Fall/winter 2010
Trip Start
Dec 01, 2009
1
3
7
Trip End
Ongoing
Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Monday, October 4, 2010
On the verge of 2011, weīll take a quick look back at Fall/winter 2010 in Amsterdam. In a nutshell, everythingīs well and there is still never a dull moment.........
Oleīs health situation is steady and he continues to develop very well. Heīs average on the growth curve and develops in a very normal way. He knows a lot of words already and is walking briskly around the room. He gets antibiotics on a more or less permanent basis and gets other medicine through inhalation twice a day. We are very careful about his hygiene and thatīs the reason heīs not going to kindergarten (where Mats is going since May of this year and where itīs just a bacteria-zoo). Weīre thinking about mid 2011 for Ole to join as well. So far we are super happy with the way itīs going with Ole and hope he will continue to grow like a strong little young boy.......
Mats is also doing well. Heīs developing well and is really enjoying himself at the kindergarten and is making new little friends. Heīs also going through his baby puberty and is a little rebel much of the time. Letīs go to bed: NO. Mats, shall we eat something: NO. Give Ole his toy back: NO. Heīs also a really sweet little boy and obviously we love him to death. Some parts of the day we just have to be patient with him and sometimes weīd like to stick him behind the piano to cool off for an hour or so.
Kat is very happy at her new job. MeyerMonitor (where she started last January) is a small consulting firm in Amsterdam that does īcorporate dialogueī (online surveys in big organisations through a high tech platform to uncover the gap between where a company should be and where they actually are). After almost a year, sheīs really got the hang of it and the company is doing well in the current environment. She does commercial stuff, keeps the team together and presents quarterly results to the supervisory board. And..... she can bike to work, which adds a real quality dimension to life and allows her to be very flexible with regards to the boys.
Arne started his new job at The North Face 4 months ago. It was a tough decision to leave Nike, but the opportunity to be the Sales Director for EMEA for a premium and cool brand like The North Face (www.the northface.eu) was just too enticing. And where do you go skiiing for work? Iīve always loved the outdoors(skiiing, hiking), so this was like a dream come true. I am based in Lugano (SWI) and got a small apartment there. Basically, Iīm commuting from Sunday night to Thursday night and work from home on Friday. In the past few months Iīve taken the opportunity to get to know all the country teams and the most important customers. The North Face has a great position in Europe and we are the no. 1 outdoor brand, altough we only have 6% market share. Even if we would double our revenues and get to 12% share, it would still not comparable to Nike with 25-30%. So there is great opportunity. The culture is very dynamic and there is a big drive to do new things and go further, which is great (I need that.......). The team is really good and so far itīs a lot of fun. Much to do, but thatīs good.
The most difficult thing is not being with Kat and the boys during the week, I do miss them a lot during that time. For that the weekends are all the better. For Kat it is obviously heavier during the week with the two pirates and itīs amazing how she does it. I already had a lot of respect for her, but this has only gotten stronger........
Some people have askes us why we made the decision for me to go and work abroad and be away from the family, especially with the situation with Ole, which requires extra care. We decided to do this, because we felt we would have done the same thing if Ole would not have been sick. And we would like to live our lives from a perspective of trust and not of fear. Itīs possible that it doesnīt work out because Oleīs situation is too difficult to handle, but then we will still have the opportunity to change. And at least we canīt say to ourselves later that we were too afraid to make choices......... And so far, itīs going OK.
We have also renovated the apartment upstairs from April until September. After Ms.de Waart had left the 2nd floor, we decided to join 2nd and 3rd floors and make them into 1 apartment for rent. It has really turned out well and we found a lovely family from the US (Georden, Carlene, Kate and Lea) as new neighbors. Carlene works for Nike, so thatīs very nice.
Arne has started with a project around the New York marathon 2011, called īRun for your sonī. The idea is to get a team of +-20 people together and together raise 100.000 Euro for the Cystic Fibrosis foundation and contribute to the search for a cure for Cystic Fibrosis. So far itīs going well, 20 people are almost on board. Itīs great so many people have reacted so positively to the project, Iīm very grateful for that! Iīm making a website with info + online donation funtionality and have found a few famous athletes prepared to be an ambassador for the project. Doing something very concrete like this somehow works psychologically very well, because you have the feeling that you are taking your faith in your own hands and youīre doing something.
Anyway, we hope you are all well and wish you a very merry xmas and a healthy and good 2011!
