Back in Florida

Sorry I never let you guys know I made it back to America safe. Anyways, I'm here and have been back for about a week and a half now. I went to Tallahassee first and then down to Spring Hill to visit my brother and niece. We are now at St. George Island for about 5 days hanging out at the beach. I'm also planning a short stay in Gainesville before I'm off to Korea. I am going to post some pictures from London and Greece before I close out this blog, if not for anyone else's sake but mine, just to make it all complete. I have been dreading getting on to my blog as I am forced to look at pictures of the kids and my friends. I can't believe I am gone honestly. I have cried so much in the last month, I'm just about out of tears. I have to say I am rather home sick for Switzerland at the moment. It is great to be home, it's just the transitioning is always hard and I love the European lifestyle. I am going to miss it there terribly. I hope to keep in touch with everyone I can there. Anyways, I will put up the last few blogs soon. I'll also let you know what my new blog for Korea will be. I've already applied for my work VISA and am looking into plane tickets at the moment. Less than a month now!

Jumping the bridge and last fun days with the kids

I leave tomorrow first for 4 days in London and then 7 in Greece. That means I will have to say goodbye to the family tomorrow. I've gotten to spend a lot of time with the kids lately since they are out of school. Besides going to the pool almost everyday, I also took them to a big park called Grun 80 for a day. We had a picnic and played outside. They have a BIG dinosaur statue and a little creek that we played in too as it has been SOO hot lately; in the 90's! Katie came too, but she has now left for Madrid, but I will be meeting up with her in London for our travels. Katie also had her birthday Monday, so I added a picture of the cake I made her too. Constantijn also lost one of his front teeth and I got a phot just after we pulled it out. He was soo excited! The other one will be out any day now. That means that this is my last blog until I get home to Florida. I can't believe I am leaving; such mixed emotions!

Anyways, beside doing lots and lots of playing, jumping on the trampoline, and swimming, I jumped off the main bridge in Basel (Mitteler Brucke) into the Rhine river. My friend Sarah and I had talked about doing it for a while now and since the city is starting to die down now that the Euro Cup has finished (Go Spain!) we went for it. Our friend Corey (the one wearing the yellow cape and swimming wings) said he would do it too. We had a crowd of our friends watching us and when we got the clearance of no swimmers or boats, we climbed over the edge and jumped. It was soo scary, but so much fun! None of us got hurt from the jump, but on our way out Corey stepped on a piece of glass or something and cut his toe super bad. The worst part of it all is that he is a professional ballet dancer and is scheduled to go on tour starting next week, so he was really scared it could mess up stuff. He got stitches and the doctor said he should be ok for the tour, so we were all a bit relieved.

Well, I will be sure to write when I get home in a couple of weeks to tell you all about London and Greece and so you know I made it back safe. I can't believe it's over. This year has been amazing and I am so glad I came. I've gotten to see so many new things, meet some really wonderful people, and have grown up in the process. It is so hard to move on after having something so good here, but I know that if you don't keep moving on you can easily get stuck. I'm ready for newness again but I will desperatly miss this place. Talk to you all in a couple weeks!

summer time

Well, today marks one week I have left with the family and it is making me sooo sad. The kids make everyday so happy and bright. I never expected to get this close to them. They are the coolest kids and they remind me not to take life too seriously. Thus saying, here are some pictures I have taken of them in the past couple of days. Yesterday was their last day of school and now summer break has begun. It couldn't have been any better timing as it has rained and rained for weeks, but the past week has been AMAZING. It has been super sunny and Hot!! I guess it is preparing me for Florida summer, but without the humidity. Anyways, the first three pictures are ones I have printed copies of to give to each of the kids when I leave. I decided I'd give them a note and a photo of us together; something simple but meaningful. The others are from our many hours of playing outside in the backyard. The other day the kids got on their swim suits and I sprayed them with the hose. We made some water balloons too. It was a lot of fun and perfect weather for such an event. Today, the first day of no school, we went to the Laguna water park in Germany. We've been there are few times since I've been here and the kids love it. Katie's family left yesterday to spend all summer in the US, so since she has know where to live at the moment, she is staying at my house until we leave for our travels in about a week. I am savoring every last minute I'm here. I can't believe it is almost over.

Over the Hill

Last week both Martijn and Marit had their 40th birthdays. Martijn's was the 16th and Marit's was the 21st. For Martijn's birthday we had a special dinner for him and he opened presents and stuff. The picture with his hands up is when he got his new ipod! It was fun and just us. We had a little dance party after and we put on silly hats and stuff. (I love the picture of me, Constantijn, and Romee. Their expressions say it all)

Then on Saturday (the same day as Marit's real birthday) they had a big party over at the house. We had people staying at our house from Thursday until Sunday, one day with an extra 6 people sleeping over. The party was also on the same night the Dutch played in the semifinals for the EuroCup, and since I was the only non-Dutch person of about 40 guests, you could say it was a high-intensity night. Even though the Dutch ended up losing in overtime, the party was still upbeat and fun. There was tons of food (I made sushi for it!) and drinks and talking and dancing. It went until almost 3am, which I think is pretty good for 40! I have to say I did feel a bit awkward at first since I don't speak Dutch and therefore could not understand anything that was going on. But I found my niche in helping out in the kitchen. I think keeping busy was the best thing since I couldn't really communicate and I know they appreciated it as they thanked me a million times. I did get to meet a lot of their friends and talk to a lot of them too (they all speak English really well). I didn't get any pictures of the party because I thought they might think it was weird that I was taking pictures of all their friends, hehe

The last picture is of Katie and I as we watched the Italy vs. Spain game at the Fanzone in Basel. Martijn had a couple extra tickets and decided not to go, so he let me have them. The one before is Constantijn trying to eat a marshmallow off a string. I went to a class picnic he had and it was one of the games they had. And the one before is a cute picture of the kids I took while they were playing on the trampoline. They are soo cute!

News Flash

A few stories/updates about me:

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1. I am in Basel for exactly 3 more weeks from today! I then travel for two weeks after that: London and Greece. So, I make it back to Florida on the 16th of July. Can't wait to see everyone again. I'm getting excited to see my family and friends!

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2. I got accepted to teach English in South Korea next year. I'll leave in late August and be there for a year. My friend Rebekah from UF is doing it with me. I'm really excited for another adventurous year in a whole new place. I will keep you updated on more details as I get them, and I'll keep a blog next year too, no worries!

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3. So as of yesterday, I officially damaged BOTH of the families vehicles. I have been in one fender bender in my entire life, and I've now done it twice within 2 weeks to someone else's cars. I first hit the van when picking the kids up from school. There are these yellow concrete poles between the parking spaces, and I just cut the turn wrong. I got scratches and yellow paint on the rear passenger door. They assured me it was ok and that put it in the shop to get it fixed. Yesterday, the same exact day they got the van out of the shop, I hit the beemer while taking Romee to go swimming. I put a dent in the front bumper and scratched a bit of paint on it too. I was trying to do a U-turn and misjudged it. I was petrified to come home and tell them that I messed up the other car on the same day they got the other one fixed! When I got back, it was just Marit home and I told her. I think I sounded panicked and she could tell. She told me it was ok and that we would work it out. I was relieved that she didn't get really mad. I left her to tell Martijn about it! Im sure I will go down as the au pair the wrecked both of their cars.

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4. This is a picture of the new trampoline with Romee jumping on it. I LOVE playing on it too!

Adventure Weekend

So the surprise I've been holding out on telling is that I went PARAGLIDING! It was super fun. Sarah, Katie, and I went camping in Interlaken, Switzerland this past weekend. We got in late Friday night and set up the tent, etc. We woke up Saturday morning to lots of clouds and a bit of rain. We had planned to go paragliding at 10, but for the weather's sake, we went at 1pm instead. They drove us up to the top of a mountain to an open field. We put on harnesses and helmets and then were strapped into our guides. I thought we were going to have to run off the side of a mountain, but we didn't thank goodness; that made it a little less scary. We just started running and the wind got a hold of the parachute and then we were flying! It was so crazy just having my feet dangle and the wind blowing on me. I actually did pretty good! The only time I got kinda scared was when he started doing tricks where we would spin in circles. We were in the air for about 20 minutes. After the paragliding we made kabobs over the fire and make-shift smores. The Euro Cup for soccer started this weekend as well. It is hosted by Switzerland and Austria this year with many of the games actually being played in Basel! So, it is an awesome time to be in Switzerland. Everyone is all decked out in their fan gear and strolling the streets. We watched the opening Swiss game on a big screen in town that night. We lost, but it was a bit expected. On Sunday we took the train to Grindelwald only about 20 minutes away for some hiking. We went to the Grindewald Glacier Gorge. It was really beautiful. There were paths that allowed you to walk inside gorge. After the afternoon hike we made our way to a pub to watch the Austria vs. Czech game on TV before riding the night train back to Basel. (I've really gotten into the tournament. Im rooting for Holland; I guess the family has had some impact on me!) It was a super fun weekend despite the not so good rainy weather. The flying made up for the weather!!