Now that we’ve been in Amsterdam over a year (more than 14 months, actually!) I thought I’d write a post about how things are going.

When we moved here, it was really exciting and stressful and overwhelming and… all of these BIG feelings, basically. Then I got pregnant IMMEDIATELY and descended into the lovely world of Hyperemesis Gravidarum, so my first summer here was spent missing home and feeling like absolute death every minute of every day.

In a nutshell, last summer was pretty rough. I know that so many people look at this opportunity and think that they would jump at the chance to do something like this, no questions asked; but a move like this, in addition to being amazing and a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing, is also a huge adjustment. There were so many times I wished we could just move back to California and pick up our life where we left off.

Now that we’ve been here a year though, this city is really starting to feel like home. It dawned on me when we were in Barcelona earlier this month — we had been in the city a few days already, and we were picking up some groceries at a local grocery store. I was standing in the frozen section looking for something and overhead a couple standing nearby speaking Dutch. Without even really realizing it, I thought, “That sounds like home.”

You know how when you’re traveling in a foreign country and you haven’t heard the sounds of home in a long time, how something familiar can be suddenly so comforting? I remember traveling around Europe with my sister years ago, and we stumbled across a group of people speaking Spanish with a Mexican accent while we were in Vienna. We both stopped in our tracks for a moment and then turned to each other and said, “Oh, it sounds like home.”

I was so surprised to have had the thought that hearing Dutch sounded like home that I was immediately jolted back to reality and stood there for a second thinking, “Oh my god… What does this mean?”

As you can imagine, KC and I are having an ongoing discussion about what we are going to do when his contract is up next year. We have so many options and possibilities, which is simultaneously amazing and overwhelming.

As much as we miss our families, we both wonder whether the Bay Area is going to be able to provide us with the life that we want. And as much as we love Amsterdam, I wonder whether I’ll ever be ok with raising our kids so far away from our families. As of now, nothing is set in stone, we just continue to go over and over all of the options and pros and cons.

I will tell you though, every time I ride my bike through this city I can’t help but feel like I could stay here forever.