Time flies when you're having fun....
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Marit
18 Januari 2017 | Verenigde Staten, Houston
We didn't have school on Monday after the holidays, so Mathilde, Saskia (the German ex-exchange student from 3 years ago) just played the same board game all day long. It was a lot of fun. We ordered American burgers for dinner that night, they were delicious! On Tuesday I had my first soccer tournament and I was so nervous. I had to be at school around 6 am..... I had to wake up way earlier than a normal school day. But it was worth it, because we played 3 games against other schools and we won all of them with big numbers. The whole team got a big bag with stuff for our games in it. We have a black, white and blue jersey shirt, black shorts, black and white socks and a HUGE jacket for when it gets cold. First I laughed so hard about the big jacket because why would we need them? Come on let's be honest, it's 26 degrees Celsius here even in the winter.
Wednesday was a normal school day, I mean it's never normal but you know... We had to go to our Homeroom first. It's just a classroom where teachers tell you stuff about how you can change your grades and blablabla. We got our new schedule and mine is almost the same as my 1st semester schedule. I still have Algebra 2 first period. Second period is my economics class, we're talking a lot about money and the different bank accounts. I switched my Spanish class from 4th period to 3rd period. I am in the same class as Mathilde now yaaass!! Then something happened in my Spanish class. It was really funny and I felt a bit proud too. The teacher talked about the finals we did before Christmas. He said: We have such a high score in this class, anybody who knows who this is? I wasn't even paying attention and suddenly I hear him saying: It was Marit, she got a 96! Everybody clapped and it was kind of nice haha. Then he said somebody in this class had the highest average. And again it was me woohooo. My average in Spanish was 96 :) My 4th period is now soccer. Sometimes we actually work out, we run to get a better endurance. A lot of times during 4th period we meet each other in the cafeteria and make homework, because you can't be on the team if you have bad grades... After 4th period we have lunch. This one day at lunch was so funny. We have tables outside and there is also a big grass field. Suddenly the water sprinkles turned on and girls who were sitting around the table close to the water sprinkles were just all wet, it was so funny hahaha... 5th period is still my Anatomy&Physiology class, 6th period is my English class and 7th period I have Art.
That Wednesday we had game-night with the Elliots (that is their last name). The Elliots are friends from church. They have an exchange student too, his name is Carl from Sweden. It's really nice to just have an old fashioned game night :)
I didn't have to go to school on Thursday and Friday because we had the soccer tournament. It was nice, because on Thursday we had to come to school at 10 am, so we could sleep longer while everybody had to wake up early ghehe. We drove to Waller High School in three team cars, it was 40 minutes away. It's not far for me anymore but if I had a game 40 minutes away in The Netherlands I would not be happy.... We played one game, it was against all blond girls and they were all 2 meters tall or something it was ridiculous. It ended in a tie, 0-0, but it was a nice game and a nice day :)
In the end, we went to Buc-ee's with the team. It is a kind of big restaurant but you have to get your own food and it's also a store with Texas stuff. It's something you can only find in the country sides of Texas so that was nice to experience ;) I bought the best biggest cinnamon roll, well deserved after the game.
I was back home around 4 pm or something and then I baked chocolate chip cookies with Saskia and Nicole (Nicole is our host-cousin from across the street). They tasted absolutely amazing! After dinner Mathilde was home too (she plays Lacrosse now so she has practice after school) and we watched a movie at Nicole's house. The movie setting was Denmark so every time we saw a blink of something Danish, Mathilde gave a little scream. It was funny actually :) I had to go to bed early because the next day would be freaking long...
I woke up Friday at 5:50 am, because we had to be at school at 6:30 am... It was a 1,5 hour drive to the stadium where our game was. It was so cold that day, I am not even kidding. It was under 0 degrees Celsius, I didn't know it could be this cold in Texas. So today we really needed our HUGE jackets. I played the whole game so I stayed kind of warm. It ended in a tie again, 0-0...
The game was over at 10:30 am, because we started really early. Our next game would be at 4 pm so we had to wait a very long time. It would be useless to go back to school so we went to the Houston Premium Outlets Mall to chill and wait. I have a restroom story. So I went to the restroom, and I almost died... These crazy toilets keep slushing their selves when I am not ready for it yet. So every time that happens I have a little/medium heart attack... I'm ok now my friends, still alive. We all went to a restaurant to get some good food. A few girls and I went to Chipotle. It is a Mexican restaurant and it was amazing. It was a bowl with rice, chicken, sour cream, some veggies and a tortilla. Sounds normal but it was really good :) It was kind of spicy but I'm getting used to spicy now because everything is spicy....
We heard around 1 pm that the rest of the tournament was canceled because of the freezing weather… So we were all very disappointed but also happy because we could go back to our warm homes haha. I was home around 3 so school wasn't even over yet.
Even though it was freezing outside, we (the family) thought it would be a perfect night to go to the Drive-In movies... And so we did.... Worst decision so far..... The first movie was Sing and some of us hadn't seen it yet AKA Saskia ( crazy German :). So Saskia, Mathilde and I were chilling in the back of the car, the trunk, with blankets and jackets and hot chocolate milk. The tailgate was open but after 1,5 hours we were freezing so bad that we had to close it. The sight wasn't that good anymore through the glass, but it was so cold that I was fine with it. The next movie was Passenger. We were still so freaking cold that we just closed all the doors, turned on the heat and watched the movie from the inside :) It was still a lot of fun though, just a little cold. I'm getting used to the hot weather all the time you know. When we came home, everybody immediately went to their warm beds...
The next morning was Saturday, the day of our mid-year YFU orientation. Saskia joined us, because she thought it would be fun and she could share her stories from 3 years ago with us. We talked a lot about homesickness and everybody shared their story what made us realize we weren’t they only one :) We also talked a lot about fun stuff. Every country had to tell about their culture. We had a lot of Danish and German people but I was of course the only Dutch one. So just like last time during the Christmas party I was all by myself. Good for me ( and everybody’s ears ) I didn’t sing this time haha. It is always fun to meet with our foreign friends!
Sunday was church day of course. The speaker didn’t work sometimes what causes a pain in the ears and a small heart attack too. I’m very easy to scare oops. After church, Mathilde, Saskia and I went shopping in Katy Mills. It is a big mall close to our church. We spent 5 hours in there! It was really nice and around 5 pm Danielle and dad picked us up. We went to Willie’s Burger restaurant. While driving we saw the pretty Texas sunset just like every other evening :) The burgers were absolutely amazing. We went home and went to bed kind of early. Mathilde and I still sleep in the same room so we never sleep early actually…
Tuesday morning, Mathilde told me it was going to be 23 degrees. I thought she meant Fahrenheit so I wore my T-shirt and sweater because I didn’t want to freeze. When we were in school, I was so hot and I asked her what was wrong with the temperature… She said: I told you it was going to be hot, I don’t understand why you are wearing so many clothes… That was the moment I realized she meant 23 degrees Celsius. Communication problems oops, I’m thinking in the American way hahaha. We talked a lot about exchange students during economics because the teacher had an exchange student once and he really liked it. We didn’t have soccer practice 4th period but we studied, because we had a game after school and we need to have good grades. I have another restroom story, just have to tell y’all. I walked to class and asked if I could go to the restroom before class started and so I did. While I was walking there were like 6 couples kissing each other in the hall way because they wouldn’t see each other for ONE CLASS PERIOD! What is wrong with these crazy American teenagers? Ok that was my story, just needed to share my frustration with y’all hahaha.
We won the game with 5-0 woohoo! Our goalkeeper, Sarah-Joy stopped a penalty, so we were all very proud :) Mom, Mathilde and Saskia watched the game.
Mathilde and I had put “painting a masterpiece” on our Bucket list. We never really knew if we could really do that until Stephanie gave us a card on Christmas. She would give us to a painting class so we could paint our own masterpiece. We did that last Wednesday. She has a friend who is an artist and she came to our house. So mom, Danielle, Stephanie, Saskia, Mathilde and I had such a creative and fun night. We painted the beach and the sunset with and an island in the background. It sounds crazy but the pictures are posted on Facebook and it actually worked out really good :)
My whole soccer team didn’t have to wear uniforms on Friday, because we had a game right after school (YESYESYES). We could wear our sweats ( those are our warming-up clothes ) It was really funny because everyone in my classes suddenly started asking questions about soccer. We had to run and do a little work out during 4th period even though we had a game after school. We won the game with 11-0 so it was pretty boring. That was why we had to work out during 4th period, because we knew that the team wouldn’t be challenging for us. That night was very sad, because Saskia had to leave :( We dropped her off at the airport and she went back to Germany. It was such a weird feeling, because we dropped her off at the point where Mathilde and I will leave too in June… A weird thing to think about.
We had homework in economics. It was about money and banking account and things. There were three chapters on the laptop and we had to finish the questions of those three chapters. The first 2 were really easy, I passed both of them in about 1 hour during class in school. I had some struggles with the third one. It was due Friday night at 11:59 pm, just before midnight. We had to drop off Saskia, and that took some time, so we were back home around 10 pm. You would think that 2 hours is a lot to finish 10 stupid questions. Well, no…. The first time I finished the test it didn’t say anything about how many questions I did right. I thought it was a computer error or something, but I got 0 questions right, that’s why it didn’t show anything…. Shame on me. Luckily I could retake the test. I got 4/10 right the second time, YAASS I made progress. It still wasn’t enough, I needed 7/10 right to pass the test. The questions were the same almost every time. I tried it again and it got 5/10 right… I tried it again and I got 1 question right. ONE!! So disappointed in myself… After taking the test 5 times I had one question right… So I gave up and I let Mathilde take the test for me, because she already passed hers. She got a 6 the first time!! Of course still not good enough… We tried it again, and again and again and then finally we got 7/10 questions right. It was just in time, because we finished at 11:55 pm hahahaha… Mannn, who would think American High School would give us so much stress?
Saturday morning Jake and the boys, Nate and Luke, came over to our house. We celebrated Nate’s and Mathilde’s birthday. Nate’s birthday would be soon and we didn’t really celebrated Mathilde’s birthday in Gatesville (in September) so we did it now :) The theme was Pokémon because Nate is obsessed with Pokémon. ( He is not the only one, our whole family is crazy about it haha ;) ) Mom baked big round cookies and we all decorated them with colored icing to make Poke balls of them. I didn’t even know there were so many different balls, I just thought it was the original one with red and white. I made the Dusk-ball and the Moon-ball. Mom gave Mathilde and me a Texas apron that day. She made them herself and I am absolutely in love with it!! It even has my name on it whieeee! :) Of course we had to go on a Poke walk after our little cookie party. We took the dogs with us and we went to a park 10 minutes away from us. We walked 2,5 miles or something to be at every Poke stop. Don’t even ask me what all the Pokémon things mean I just hear it around me all the time haha. It was such a beautiful day. Everyone was wearing shorts because it was 26 degrees Celsius and there were no clouds. Crazy what the weather in January looks like here in Houston. When we came home we made or own hamburgers. Jake grilled them on the big American BBQ outside and we the other stuff. We ended up with avocado/bacon hamburgers and it was delicious! We also had some veggies like always ( broccoli, beans, carrots ) and we had a great time. It gets even better, because you know what celebrating birthdays looks like in our house…. Birthday cake!!! We took a small break after our hamburgers because we had to make room for our dessert. We all sang our birthday songs and Nate and Mathilde blew out the candles on the cake. ( well, they tried. It were the same crazy candles we had on my birthday and no matter how hard you try, the fire always come back haha… ) They took first bite out of the cake and that was the end of a perfect swinter day ( winter and summer together, because I don’t know what it is ) :)
Church was Sunday and Stephanie had to sing so those are the best church days. After she sang her song, a lot of people were crying. I don’t know if it was the song or Stephanie’s voice, but it was a really emotional church day. After all it was just normal and fun like every week :)
When we came back home, we had some serious business to do…. Cleaning our room. I am sleeping in the same room as Mathilde since I came back from Kentucky, so that would be December 24th. Since then, our room just got messier and messier, it was ridiculous. Maybe you’ve seen the picture on Facebook, but you really couldn’t see the floor anymore. So we cleaned up, washed all our clothes, vacuumed and when we were done we could actually see the floor!!! It has been a while since we had seen it haha. We will sleep in the same room for one more week and then Danielle goes back to college so I will have my own room again. I also got a haircut that day, but it was nothing special. I thought of going bold, but decided not to, so y’all will still recognize me when I come back in June :)
That night Mathilde went to Senior Girls, it is a dance with a lot of seniors and everybody goes with a date. I thought it was really expensive for a dance so I didn’t go, but she had a lot of fun. I just chilled with the family and read more of my Harry Potter books ( since when do I read this much? America is changing me whaatt!? ;) That night was so quiet in our room, because she wasn’t there and I just realized it will be so weird if I don’t live with her anymore when we leave in June :(
We didn’t have school on Monday because it was Martin Luther King Junior day. A tornado alarm woke us up at 6:30 am… I’ve never had a tornado warning before so I was pretty scared, but it was already gone when we woke up again at 9 am. After breakfast, mom, Mathilde and I drove up North Houston and we went to a more country side of Texas. There were all little stores and we actually saw people riding horses on the streets!!! That is how we imagined Texas to be! The reason why we drove there was because there was a Dutch store!!!! It’s called Dutch Little Girl and everything is Dutch. The women behind the counter actually talked Dutch to each other. It was nice and I felt a bit like home haha. I bought some food like beschuit, ontbijtkoek, schoolkrijt drop, Brinta and Wilhelmina pepermunt. We still have stroopwafels and specualaas at home. I spent way too much money on that food because it had to be imported, but it was worth it, I love it! :) There was also a German and Texas store so we visited those too of course. We met Jake, Stephanie and the boys and of course went on a Poke walk again. It was really hot that day, 28 degrees Celsius whaatt! We went out for lunch at Rudy’s. It is a typical Texan restaurant. You literally buy ½ pound of turkey, pork or brisket and eat it. We ate bread with it too, but a lot of people just eat the meat by itself, it was the best :) The last trip of our day was at IKEA. Every IKEA is the same, it looked just like the one in Haarlem haha... We did out tour through the store and bought some things. I told them my dad calls stuff from IKEA “IKEA trash” (What he actually calls it in Dutch: IKEA meuk) and they thought it was really funny. ( Love you dad xxxxxx ) It was an absolute amazing day. We went home and went to bed early, because school started the next day..
I have one more thing to tell! Mathilde and I bought concert tickets for The Chainsmokers and the rodeo in March so we’re super excited for it whieeee! But I’ll tell y’all about that when the times is there!!
This is a very long blog…. Sorry not sorry :)
I've been here for 5 months... 5 months to go... Mixed feelings...
Wednesday was a normal school day, I mean it's never normal but you know... We had to go to our Homeroom first. It's just a classroom where teachers tell you stuff about how you can change your grades and blablabla. We got our new schedule and mine is almost the same as my 1st semester schedule. I still have Algebra 2 first period. Second period is my economics class, we're talking a lot about money and the different bank accounts. I switched my Spanish class from 4th period to 3rd period. I am in the same class as Mathilde now yaaass!! Then something happened in my Spanish class. It was really funny and I felt a bit proud too. The teacher talked about the finals we did before Christmas. He said: We have such a high score in this class, anybody who knows who this is? I wasn't even paying attention and suddenly I hear him saying: It was Marit, she got a 96! Everybody clapped and it was kind of nice haha. Then he said somebody in this class had the highest average. And again it was me woohooo. My average in Spanish was 96 :) My 4th period is now soccer. Sometimes we actually work out, we run to get a better endurance. A lot of times during 4th period we meet each other in the cafeteria and make homework, because you can't be on the team if you have bad grades... After 4th period we have lunch. This one day at lunch was so funny. We have tables outside and there is also a big grass field. Suddenly the water sprinkles turned on and girls who were sitting around the table close to the water sprinkles were just all wet, it was so funny hahaha... 5th period is still my Anatomy&Physiology class, 6th period is my English class and 7th period I have Art.
That Wednesday we had game-night with the Elliots (that is their last name). The Elliots are friends from church. They have an exchange student too, his name is Carl from Sweden. It's really nice to just have an old fashioned game night :)
I didn't have to go to school on Thursday and Friday because we had the soccer tournament. It was nice, because on Thursday we had to come to school at 10 am, so we could sleep longer while everybody had to wake up early ghehe. We drove to Waller High School in three team cars, it was 40 minutes away. It's not far for me anymore but if I had a game 40 minutes away in The Netherlands I would not be happy.... We played one game, it was against all blond girls and they were all 2 meters tall or something it was ridiculous. It ended in a tie, 0-0, but it was a nice game and a nice day :)
In the end, we went to Buc-ee's with the team. It is a kind of big restaurant but you have to get your own food and it's also a store with Texas stuff. It's something you can only find in the country sides of Texas so that was nice to experience ;) I bought the best biggest cinnamon roll, well deserved after the game.
I was back home around 4 pm or something and then I baked chocolate chip cookies with Saskia and Nicole (Nicole is our host-cousin from across the street). They tasted absolutely amazing! After dinner Mathilde was home too (she plays Lacrosse now so she has practice after school) and we watched a movie at Nicole's house. The movie setting was Denmark so every time we saw a blink of something Danish, Mathilde gave a little scream. It was funny actually :) I had to go to bed early because the next day would be freaking long...
I woke up Friday at 5:50 am, because we had to be at school at 6:30 am... It was a 1,5 hour drive to the stadium where our game was. It was so cold that day, I am not even kidding. It was under 0 degrees Celsius, I didn't know it could be this cold in Texas. So today we really needed our HUGE jackets. I played the whole game so I stayed kind of warm. It ended in a tie again, 0-0...
The game was over at 10:30 am, because we started really early. Our next game would be at 4 pm so we had to wait a very long time. It would be useless to go back to school so we went to the Houston Premium Outlets Mall to chill and wait. I have a restroom story. So I went to the restroom, and I almost died... These crazy toilets keep slushing their selves when I am not ready for it yet. So every time that happens I have a little/medium heart attack... I'm ok now my friends, still alive. We all went to a restaurant to get some good food. A few girls and I went to Chipotle. It is a Mexican restaurant and it was amazing. It was a bowl with rice, chicken, sour cream, some veggies and a tortilla. Sounds normal but it was really good :) It was kind of spicy but I'm getting used to spicy now because everything is spicy....
We heard around 1 pm that the rest of the tournament was canceled because of the freezing weather… So we were all very disappointed but also happy because we could go back to our warm homes haha. I was home around 3 so school wasn't even over yet.
Even though it was freezing outside, we (the family) thought it would be a perfect night to go to the Drive-In movies... And so we did.... Worst decision so far..... The first movie was Sing and some of us hadn't seen it yet AKA Saskia ( crazy German :). So Saskia, Mathilde and I were chilling in the back of the car, the trunk, with blankets and jackets and hot chocolate milk. The tailgate was open but after 1,5 hours we were freezing so bad that we had to close it. The sight wasn't that good anymore through the glass, but it was so cold that I was fine with it. The next movie was Passenger. We were still so freaking cold that we just closed all the doors, turned on the heat and watched the movie from the inside :) It was still a lot of fun though, just a little cold. I'm getting used to the hot weather all the time you know. When we came home, everybody immediately went to their warm beds...
The next morning was Saturday, the day of our mid-year YFU orientation. Saskia joined us, because she thought it would be fun and she could share her stories from 3 years ago with us. We talked a lot about homesickness and everybody shared their story what made us realize we weren’t they only one :) We also talked a lot about fun stuff. Every country had to tell about their culture. We had a lot of Danish and German people but I was of course the only Dutch one. So just like last time during the Christmas party I was all by myself. Good for me ( and everybody’s ears ) I didn’t sing this time haha. It is always fun to meet with our foreign friends!
Sunday was church day of course. The speaker didn’t work sometimes what causes a pain in the ears and a small heart attack too. I’m very easy to scare oops. After church, Mathilde, Saskia and I went shopping in Katy Mills. It is a big mall close to our church. We spent 5 hours in there! It was really nice and around 5 pm Danielle and dad picked us up. We went to Willie’s Burger restaurant. While driving we saw the pretty Texas sunset just like every other evening :) The burgers were absolutely amazing. We went home and went to bed kind of early. Mathilde and I still sleep in the same room so we never sleep early actually…
Tuesday morning, Mathilde told me it was going to be 23 degrees. I thought she meant Fahrenheit so I wore my T-shirt and sweater because I didn’t want to freeze. When we were in school, I was so hot and I asked her what was wrong with the temperature… She said: I told you it was going to be hot, I don’t understand why you are wearing so many clothes… That was the moment I realized she meant 23 degrees Celsius. Communication problems oops, I’m thinking in the American way hahaha. We talked a lot about exchange students during economics because the teacher had an exchange student once and he really liked it. We didn’t have soccer practice 4th period but we studied, because we had a game after school and we need to have good grades. I have another restroom story, just have to tell y’all. I walked to class and asked if I could go to the restroom before class started and so I did. While I was walking there were like 6 couples kissing each other in the hall way because they wouldn’t see each other for ONE CLASS PERIOD! What is wrong with these crazy American teenagers? Ok that was my story, just needed to share my frustration with y’all hahaha.
We won the game with 5-0 woohoo! Our goalkeeper, Sarah-Joy stopped a penalty, so we were all very proud :) Mom, Mathilde and Saskia watched the game.
Mathilde and I had put “painting a masterpiece” on our Bucket list. We never really knew if we could really do that until Stephanie gave us a card on Christmas. She would give us to a painting class so we could paint our own masterpiece. We did that last Wednesday. She has a friend who is an artist and she came to our house. So mom, Danielle, Stephanie, Saskia, Mathilde and I had such a creative and fun night. We painted the beach and the sunset with and an island in the background. It sounds crazy but the pictures are posted on Facebook and it actually worked out really good :)
My whole soccer team didn’t have to wear uniforms on Friday, because we had a game right after school (YESYESYES). We could wear our sweats ( those are our warming-up clothes ) It was really funny because everyone in my classes suddenly started asking questions about soccer. We had to run and do a little work out during 4th period even though we had a game after school. We won the game with 11-0 so it was pretty boring. That was why we had to work out during 4th period, because we knew that the team wouldn’t be challenging for us. That night was very sad, because Saskia had to leave :( We dropped her off at the airport and she went back to Germany. It was such a weird feeling, because we dropped her off at the point where Mathilde and I will leave too in June… A weird thing to think about.
We had homework in economics. It was about money and banking account and things. There were three chapters on the laptop and we had to finish the questions of those three chapters. The first 2 were really easy, I passed both of them in about 1 hour during class in school. I had some struggles with the third one. It was due Friday night at 11:59 pm, just before midnight. We had to drop off Saskia, and that took some time, so we were back home around 10 pm. You would think that 2 hours is a lot to finish 10 stupid questions. Well, no…. The first time I finished the test it didn’t say anything about how many questions I did right. I thought it was a computer error or something, but I got 0 questions right, that’s why it didn’t show anything…. Shame on me. Luckily I could retake the test. I got 4/10 right the second time, YAASS I made progress. It still wasn’t enough, I needed 7/10 right to pass the test. The questions were the same almost every time. I tried it again and it got 5/10 right… I tried it again and I got 1 question right. ONE!! So disappointed in myself… After taking the test 5 times I had one question right… So I gave up and I let Mathilde take the test for me, because she already passed hers. She got a 6 the first time!! Of course still not good enough… We tried it again, and again and again and then finally we got 7/10 questions right. It was just in time, because we finished at 11:55 pm hahahaha… Mannn, who would think American High School would give us so much stress?
Saturday morning Jake and the boys, Nate and Luke, came over to our house. We celebrated Nate’s and Mathilde’s birthday. Nate’s birthday would be soon and we didn’t really celebrated Mathilde’s birthday in Gatesville (in September) so we did it now :) The theme was Pokémon because Nate is obsessed with Pokémon. ( He is not the only one, our whole family is crazy about it haha ;) ) Mom baked big round cookies and we all decorated them with colored icing to make Poke balls of them. I didn’t even know there were so many different balls, I just thought it was the original one with red and white. I made the Dusk-ball and the Moon-ball. Mom gave Mathilde and me a Texas apron that day. She made them herself and I am absolutely in love with it!! It even has my name on it whieeee! :) Of course we had to go on a Poke walk after our little cookie party. We took the dogs with us and we went to a park 10 minutes away from us. We walked 2,5 miles or something to be at every Poke stop. Don’t even ask me what all the Pokémon things mean I just hear it around me all the time haha. It was such a beautiful day. Everyone was wearing shorts because it was 26 degrees Celsius and there were no clouds. Crazy what the weather in January looks like here in Houston. When we came home we made or own hamburgers. Jake grilled them on the big American BBQ outside and we the other stuff. We ended up with avocado/bacon hamburgers and it was delicious! We also had some veggies like always ( broccoli, beans, carrots ) and we had a great time. It gets even better, because you know what celebrating birthdays looks like in our house…. Birthday cake!!! We took a small break after our hamburgers because we had to make room for our dessert. We all sang our birthday songs and Nate and Mathilde blew out the candles on the cake. ( well, they tried. It were the same crazy candles we had on my birthday and no matter how hard you try, the fire always come back haha… ) They took first bite out of the cake and that was the end of a perfect swinter day ( winter and summer together, because I don’t know what it is ) :)
Church was Sunday and Stephanie had to sing so those are the best church days. After she sang her song, a lot of people were crying. I don’t know if it was the song or Stephanie’s voice, but it was a really emotional church day. After all it was just normal and fun like every week :)
When we came back home, we had some serious business to do…. Cleaning our room. I am sleeping in the same room as Mathilde since I came back from Kentucky, so that would be December 24th. Since then, our room just got messier and messier, it was ridiculous. Maybe you’ve seen the picture on Facebook, but you really couldn’t see the floor anymore. So we cleaned up, washed all our clothes, vacuumed and when we were done we could actually see the floor!!! It has been a while since we had seen it haha. We will sleep in the same room for one more week and then Danielle goes back to college so I will have my own room again. I also got a haircut that day, but it was nothing special. I thought of going bold, but decided not to, so y’all will still recognize me when I come back in June :)
That night Mathilde went to Senior Girls, it is a dance with a lot of seniors and everybody goes with a date. I thought it was really expensive for a dance so I didn’t go, but she had a lot of fun. I just chilled with the family and read more of my Harry Potter books ( since when do I read this much? America is changing me whaatt!? ;) That night was so quiet in our room, because she wasn’t there and I just realized it will be so weird if I don’t live with her anymore when we leave in June :(
We didn’t have school on Monday because it was Martin Luther King Junior day. A tornado alarm woke us up at 6:30 am… I’ve never had a tornado warning before so I was pretty scared, but it was already gone when we woke up again at 9 am. After breakfast, mom, Mathilde and I drove up North Houston and we went to a more country side of Texas. There were all little stores and we actually saw people riding horses on the streets!!! That is how we imagined Texas to be! The reason why we drove there was because there was a Dutch store!!!! It’s called Dutch Little Girl and everything is Dutch. The women behind the counter actually talked Dutch to each other. It was nice and I felt a bit like home haha. I bought some food like beschuit, ontbijtkoek, schoolkrijt drop, Brinta and Wilhelmina pepermunt. We still have stroopwafels and specualaas at home. I spent way too much money on that food because it had to be imported, but it was worth it, I love it! :) There was also a German and Texas store so we visited those too of course. We met Jake, Stephanie and the boys and of course went on a Poke walk again. It was really hot that day, 28 degrees Celsius whaatt! We went out for lunch at Rudy’s. It is a typical Texan restaurant. You literally buy ½ pound of turkey, pork or brisket and eat it. We ate bread with it too, but a lot of people just eat the meat by itself, it was the best :) The last trip of our day was at IKEA. Every IKEA is the same, it looked just like the one in Haarlem haha... We did out tour through the store and bought some things. I told them my dad calls stuff from IKEA “IKEA trash” (What he actually calls it in Dutch: IKEA meuk) and they thought it was really funny. ( Love you dad xxxxxx ) It was an absolute amazing day. We went home and went to bed early, because school started the next day..
I have one more thing to tell! Mathilde and I bought concert tickets for The Chainsmokers and the rodeo in March so we’re super excited for it whieeee! But I’ll tell y’all about that when the times is there!!
This is a very long blog…. Sorry not sorry :)
I've been here for 5 months... 5 months to go... Mixed feelings...
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