I thought it might be a good idea to start (or re-start) this blog with a bit of background, specifically our initial foray into parenting. Our story as a family actually began a few years earlier when Paul and I met on a red-eye flight to Chicago (we sat next to each other). We fell in love fairly quickly and married about a year and a half later. A short while after our first anniversary, we learned of a great opportunity to spend 6 months in Belgium so that Paul could pursue an in-depth investigation of a promising material (cobalt salicide) for his semi-conductor industry company. We decided that having a baby in Europe would be a grand adventure and thus embarked on our journey when I was seven months pregnant. I’ll let Paul take it from here…

[written by Paul; edited by Kathy]

Our first two weeks in Belgium- this is kind of long!

I am thinking of distributing an update letter periodically to our friends describing what is new with Paul and Kathy (your friends who moved to Belgium a while ago). Well, we still exist and I am writing you this letter to let you know what is going on as part of our European tour of duty. I am horrible at hand-writing letters, but can type pretty fast; so this is all you’re gonna get from me, probably. Kathy, on the other hand, does not have email yet, so postal mail makes her day. She loves the fact that it arrives at 7:15am. Before I forget, our mailing address in Leuven is St. Jansbergsesteenweg 103, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium phone 32-16-295052, and there is a 9-hour difference. So if you call at 9am California time (Noon on the East Coast), it is 6pm in the evening our time.

The first two weeks have been very challenging for us. We arrived unscathed from San Jose. The flight was long and turbulent, but it was OK. We took a day’s layover in Chicago so we could get some good pizza before rushing off to Europe. While there we visited Winnie the Fu at Northwestern University. He is finishing up his MBA at Kellogg (Is that 2 L’s and 2 G’s? Who cares?) Winston is almost finished and has an awesome job that will bring him back to the Bay Area in August.

Upon arrival we picked up our dog, Reilly, who was a little upset from his flight experience, and grabbed a taxi from Brussels to Leuven. Our Hertz car was waiting for us at three times the quoted value + mileage – par for the course in a foreign country. Hertz had tried to take advantage of the difference in currency. This was corrected a week later by renting directly at the Brussels airport which is 20 minutes away.

Anyway, we piled our junk into the dental and headed off to our apartment. Bottom line, the place is drop-dead gorgeous, much nicer than what we have in Cupertino. It is the entire second floor of a very large house. The house is recessed off the main road and the grounds are very nice. The owner likes wildlife, so he has built a fenced-in “preserve” where he has some deer, chickens, ducks, and a peacock. They also have a fenced-in grassy area out back and a garden in front. The place borders on a small forest. Our kitchen and bathroom look out over the garden. They have two ponds separated by a little bridge, a gazebo, and a path that traverses a beautifully manicured garden of rhododendron, boxwood, roses, etc. and leads to a 20′ high stone monument of some sort at the end of the yard. You really must see it.

The inside is also quite nice. The entry area is larger than the office of our old apartment. The living and dining areas have windows on both sides that provide good morning and evening light. This room is larger than our yard in Cupertino and is decorated with three huge pieces of old and dark wooden furniture (including a dining table for eight) that are in excellent condition. These, coupled with the burnt-orange drapes, big hearth, hardwood floor and wooden chandeliers (complete with candlelights) give this room the feel of a dining hall from the Dark Ages! The kitchen continues this castle-like imagery with a beautiful red-tile floor and lots of wood cabinetry. It is nice to have a large kitchen once again, even if the kitchen sink is rather small. The bathroom and bedrooms deviate from the medieval theme by incorporating some modern designs. The bathroom is nonetheless still beautiful and is huge – with two sinks and a full bathtub. The bedrooms are a little small (about the same size as the one in Cupertino) but as with the rest of the apartment, there is plenty of storage and great natural light!

Our first couple of days were OK. We were introduced to the bureaucracy of the Belgian government when they required some very specific documents for Kathy that we could not produce. We went to the U.S. Embassy for some help, and found out where we had to write to in the U.S. to get “Apostilles”. We now have these Apostilles, thanks to fast work by DHL and the Secretary of State for both Maryland and California. Now, we just have to get them translated into Dutch! The second introduction to the Belgian bureaucracy was the effort required to get our belongings through customs. Letters and faxes were flying between me, IMEC, AMD and the moving company daily. IMEC finally produced a letter in Dutch that made the government happy, and our shipment arrived the next afternoon.

We also introduced ourselves to the country a little. Since we had to run to Brussels, we made a day of it. We explored the Grand Place in Brussels and went to Brugge that afternoon. Kathy, Chuck, Reilly, and I had a great time. Chuck is a friend of mine from Miami (actually Boca Raton) who was already in Europe and met us at our house the day we arrived. He had been in Europe for a few weeks and we were his last stop before heading back to the U.S. Anyway, it was fun to tool around Brugge. It was a day for Reilly, actually. He had a great time. We had already gotten into the habit of taking him everywhere. He went to the grocery store, into the government offices, on walks, and even went to eat with us. Reilly was really enjoying Belgium. While we ate, he would lay down under the table and mind his own business. He had a great doggie day in Brussels and Brugge. He played with other dogs, some kids, and us, he got to run, chase birds and even took a dip in one of the canals. He was quickly adapting to a European lifestyle.

On Thursday, our European trip took a sad turn of events. Most of you know this story, but I will repeat part of it for those who have not heard. Chuck left for Paris that morning and I took Reilly for a walk in the woods. Reilly had taken to chasing rabbits, and we found some woods behind our house to walk him. I guess he chased a rabbit onto a freeway 200 yards away from where I was walking him. I heard the brakes squeal, but silly Paul assumed that the rabbit had been hit, because, as I came out of the woods, Reilly ran all the way back to me. I remember it so clearly. Somehow, on strictly love, he ran all the way back to me from the freeway and buried his head into me, as he always had when he needed my help or was scared or hurt. I picked him up and heard a sigh. In retrospect, this was the moment he died, but it did not dawn on me right away… He died in my arms, where he was always happiest… He never once cried. Just ran all the way back to me, for me to make it better. He just wanted to be with me.

It has been a tremendously tough time for Kathy and I. Emotional rollercoaster is the only way to describe it. It seems like months, but it has been less than two weeks. I am doing OK. Well, not so hot. Wednesday of last week was very tough. We had to go pick up Reilly’s ashes near Antwerp. We also got some pictures developed of our day in Brugge – the day before he died. So I was extremely depressed and sad all day, and so was Kathy. Before this, we had both been up and down, but this was our worse day – we were both down. We started keeping a diary of our feelings toward Reilly. Someday we may throw it away or we may never read it again or we may keep it by our bed. Who knows? But right now it really helps to write things down. Reilly was like our kid and such a part of our lives… He gave us so much love and we gave him so much love. So we are searching for some lessons to learn from this experience. There are few, but we found some. We just want Reilly to be safe and happy, and not waiting for us, because we know that he did not take to others well. He only wanted Kathy and I, and was happiest when we were all together. I miss him.

Well, to change the subject… Chuck returned that Friday. On Saturday we took him to Amsterdam for the day. He left Sunday. Our empty house has been exactly that for the past week. We are trying to keep ourselves busy. In fact, we went to Kaiserslautern last weekend. K-town, as John, my brother-in-law, calls it, is about 1.5 hours southeast of Frankfurt. My sister, Colette, John, and Anthony (my nephew) live there. We had a great weekend with them and their German Shepherd, Chief. My nephew, Anthony, is going through a shy phase which means that Uncle Paul barely exists. Fortunately, he liked Kathy a lot – probably because her breasts are like giant searchlights that just focus his attention. Supposedly, kids can tell when women are pregnant and gravitate to them, but I think it is the boobs. It was a beautiful drive, only four hours from Leuven to Kaiserslautern. We did 140 km/hr most of the way. The town is cute, and the air force base is 20 minutes away. There are something like 20,000 troops there. It is little America – the currency is even dollars. Colette took us on base to the commissary so that we could pick up some essentials that we did not have yet. The prices are really cheap, and it is a store just like you would find in the U.S. – it was really nice. We tooled around K-town most of the weekend, and it was great to get away from our house. On the way back, you could just feel the change in Kathy and I just as the thoughts of Reilly and being alone in the house without him started to come back. We will always have fond memories of Reilly but wish that we still had him.That is all for now.

Next letter – preliminary beer, wine, sex, drugs, pregnancy and work reviews.

[Photo credit: Mila/Veer]