Categorie: 2017/2018 In Florida

De laatste week in Florida is bijzonder en intensief door het drukke schema van de voorbereidingen voor ons vertrek, de vele regen en onweersbuien en het afscheid nemen van alles wat ons dierbaar is geworden in Florida.  Het weer is uitzonderlijk slecht, onze slechtste week tot nu toe. Met een paar dagen alleen maar grijze […]

We have deliberated a lot about the sailing route home. The northern route appeals very much to us (mostly because of Iceland and the shorter crossings), but maybe too much of a challenge weatherwise in a somewhat tight time schedule? We have had such a fantastic year until now, why not end it in a […]

We are gradually disconnecting from our life in Florida and focusing more on preparing for our departure and the sailing trip home. At least we as adults do. The girls are still fully enjoying their (social) lives here and Eline is even expanding her social life 😉. The clearest sign of slowly disconnecting is that […]

We had some close encounters with the wildlife of Florida. The first one happened 1.5 weeks ago when I (Mira) stepped out our backdoor on the outside doormat almost stepping on a black snake and feeling it crawl over my feet. That scared the hell out of me, but probably also scared the hell out of […]

We had a fantastic spring break on the west coast of the USA. We did lots of different things in just 10 days with a nice mixture of visiting nature and big cities. All together we drove 2,700 km through four states (Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California), four national parks (Death Valley, Zion, Bryce and […]

Another two weeks have gone by with lots of nice activities. Last weekend Daylight Saving Time (DST) started in Florida. As it hasn’t started yet in The Netherlands, there is only a 5 hour time difference until the end of the month. It is giving us nice long evenings with daylight until 8 pm.  Two weeks […]

We are past our halfway point of our stay in the US and also past our halfway point of being away from home. Although we still have some time to go, we have started making careful preparations for our sail home. We don’t know yet which route we will take. It could either be the […]

Hey everyone! This week it is my turn to share my America experience. As you have probably read in previous blogs, my life here is not a normal day to day routine. Instead of going to school every single day, I got the opportunity to do what I love, which of course is playing tennis. […]

Lots of diverse sport activities going on. Two weekends in a row a Saturday morning ‘swim meet’ which Eline joined with her swim team. Last weekend the first tennis tournament in which Marinthe participated. And yesterday we watched the Super Bowl like 115 million other ‘Americans’. Matches in swimming are called ‘swim meets’. A completely […]

Another birthday this week: Mira’s birthday, the last one of four while away from home. We have celebrated it nice and quietly with our own family. With a healthy start of the day by joining a 5 km run at 7.30 am in Boca Raton Spanish River Athletic Park, organized by Harrie’s store The Runners Edge. Followed by getting […]

Holiday Season is over and we all picked up our regular activities. Most Christmas decorations have disappeared, only a few diehards keep their decorations (like a red nose of a reindear on the front of their car). Our favourite radio station no longer plays Christmas music 😊. Christmas is a special time, but we are happy […]

We hebben een heerlijke kerstvakantie samen met mijn zusje Inge, Mark, Luc, Tess en Merel. Het verslag van deze vakantie komt van Inge ….. Wat doe je als je zus een jaar in Amerika woont, en als daarmee het traditionele kerstdiner voor de hele familie in het water dreigt te vallen? Precies, dan vlieg je […]

It was a busy week with lots of activities in the ‘boatyard’ behind our house. As of this week there are four boats docked. Jack has bought a nice DeFever motorboat and on Monday he brought it home from Ft Lauderdale. An impressive boat! Jack and Jackie stayed until Thursdaynight cleaning it and moving all […]

It was an unusually cold week until Friday. People told us that it hasn’t been this cold for 10 years. Some Brazilian students of my English class put on really heavy winter clothing with two pairs of pants and a turtleneck sweather. They are not used to the cold at all. For us it is […]

We were in Canada for a very nice long weekend visiting Teunis and his family in snowy weather. Quite a change in temperature from 29C with sun to -7C with snow. Oh well, we might as well have some real winter weather while in Canada, as these will be the only three days of winter […]

We hebben een leuke en gevulde week en dat redden we niet met één auto. Dat komt vooral doordat Marinthe nog een afwijkende schema op de tennisschool heeft met twee afspraken bij de fysio, en Toine twee dagen voor de boten van Jack op pad is. Gelukkig kunnen we in dit geval de auto van […]

Deze week staat in het teken van Thanksgiving en ook het begin van ‘the Holiday Season’. Dat hoor je regelmatig op de radio en je ziet het ook om je heen want sinds vrijdag, de dag na Thanksgiving, verschijnt overal de kerstversiering in het straatbeeld. Op onze favoriete radiozender in de auto wordt sinds het […]

Deze week staat veel in het teken van meer en minder sporten en de juiste balans vinden. Vooral bij Marinthe is het zoeken naar een goede balans nu ze last heeft van haar knie. We brengen op advies van de fysio de trainingsintensiteit terug naar 1 uur tennis en een half uurtje fitness per dag. […]

Na drie weken Florida raken we weer wat verder gesettled. Alle dingen waar we ons sinds het maken van het USA plan de afgelopen maanden wel eens wat zorgen over maken vallen allemaal netjes op z’n plaats en pakken goed uit. Mira maakte zich vooral zorgen of we voor de meiden een leuke school kunnen […]

We zijn terug in het schoolritme nu Marinthe de volle week in het programma van de tennisschool meedraait en Eline sinds woensdag op Boca Raton High School zit. Elke dag staat de wekker om 7.00 uur en stappen we om 8.00 uur in de auto. Eline is elke dag om 15.20 uur klaar en Marinthe […]