Heeeyy guys!!

I’ve done a lot of things the last weeks and it was awesome! I didn’t really have time to write my blog. Only with new year I made some time to write a quick blog about 2014. In this blog you will read about snowboarding, new year, Chicago, my Birthday, finals and saying goodbye.. My blog with adventures ended last time after Christmas.

Let’s start at Sunday December 28^th. This day I went with my hostdad, hostmom, hostsisters Leah and Hannah and my hostbrother Micah to the Brookfield Zoo. Here they had amazing Christmas lights, it was really pretty! There were also lights which went on and off with music. I made videos of this. Here are the videos and some pictures:

 

 

 

On Monday I was first planning to meet up with Éviny. But Tessa and Mary Beth invited me to come snowboarding with them. I think this would be really nice to do and I could meet up with Éviny another time. So I decided to go snowboarding. We went snowboarding at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. It was a lot of fun to go here. Of course I took my camera so I made a lot of pictures here again. 🙂

 

 

We had a family party Tuesday at our house. It was nice to meet new members of the family again and to see others of the family again. We had a lot of food to eat. We also walked in the neighborhood and we played Just Dance on the Wii. I also found out that a Cousin was with Christy in the Cross Country team. Christy is an AFS exchange student who was last year in the Netherlands. So this proves again how small the world is.

I went to Milwaukee the last day of 2014 for practice. When we came back I played Settlers of Catan with Ethan and Hannah. I also made my ‘Bye 2014, Hello 2015′ blog. In the evening I went with my hostsiblings to Noah his house. Here we played another game of Settlers of Catan and we saw the movie Divergent. The movie just ended before 12 so then we waited for the new year. *Happy new year!*. After being in 2015 for a while we went home. Here Andy (a friend of Tessa who slept over) cut my hair around 1am. I think this could be the first haircut in the States in 2015. Haha

Tessa left the next morning back to California. I slept in and later that day I went with my hostparents and Hannah to the movie ‘Unbroken’. I think this movie was really good. We didn’t do much more than that that day.

The next day, Friday January 2^nd I went to Éviny in the evening. Her hostfamily tried to make Indian food, which was good. It is different food than what I’m used to eat. After that we went to Oberweis Diary to get ice cream. They have really good icecream!!

Saturday morning Éviny and I woke up early to catch the train to Chicago. We would go Iceskating with some other exchange students. Unfortunately the ice was really bad. So we ended up on going to Panera to eat. After sitting here for a while a part of the group left. So we were with 8 persons left. The weather was bad so we decided to go to Arami (from Paraguay) her house. Here we hung out and later Ana, Carlee and I had to leave to catch the train to their house. I would sleep over there the next night. I had a lot of fun at Arami her house, here a picture of us made by Matheus (Brazil) who is sad because he isn’t in it:

 

I also found out this day that Talles (Brazil) has family in The Netherlands. To be precise in ‘Meppel’. This is really close to my house in The Netherlands. So when he will visit his family together with other exchange students who are in our area then they will visit me too!  Or the way I say it: They will visit me and because they are in NL then they can visit the family too! 🙂

 

 

So that night I slept over at Ana her house and we went the next morning, after our pancakes and bacon breakfast, to the station to go to Chicago again. It started snowing so it was really pretty there. In Chicago we went to the field museum. We walked there from the station. I think you could do it normally in 30 minutes. But Ana and I got distracted everywhere. So it took us like 2 hours to get there because we watched at the bean, we made an amazing AFS Brazil-Netherlands sign in the snow (see picture) and we went to Lake Michigan which was half frozen. Only with the walk there we had a lot of fun!

 

 

 

We didn’t have that much time anymore when we arrived at the field museum. So we only saw a small piece I think. I have the feeling we missed a lot. When we got hungry we got something to eat and after that we went to ‘Sue the Dinosaur’ to make pictures. Ana put her water bottle in my bag real quick so she didn’t have to hold it on the picture. When we took my picture and I walked away the bottle fell out of my bag really close to Sue. We couldn’t get it because there are a lot of alarm systems. So after waiting a while and looking around in another part of the museum we finally got the bottle back. We named the bottle: ‘Sue the second’. We always have a nice memory with that bottle hahaa. When we got it back we made pictures with the bottle in front of Sue and after that we went back to the train to go home again. Me to Oak Brook and Ana to Palatine.

 

 

When I arrived with the train I went to the ice rink to see Micah his hockey game. I have to learn the rules because I’m joining the hockey team of my hfamily named: ‘The Wooden Shoes’. It was cold (16⁰F/-9⁰C) outside and my feet were soaked. So this wasn’t the best combination.. After watching the game we went home and that was the last day of my winter break. School started Monday again.

Monday and Tuesday were just normal schooldays. Wednesday, January 7^th was different. I got a COLD DAY! My first cold day ever!! This means I didn’t have school because it was too cold outside. So instead of school I went with my hmom and Hannah to Goodwill. This is a shop where you can buy clothes second hand. It is really cheap and sometimes they have really good quality. I got a new pair of pants, 3 long sleeve shirts and 1 T-shirt and that all for only $25. In the evening the whole family came over and we ate homemade lasagna. 🙂 Thursday I got my second cold day. This day I booked my flight to Hawaii. I will go here in spring break with Belo, this is a trip that I can do. I also skyped with my parents and my grandparents. It was nice to ‘see’ them again and to speak them again.

Then it is FRIDAY, JANUARY 9^th! My birthday!!!! This was my first birthday outside Europe. It is special if I’m home on my birthday, most of the time I’m somewhere else haha. I was this year ‘home’, I was in my home in America! 🙂  We didn’t have a cold day so we had to go to school (it was still really cold). It started off good already when I was waiting for the bus at 6.50 when I found out I had a late start because of some problems at school. When I came home I was home alone because the family unfortunately had a funeral. They put the present for me on the table, a nice jacket! 🙂 In the time I was home alone I designed a postcard for my mom her birthday (which was Sunday). So I had something to do. I want to put the card on here. But because my mom didn’t get it yet I won’t put it here because the design has to be a surprise for her.

I think it was Saturday morning when my parents skyped me. I didn’t answer with a video because I just woke up and I looked horrible. This was a good choice because the whole family in the Netherlands was at my home for my (and probably my mom’s) birthday. Later I called them back so they could still see me. Later that day I invited some other exchange students over. Only Ana, Éviny, Matheus and Bruno could come. We played some pool (I have a pool table in my basement) and Just Dance. When the icerink in my backyard was free we went skating there. It was a lot of fun. Ofcourse I threw snowballs at the others haha. Somewhere in the noon we brought Matheus and Bruno to the station. After that Ana, Éviny and I saw the movie in the Theater room.  When the movie ended we had to leave to bring Ana home and after that Éviny and I saw another movie.

As you can see in the part above this, I have a really really really nice house here!! The family is also AMAZING!! There is a picture of my house in my Christmas blog. The house with all the lights when I talk about our walk in the neighborhood.

Éviny slept over and the next morning we played hockey on the rink against Micah. My hdad had to be goalie for us and Micah still won. But it was really even. After that Éviny and I stayed skating a little longer. When we were done skating we built a snowman (which looks more like a woman), did a photo shoot with the snowman and made snow angels. In the evening we went watching Micah’s hockey game and after that we did bring Éviny home again.

 

 

 

Monday was school again. It was a lot of preparation for the finals which started on Tuesday. So guess what.. I had to study after school.. In the evening I had my birthday dinner with the family. We ate Thai food and chocolate cake as dessert. I got a really big piece of the chocolate cake so I had to finish it later.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I had finals on school. All the questions where multiple choice. So that is different than in the Netherlands, where we don’t have a lot of multiple choice. There We have to write the answer ourselves. I survived the week. Now I only have to hope on good grades.

Wedsnesday I went also to Chicago downtown. A friend of me goes back home to Chile today (Friday). So we went with a group downtown to the Hard Rock Café to say goodbye to him. I really hate goodbye and it was really hard. I’m sorry for the people in The Netherlands but this was way harder than saying goodbye to you guys.. Just because I know I will see you guys again. I don’t know when I will see Pedro again. It is already hard to say goodbye to one person here. When I will go home it will be horrible. Don’t want to think about it yet..

We will miss you Pedro!! See you again in Chile, Brazil or The Netherlands! 😉

 

Now I have a long weekend. I probably go to Chicago this weekend and maybe meet up with Britt, who is visiting Chicago this weekend. She is with  AFS from the Netherlands near Kansas City. I will have school again on Tuesday. My second semester will start then. I will have the same classes except photography and humanities. These were only semester classes. I will get now government (not sure yet if I will like it, but it could be interesting) and 3D Art (which sound like a lot of fun). The next time I will explain what I’m doing in those classes.

I don’t have a lot more to say.. So goodbye everyone!! Have a nice day!! 😀

Ohh.. Thanks for the card for my birthday for the ones who sent it!! 🙂