We made it!

 It was a long trip - some brutal flight delays turned it into a 25 hour journey - but after some extra attention by the folks and customs and homeland security, we managed to squeeze our way into the US. Europeans aren't allowed here, so it was tricky to get Naomi in as an exeption to the rule.

Sure is amazing to be here! We have been really busy so far. Visited our new land, set up the golf course, played games, picked Kalia and Evi up at the airport, discovered a new skate park next to Lake Michigan, the list goes on.

On a sad note, my Grandma Harriet passed away this week. I am grateful that we will all be able to go to the funeral, but it is a difficult way to start the holiday. Looking forward to seeing all of the family next weekend though! What a treat!

The Gladstone skate park!

No shortage of deer to watch.

A picnic and a hike on our land.

Passing the Tests

 This week has been about preparing to fly to the States. Travelling is not fun anymore! We decided to get tested 3 days prior to departure so that we had a bit more time to prepare everything else. That was a good idea. We showed up to the test site and there was a 45 minute line out the door. In the past we could just walk right in and get tested. I guess lots of people want to go on a holiday and they didn't take that into consideration. 

Anyway, we finally got to the front and I thought we needed to bring an ID, but we needed the passport we would travel with. So we had to make new appointments, drive back home, get the passports, and stand in line for another 45 minutes instead of our planned trip to the skate park. We still got to skate for a few minutes and then it was time for Naomi and the girls to visit her Grandma. Fortunately we passed our tests, so we should be allowed to fly tomorrow.

I had to spend a few hours just getting all the paperwork in order so that we can hopefully get through customs in Minneapolis. We have to prove that Naomi is a part of our family so that she can get in because travel to the US is still not allowed for EU citizens. Yesterday and today are filled with packing up and preparing. We will get up a little after 4 in the morning tomorrow so that we can get to the airport 4 hours early. Hopefully that will be enough time!

The girls had a good last week of school. Lots of unhealthy food and parties - three students are leaving their class along with one of their teachers who is retiring after teaching for 40+ years at that same school. Our schools were anticlimactic. All of my events got cancelled because of the spike in Covid numbers. Naomi's continued, and she had a really good graduation ceremony where she spoke on behalf of her mentor student. 

Wrapping up the school year.

We have been enjoying the tomatoes!

Found a bird's nest in the garden shed.

Jungle tomatoes.

Swimming Diplomas

The girls got their first swimming diploma yesterday. A big ceremony at the pool. It was quite impressive to see how far they have come in the past year and a half. They are good swimmers now. Amélie loves to dive into the pool and swim underwater. Abigail likes swimming on her back. We celebrated with Opa and Auntie Edith at the windmill and then made some pizzas for dinner. It was a fun day.

Feels good to be done with school for the year apart from a couple online meetings I have this week. I really got paid a lot to do very little work thanks to all the Covid stuff. Next year will likely be more work even though I will get paid less - I dropped half a day of work to spend more time on the new business. 

The case numbers are skyrocketing in this country as they decided to open everything up again. Now they are shutting things back down. I wish our government would just take a hint from Germany when it comes to handling this virus...they seem clueless. I just hope we can get negative test results so that we are allowed to travel to the US. We are worried about that. 

We had fun at the big skatepark - all the other kids were in school so we had the place mostly to ourselves!

I made a stand for my new belt sander.

Found a big beetle in the forest.

Good swimmers!

Abigail jumping off the diving board.

Auntie Claire

 We sure had fun with Auntie Claire this week! She had a good trip up on Wednesday and slept most of the day Thursday - that worked out well as we all had to be in school. On Friday we went to Zwolle for the afternoon. Strange to see everything opened up and back to normal. Our silverware is getting rusty, so we were looking for a new set, but couldn't quite find it. It has been about a year since I have gone into a store.

On Saturday we went to the skate park and the girls had swimming lessons. Then we had a restful afternoon. This morning we will have red, white and blue pancakes followed by a trip to the open air museum. We will drop Claire off at the train station on our way back home. She had a really good idea of starting some weekend trips with one girl at a time in the fall. They will start exploring some nearby cities together once they turn seven. 

Things are winding down at school. Just two more days of lessons for me, then a few meetings. I have been making some progress with the knife blocks, but also some mistakes. Hopefully they will turn out okay, it is a challenging design. My belt sander broke, so I had to spend 300 euros on a new one. Ouch. This one should last longer though. 

These screws aren't holding on tight enough.