May 2019 - The End

Here in the States, High School (the last 3 years of our Belgian 'humaniora') & Junior High School (the 1st 3 years) ends at the end of May ... something that makes my kids very happy 🙄. And it only starts again around August 20th ... which makes them even more happy 😆. But they do have less vacations during the year than in Belgium. They only have a long Thanksgiving weekend in the fall, instead of a whole week of 'Herfstvakantie', there is no 'krokusvakantie' in February, and only 1 week for Springbreak while there are 2 weeks in Belgium for Easter.
With the end of the school, the high school soccer season ended too for Hendrik. No more practice every day, and no more games up to 2 times a week! So it was a very demanding and pretty heavy schedule, but he loved every minute of it. 

But this year, more things came to an end than just school. Some was good, other less good 😑.

But let's start with the good news!

On May 4th and 5th, we ended our dive course by successfully doing our 4 open water dives where we were tested on the required skills which we practiced in the pool before. As there is not really any 'open water' available in Utah, we did those 4 dives in the Homestead crater, a geothermal hot spring which is around 60 feet (18 meters) deep and where the water temperature is 85°F (29°C) all year long. Pretty awesome experience!

 So all 4 of us are now PADI Open water certified divers and ready for our trip to Hawaii 👌.

The bad news was that a week before we would leave on our vacation at the end of May, our landlord told us that if we wanted to extend our contract with 1 year, as was orally agreed already since a long time (and for which we were asking an updated contract for a long time too), she would raise our rent with a $1000!!!! per month. If we wouldn't agree, we have to be out by the end of June. So that was the end of our time in this house that had become our home 😥. 
In reality that meant we had a few days to find a new house ... days which were already very busy as I had an international party and a baby shower to organise, but more about those later. And when we would be back from our vacation, we would have 2 weeks to move! 
After visiting more than 10 houses, we were ready to finish this whole adventure here in Utah and just return back to Belgium ... they were all that horrible!! But just when we were ready to give up, we did find something where we could see us live for 1 more year😅!  And you know, now we're even looking forward to this new place. It's much older than the one we're living in now, but it definitely has its charms, and it has a gorgeous shaded deck where we see ourselves spending a lot of time during the coming hot summer months.

So about those parties ... May is typically a month with lots of parties, and this year it wasn't any different.

We have ladies in our international community in different phases of their life, leading to different type of parties. One is getting married, so we had a bachelorette party, and another is having a bay, which called for a baby shower. 

Each summer we have some of the international families going back home, so we also had an international farewell party, and as 2 of those families are from our Belgium team, we had another, more intimate Belgian farewell party too 😅.

The Bachelorette Party

On the 5th of May, I did my 2 last open water dives at 6AM in the morning, and went straight to the bachelorette party from there ... it was going to be a long, exhausting day!

We met at a parking lot and headed off to Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City for a potluck picnic, after which we continued to Park City where we had an AirBnB for the night.

At the parking lot, ready to get that party started!

Perfect weather and spot for a picnic

First bottle to be popped ... wouldn't be the last!

Once in the AirBnB, we chilled, drank some more, played some bachelorette games, chilled some more in the jacuzzi ... with another drink (or 2) of course 😆 ...

 

The winners of the game

The effect of the Norwegian shots 😜

... and then it was time for presents, and to get all pretty to go out & make the bars in Park City unsafe. 

It should have taken 2 Ubers to get the whole group there ... it took 3 as we forgot somebody at the house who was 'locked' in the garage and we only noticed we missed somebody when we were at the bar 🤪... too many drinks already, you'd think?🤨

After a few more games at the bars we headed back to the house fairly quickly as the night life here is definitely not like back home (or maybe we're getting old? ... Nah!). 

Some people who helped her out in the bar with the games

We didn't need 3 Ubers to get back! An old dude with the most charming passenger offered us all a ride back home.

-The End-

The Baby Shower

One of the ladies from our international community got the surprise of her life this year ... after 3 years here in Utah with their family of 4 they will be going back to Portugal this summer with a family of 5! Little Lucas is expected in the beginning of July, and here in the States it's the tradition to throw a Baby Shower before the baby is born ... and so I did!

A fun afternoon with some more games & presents ... very differently from the ones during the bachelorette party though 😆.

The final battle ...

The winner

-The End-

The International Farewell Party

One of the drawbacks of being part of an international community, is that each year you have to say goodbye to people who are returning back home. But hey, it's definitely a good excuse for a party!

As those returning home will miss the International Buffet which we organise annually and which will exceptionally take place in the fall this year instead of in the spring, we made this farewell party into a little international buffet. I sure love tasting all these international typical dishes ... a real treat!

  

There cannot be a farewell party without a farewell speech, right? And as I was the one who organised the party, guess who got the honour to do that? 😏

 

And at the end, as with all the other parties, we finished it off with a group picture.

-The End-

The Belgian Farewell Party

As I mentioned before, 2 out of the 3 families who will be leaving this summer, are Belgian families. So an additional, more personal farewell party was called for.

We did a quiz to check their knowledge about Utah & Belgium ... did they learn enough about Utah while living here, and do they know enough about the Belgium they are returning to? And to make it fun for the kids too, we added some games ... fun fun indeed ... for the kids, ánd the adults! 

This is the Belgian military team, and when you add the partners, you get this:

Let the games begin ...

And of course there was a farewell present too ... a poster with pictures of all the beautiful and unique moments they experienced during their time here.

And did you already notice how we end each party with a group picture? No?

Meet our happy Belgian family (except our boys who left already by then ... I guess they felt it coming 😆)

Meet our crazy Belgian family 🤪 (the red tongue is thx to my red velvet cookies 😋)

During the summer months, all activities with the international spouses club ánd the American spouses club stop. So I had had my last book club and last social with the American spouses, and my last coffee and a last special activity with the international spouses.

My Book club

The social 

The laggards @ the social 😏 

Last coffee

For our last special activity this month, we got an Israeli baking class where we made a  baguette and a 'Challah for Sabbat', which doesn't only look great, but tastes even better.🤤

And then it was time for our annual holiday. This time, thanks to our Delta Airmiles 😊, we were off to Maui, one of the Hawaiian islands. 

So we ended May beautifully and were looking forward to what June had to bring! 😎