often have so-called ‘doorbusters’, which are things like laptops and big TV’s that are very cheap but they only have a few in each store. So people want to be the first in and grab these things. More »

Last Sunday we drove up to Eagle, southwest of Milwaukee, and visited Old World Wisconsin, an open air museum with more than 60 historic structures from the 1800s. The buildings range from ethnic farmsteads with furnished houses and rural outbuildings, to a crossroads village with its traditional small-town institutions.

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Yesterday we drove up to Horicon National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin. The weather was beautiful again. It’s around 77^oF / 25^oC these days. Horicon Marsh is the site of both a national and state wildlife refuge. The extinct glacial lake is the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States. The refuges are known for their many species of birds. Millions of waterfowl migrate through the marsh. Here are some photos of our visit.

Horicon National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center

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This morning our beloved cat Alex died at the age of 14 from kidney failure. Here are some pictures of Alex from the last 8 years that she lived with us, in Rotterdam, Leiden and the last two weeks here in Deerfield. May she rest in peace. 🙁

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Today we moved our couch, a cabinet, Amy’s bike and some other things to our family in Roosendaal. Our house is getting pretty empty now, and we just have some essential furniture left. We rented this small truck at Bo-rent to move the stuff:

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Next week we’ll be moving from Leiden in the Netherlands to the USA. We’ve lived here in Leiden for the last 6 years and really enjoyed this old charming town. Here are some of our pictures of Leiden.

This is Oude Vest looking at the harbour, about 5 minutes walking from our house. We pass this every time we walk to the center of town. There are a lot of canals like this in Leiden, lined with boats.

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Four years ago today, on 11 September 2004, we were in beautiful Estes Park, Colorado, and saw the annual parade of the The Long Peak Scottish/Irish Highland Festival. We saw the parade of Clans & Tartans as well as the Grand March of the Dogs of the British Isles. Here are some photos of that day:

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After sending off our boxes yesterday we heard back from Worldwide Baggage Services today about the costs and schedule. The costs are pretty close to what we had already calculated on their website, which is great. This is the only company that we could find where you could just fill in details about your shipment and destination online and instantly get a quote. Good stuff. Our things will be transported on the ship on the photo below (this actual ship!). It will leave in about two weeks and then arrive in Chicago two weeks later:

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