Dear Friends,

 

After seven years Jack is not longer with braces in his mouth, only retainers for the night!  4 children at the orthodontist cost a fortune believe me! In 2011 we have had a few great holidays and long weekends! In February we went skiing with the Jonssons, also Louise and Fleur joined us, which was great!

June 18th our good friend from Greece Jiorgos Papanikolauo got married with Polish Malgorzata on Syros. We extended this trip with a few days, so Rob and I had a fabulous time in Greece driving on mopeds over the island! 

When we came back we could straight go to Noa’s 8th grade graduation. For the girls there was a little competition who was wearing the highest heels! So Noa is now a freshman and we have three children in high school, which is very special!

During the summer we went first to Sweden to see Annika, Per and the boys in their summer house on a little island close to Stockholm. Very special to have those never ending days with sunlight, swimming in the sea and have day trips to Stockholm! We also went to Dala and the Siljan Lake! Beautiful country, we will for sure come back! After Sweden we came home for a few days and then went to Scotland to pick up Robin and Jack from St Andrews. They went to summer school for 3 weeks. They loved every minute of it! Robin spent a lot of time to write her extended essay and played golf in the afternoons. Jack signed up for a three weeks debating course and played tennis in the afternoons. Jack fell in love with Scotland and St Andrew’s!! He wants to study there! So he is working extremely hard to get good grades to succeed in this mission!

During the summer holidays Rob was asked if he was interested in a new job! CFO for Heineken in Helsinki, Finland! We didn’t have to think long about this, YES, a new great adventure and a beautiful country! We thought we could stay in Belgium till the summer of 2013! But no, Heineken has made other plans for us.  So Rob started his job on November 1st and he really enjoys it! He has a little apartment in the centre of Helsinki with view on the sea.

Because of this move our family construction will slightly change. Robin will go to university hopefully Maastricht and Jack will stay in Waterloo with the Ahmad family to finish his final year at St Johns. So all of a sudden Noa will be the “oldest” at home after the summer of 2012! So we are organizing many transitions this summer! The choices for schools isn’t a complicated one, there is only one international school in Helsinki. 350 students, by far the smallest they ever went to! We will see……

We have seen many great concerts this year; first starting with “de Vrienden van Amstel”, James Blunt, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers (Rob took Jack, Robin and Hugo), MaenRock in Mechelen and Milow with Robin and Alex. We also went to the Pukkelpop festival. Thank God there was so much traffic on the roads, so we arrived just after this enormous storm blew the stages away and 5 people got killed.! Can you imagine what would have happened with the 5 kids we had with us!

 

With the children it goes very well. We are lucky that they can learn easily and especially the boys like to know things! Hugo (13) is very interested in history. He is doing well in 7th grade. He made it to the football team and is continuing this all school year. He has a very clear view on many things and is not shy to express his thoughts! “Obama sucks” for example, but at least he will clarify why he thinks this! 

Noa (15) is the most sportive of the 4. She plays in autumn football, in winter season she plays basketball and in the spring it will be softball! With football she stepped up to be the goalie, because no one else was doing it or was good enough! This is so Noa, not afraid to fail, with no experience she did a hell of a job and with the ISST’s the girls varsity team came back from London with silver! Now she is playing basketball for the JV team as a point guard and she loves it. She is invited to come with the varsity girls to a trainings camp in Tel Aviv in Israel in February. It won’t be a surprise that Noa is not interested in music! Most of the days she is not home before 19.00. For school she works hard and it goes well!

Jack (17 in January) is the opposite he loves music! He plays bass guitar and sometimes when needed percussion! He also sings in the choir with a big green robe on! Hilarious! He was very pleased when school could schedule him in with an extra subject for his IB, music! He plays in the jazz band and also in his own band. December is always full of performances! School goes well, however at the beginning of the school year there were some problems with math. We found a nice tutor and he is back on track! As I said he wants to go to St Andrews to study IBA (International Business Administration). It will be a challenge to get in, but he can give it a try! Otherwise he will choose for Maastricht too, just like Robin.

Robin turned 18 in October and has driving lessons at the moment! She loves it. She is studying hard for her IB exams. She finished German last year with a 6!

She wants to study IBA in Maastricht or maybe international law.

She is in the chamber orchestra playing flute already for 7 years I just realised! She is teaching math to 4th grade kids as an assistant and she is captain of the swim team. She still swims 3 times per week at 06.15! For her it will be an exciting year, with her exams, graduation, prom and the whole 12th grade will go on holiday together to Greece after the exams!

 

I am fine too, busy as usual. I like to do some sports. I go to Pilates twice per week, 1 time I play tennis with a teacher and 1 time I play ladies double and if Jack is to busy I take his place with tennis too! So yes I do like my tennis. And on Fridays I do Zumba! I also try to study hard to finish my medical secretary course in spring, or at least before we move. I was team mother of the girls football team and now I’m in the organisation of Robin's graduation, which is a big thing!

And somewhere I need to go to Helsinki to find a new house!

 

And Rob? He is working and enjoying Finland!