Hello everyone!

I have some time again to write my blog. Today I’m not at school because I’m not feeling well. So all stuff I will do today is resting, writing my blog and I might start cleaning my room (which is necessary). This night I slept for like 9,5 hours and after breakfast and getting ready for school I still didn’t feel better, so I went back to bed. Here I slept for 3 or 4 more hours. So I really needed the rest. Some fun news is that I’ve already been here for 6 months. Time goes way too fast!! Thinking I only have 4,5 months left with a lot of fun stuff. I don’t want to leave yet… For the people in the Netherlands: It doesn’t mean I don’t miss you! I just have a lot of fun here and I can’t imagine I have to leave all those people for a long time or maybe forever. I don’t know when I will see again after I leave…. 🙁

So my last blog ended with me thinking about making a video blog. And now I can tell I made one. I went the weekend of February 7 and 8 to Minnesota for long track Nationals. I tried to film here and I think the blog came out pretty good. I only forgot to film the second day and windows movie maker didn’t do everything I wanted it to do. Here is the video:

We left on Friday February 6 to Minnesota. That morning my selfie stick arrived so I took it and made a lot of fun pictures with it. I went there with Hannah and some others of my skating team. The first thing we did when we arrived was skating. Just doing a short practice to get used to the ice. The rink we had nationals at was in Roseville, Minnesota. This is an outside rink, you can also see this in the video. The races this weekend were in pack race style. This is fun to do, it is kind of shorttrack at a long track rink. I got overall 4^th of the Juniors A at Nationals. I skated good and we were all really close to each other at the finish. Hannah finished 1^st of the Juniors B and my club finished 1^st! I also won the team pursuit with Hannah, Kaitlin and Colleen. Thanks to the Naess family and the Molenda family to provide Hannah and me with food! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t do any special things at school that week. Or I can’t remember it… I try to write stuff I do in a small notebook. But I forgot it the last weeks… I do remember that I gave some stuff to Brandon which he took to Poland where he will skate world juniors this weekend. He gave my stuff to Sanneke (team NL) and she will give it to my brother in the Netherlands. In this way I already got some stuff home and I don’t have to worry about this when I will come back later. I’m sure I have way too much stuff here.. I might see if I can book another suitcase for my way back (where I don’t want to think about yet).
Goodluck at the World Juniors team USA and team NL!! 🙂

On Friday the 13^th  I had my first Track & Field meet. I don’t know if I really had bad luck today but I liked to say it this way. I ran with my first meet the 55m, 200m, 300m and the 4×200 meters. I think it was a lot of fun to race. A lot of people from my team say I run really good! And my Track coach even said I should start doing track in NL. I will see what I will do next year. My second meet will be tomorrow (Saturday Febuary 21^st) at my own school. Because I’m not feeling awesome I don’t know how I will run. But I will see 😉

 

 

 

To make it a full planned weekend I left Saturday morning to Champaign Illinois for a shorttrack meet. This meet was at the University of Illinois. It was a really wide track, normally there fit like 5 or 6 people on the starting line. Now we could start with 9 people at the line. I got in all distances in the A final. I got 6^th on the 1500meter, I still think I could’ve done this race better. They left with 9 laps to go and keeping up with them was hard knowing my endurance isn’t really good right now. I got 3^rd on the 1000 meter. This was a better race. I was for a long time in 4^th position and I was having a hard time with passing. At the finish I could press my skate just in front of the other person so I got third. In the 500 meter I finished 2nd, this was a good race with a good pass on my hostsister Hannah :). Then there was one race left, the 3K. I wasn’t really looking forward to it because it is a long distance. Luckily no one wanted to lead so we didn’t skate fast. I tried to stay on position 2, this worked out until approximately 5 laps before the end. I finished 4th in this race. A lot better than I expected. 🙂 I finished overall also 4th. Hannah got 3rd.

 

Monday was like a ‘resting day’. I’m not sure if I really did something in the morning. Later that day I went to Ana to eat Brazilian and to watch the carnival parade in Rio on tv. Alexia was here too and some other friends of Ana. It was a lot of fun and the food was really good! I can’t wait to go later to Brazil to visit people there! I only need money to get there.. We ate Empadão, queijadinha and kind of cheese bread. It was all so good and Ana had too much. So I ate a lot that night haha. We also made a video in the hope the Brazilian tv would broadcast it. But they didn’t.
Ana her hostmom still had some quarters that I could get. So now I only need 9 more quarters to complete my collection. And I got my collectors map 2,5 weeks ago. So I did that really fast.

I still need:

• North Dakota
• Alaska
• Colorado
• District of Columbia
• Puerto Rico
• Guam
• American Samoa
• S. Virgin Islands
• Northern Mariana Islands

This week I didn’t feel that good but I still went to school. I still went to practices but it isn’t nice to practice when you don’t feel good. This morning I felt worse than other days and decided to stay home. I already feel better than this morning, which is good. I hope it stays good because I have tomorrow my second track meet. I don’t know what events I will do. Today we would get information about the meet of tomorrow. I will see what I do when I get at school.

In 1,5 week I will leave to Salt Lake City to do the AM-cup long track. It will be a lot of fun I think. I will go snowboarding there too and I’m planning to do more fun stuff there. Not sure what exactly yet. Then the week after I will go to Madison, Wisconsin for shorttrack nationals. And 2 weeks later on March 28^th I will leave to HAWAII!!!! 😀 I know people who are there right now and I see amazing pictures. I really can’t wait to go there! March will be a busy but really fun month. I don’t know when I will have time to write my blog again. I might try to make another video blog.

Ohhh just remembered something. I did dissect a pig with anatomy. I won’t post a picture of it. It was sad cutting in a pig, but interesting to see all the organs.
And we are making something out of glass with 3D art. I am making something with a Dutch theme. So I made the shape of the Netherlands with wire. I’m not done yet. But here is a picture from my work in process:

 

Hope you liked reading this! Byeee!!!!

OMG I have a snake!! 😀

Heeyy everyone!! Here an update again from the USA! While I’m writing this a snake is watching me and it is snowing outside! SNOW!! Jayyy!!

Last week was a pretty normal week for me. I had to make up some tests because I missed those when I was in Wichita and it was the week before thanksgiving. With Zoology we could choose an animal to take home over thanksgiving break if you wanted to. Of course I wanted to take an animal home. It is a new experience. My school in the Netherlands didn’t really have animals like Chinchillas, Snakes, Gerbils, Frogs or Turtles. I made my top 5 with 3 snakes, a gecko and the hamster. Later the teacher let me know I could take the Ball Phyton home. Of course I was happy! The snake is so cool!! You can pick this snake easily up. So you don’t hear me complaining.

I could take the snake home on Thursday after school. My hostmom picked me up then. This weekend I wasn’t home to watch the snake. But the snake doesn’t need much. When we came home I saw the snake changed skin. So now I have a part of snakeskin in my room too. The snake will be here until after Thanksgiving break. That is next week.

This weekend I went to Milwaukee for my first pack race. This is like shorttrack on a 400 meter track. We left on Friday and ate at Cafe Hollander in Milwaukee. There was a poster in Dutch and it took a while until I found out it was Dutch. The food was really good there!

The pack races began on Saturday. It was fun to do! I wore all my shorttrack gear for safety because we were with more people in the track. There were two different meets. The first one was the Gold cup (on Saturday). Here we had the distances: 800meter, 500meter, 1000 meter and 1500 meter. I got 3rd on the 800, 500 and the 1000 and 4th or 5th on the 1500 (not sure which place I had). Overall I finished 3rd and 2nd of the juniors, Hannah got 1st. After the races we could do a fun race. This was 6 laps. I did this, after 2 laps my legs were already tired so it wasn’t that much fun.
Sunday there was another meet. It was also a pack race. We were with 8 people total. We only needed to skate 3 times. The 500, 1000 and 1500 meters. I finished 5th on the 500 and 1000 and 6th on the 1500 I think. Former Olympian skater Katherine Reutter got first. She didn’t count for the medals. But I got 4th then. So I just missed a medal.

Here a video of the race Saturday. You can see me a couple of times. First time on 28 seconds. You can recognize me with my Netherlands shorttrack helmed and a Glenn Ellyn suit (black/red, GESS on legg).:

This week I have the whole week off because of Thanksgiving, which is Thursday. This is a typical day in the USA (and I think also in Canada) where people are thankful for things I think. I don’t know what exactly. But I know they celebrate it with a lot of food. We will go my hostgrandma and hostgrandpa. I think it will be fun!
Friday is black Friday. A lot of stores have sale then and of course I want to experience this. I think I will go somewhere with my hostfamily then.

I also heard today my brother is going to the World Cup shorttrack in Seoul, Korea. This is awesome!! I’m a proud sister!

Have a nice day everyone! I don’t know when my next blog will be so check my facebook for small updates! 🙂