Three new weeks of fun!

Soccer season is over, but we still have our soccer period in school. So coach decided to play soccer tennis. Instead of using a tennis racket, you just play with your feet. It is really hard, but also fun! (even though it rained super hard and we all had soaking wet hair in our next class period…).
After school, I went prom dress shopping again with Mathilde and Gaia. I had a good feeling about finding a dress that day, and we found a dress for me! The best thing is that it was only $11 (?!) Never thought I would find such a cheap, but nice prom dress haha.
It was Rachel’s birthday so Mathilde and I wanted to bake the Danish cinnamon cake for her. We barely started mixing the ingredients when I burned myself on the coffee machine... It was an ugly wound, but it’s all healed now :)

That Thursday was Rachel’s birthday party. We had hamburgers for dinner and then we went to Panic Room with Gaia, Rachel, Austin, Josh, Mathilde and the Rachel and Austin’s dad. Panic Room is a place where they put you in a room and then you have to figure out a lot of different locks and codes to get out of the room. We were ‘trapped’ in a ski hut and we had to escape before the snow storm would hit our ski hut. We made it!!! You have an hour to escape and we escaped with 15:05 minutes left!! After the Panic room we went to the Hills house again and Sarah-Joy was there too. We watched the movie ‘Patriots day’. It is the movie about the Boston Marathon bombing. The movie was really good but also really sad, because it actually happened.
Friday was Good Friday, which means no school! Another attempt to find a prom dress for Mathilde failed... Mom dropped Mathilde, Gaia and me off at City Center, but we didn’t find anything. We did spend money on crêpes though (that is the reason why we get fat in America, we keep buying food).
Mathilde and I made dinner for the family that evening, Frikadeller (Danish meatballs) with veggies and pasta.
Saturday was just a relaxed day before Easter. We got a dishwasher that day yaaaasss!!! The dishwasher broke right when we arrived in October, so we’ve been washing dishes ourselves since it broke… But now we don’t have to do that anymore :) Mathilde and I also baked another cinnamon cake for Easter (didn’t burn myself this time #goodjobmarit)

On Sunday we went to church again. It was of course all about Easter and everybody had to drink the blood (grape juice) and flesh (bread) of God again…. I don’t do that though. The fact that these people eat and drink grape juice and bread to symbolize Gods blood and flesh freaks me out lol.
The family came around 3 pm and we had Easter linner! (lunch/dinner) We also did egg hunting in the backyard! Since you can’t really hide chocolate here in Houston, because it melts, they do something else. Everybody gets their own color of 8 plastic eggs. Then they put candy in the eggs and then everybody has so find their own color :) It was a lot of fun!!

Just a short story in the middle of this blog: I still remember telling my family and friends back home that I wouldn’t see rain for whole year (I thought it never rained in Texas and that it was like a desert with no trees #stereotype…) I was so wrong. It is raining season here now and once it rains, it rains a loooot. The weird thing is that it’s still 25 degrees Celsius even though it rains haha. Ok that was my story, let’s move on.

After a normal school I went home with Gaia to hang out and then we watched Austin’s lacrosse game. (we should have that sport in The Netherlands) This was one of the first games they actually won so that was great!
On Wednesday I went to Katy Mills Mall with mom, Stephanie and Mathilde to find a prom dress for Mathilde and shoes for me, but we were again not successful…..
Thursday was a great day, because we went to the Westside Inertia concert with Mathilde, Gaia and Rachel. It is a concert of the dance team of our school and they were super good. They’ve won a lot of prices and did competition outside of the US! The dances were great and there were special dances from the seniors of course :)

Fridays are always the best days at Westside, because we don’t have to wear uniforms whoop whoop! After school, Mathilde and I watched Sarah-Joy’s softball game. They played against Chavez and it was a nice game, they won 11-9!
On Saturday we had our last YFU orientation…. There were only 7 people, but it was a lot of fun with them. We talked a lot about how it is going to be when the end of this year comes closer and it’s crazy, because time is flying by now…. We had pizza for lunch there and it’s always nice to share stories with other exchange students :) We also got our YFU exchange student certificate that we officially made it through the year!! (we still have some time left to screw it up, but that’s fine haha) Back home, Mathilde and I tried different hair and make-up styles for prom and it was hilarious haha. We’re just not made to dress up like that and wear a lot of make-up, but we had fun ;)
On Sunday I did some homework and in the afternoon, Larry dropped me off in Katy. A lot of my other exchange student friends live here so we hang out for the day :) We walked a loooot through Katy and it was a beautiful day. It was nice to see them again!

The good thing about soccer season being over, is that coach doesn’t let us run anymore haha. Now we can just walk on the track and talk about stuff while the sun is shining nice and bright :) Mom, Mathilde and I went to a whole different mall to find a prom dress for Mathilde and we finally found one!!!! (just in time, because prom was in 5 days when we found it lol)

Last Tuesday, the soccer team was just chilling in the locker room. One girl from my team was straightening here hair when the fire alarm went off. We all thought it was because of the hair straightener, but it was just a fire drill hahaha. It was super funny when we realized it was just a fire drill.
When I got home, I changed in some nice clothes because that night was my soccer banquet! It is basically a night to recognize everybody from the team (including the managers and coach) and people win awards. Mom and Mathilde were there too :) We first ate dinner at school all together, and then coach started talking. We love Coach Brown, but his speeches are so long haha. There were a lot of different awards such as best defender, best midfielder, best forward, best student-athlete, new comer of the year, most dedicated, coaches’ award, most valuable player and awards from the district we played in. I got the award for New Comer of the Year award and one award from the district. I was part of the 2nd team all-district. In our district they make teams for the best players. Obviously if you’re in the 1st team, you’re together with the best players of the district and 2nd team is the best after that and then 3rd team. I was honored and super happy :) I also earned my letter jacket (the big American jackets with leathered sleeves, and I love it, it’s so American!), because I played in the Varsity team and it was an amazing night! We had also made a video for coach where every player talks about the appreciation for him. It was super sweet, because Coach Brown didn’t know we had done that for him and so he cried. The athletic teams here are so much more different than in The Netherlands, because we all go to school together here and see each other every day. That’s also why it is so hard for the seniors to leave, because they’ve been in the team for 4 years and everybody knows each other. It was great to be a part of this and I will forever be thankful that Coach Brown let me join this team :)

Wednesday was shoe shopping day for prom and Mathilde and I surprisingly both found shoes that day :) We only had to go to one store, instead of 8736 different ones like we did for our dresses.
Thursday was the softball play-off game. Unfortunately it didn’t last long… Westside lost 10-0 before the 7th inning, which means they already lost :( It was nice to watch and support though.
On Friday I had substitutes for 3 different class, so I didn’t do anything haha. Also, I got a lesson from my friend, in how African American girls have such beautiful hair, since we have a lot of African-Americans in my school haha :) It’s called weaves and it is a lot of work to put in your hair…. I never knew that because my hair is so easy haha I can do everything with it. Those weave things are also super expensive… How happy I am with my easy blond hair ;) Coach Maguire, my economics teacher, was awarded for most-valuable-teacher in East 2! (The school is divided in different halls, East 1, East 2, South 1, South 2, North 1, and North 2. There is no west-side even though the school is called Westside?? I have no clue why… Anyway, it was nice that he got that award, because he is one of the nicest teachers at Westside in my opinion!

Yesterday, Saturday, was prom day yaaasss!!!! Mathilde and I did our own nails in the morning and just hang out, because yeah what else can you do? At 2 pm I went to the hair dresser to get my hair done. It was super nice, but she put so many hair pins and hairspray in my hair that my hair didn’t move the rest of the night haha (which was a good thing) When I came back, I put on make-up, my dress and shoes and we were ready to go. Mom brought us to the Hills house where we met with Gaia, Rachel, Austin, Hope, Sarah-Joy, Josh and Andrew (Rachel and Austin’s older brother) Because the weather was so bad, we went to a building and took pictures inside. It was a nice building so it was good that we took our pictures there :) All the parents were there and it was a lot of fun. After the pictures, the parents left and we went to ‘The Devine Affair’ to go out for dinner. It was an Italian restaurant and it was amazing. All the people there looked at us because we were all dressed up nicely haha. On our way to the Museum of Natural Science (which was our prom location) we had a pre-party in the car! It was funny, because when we arrived at the museum there were cars everywhere in the garage and in The Netherlands when there is a party, there are just bikes everywhere ;)
The party was literally in the museum and it was super cool, because we were surrounded by dinosaurs and other skeletons. I’m already tall compared to the seniors in my school, but with these heels, I could look over the whole crowd haha, that was nice for once. Of course they announced who were Prom King and Prom Queen of the class of 2017 and I had the best time! We danced and had fun until 11:30, because we had to go home and change in different clothes for the after party. I could finally take of my heels and wear jeans instead of dress and it felt great haha. Around 1 am we went to Dave&Buster’s. This was the location of the after party. It was a BIG game hall with music and a lot of food. There was bowling and pool upstairs and downstairs was the arcade. All those game machines and machines where you could win teddy bears and stuff. To play all the games we got a card with points that would start the game. We did almost every game in the hall and it was great! We also got some tickets, where we wrote on our names. Then we put the tickets in different baskets for different prices. Throughout the night the staff picked random names out of the baskets and that person then had won that price! There were absolutely crazy prices to win. There were TV’s, laptops, iPads, speakers, a printer, gift cards from all different stores with a lot of money….(!) They also had 24 different students who could win $50 cash!
I won one of those $50 cash and a gift card bag worth $200……. It was $50 for Amazon, $50 for Starbucks, $50 for Chick-Fil-A and $50 for Visa…. I’m not broke anymore guys whoohoo! The after party was until 5 am and I was home and fell asleep around 6 am… We partied for almost 12 hours and it went by so fast….. This ‘morning’ I woke up at 2:30 pm and I’m still after after after after partying in my head haha. This was a night to never forget!! :)