Photo Shoot in Massachusetts...

Veronica took advantage of the woods behind Joe and Lisa’s house to do a photo shoot with Ashlynn. As usual, it was too hard for me to choose between the pics, so here’s a bunch.

Home Leave Started in Massachusetts...

Planning our first home leave since August 2011, was extremely complicated as we needed to fit in university tours in four states plus a visit with James’ family. Unfortunately, there was no way to squeeze in a trip to California. We started with two nights in Massachusetts staying with Joe and Lisa that we’d met in Bonaire in 2011. Was very impressed with Joe’s weight loss. Luckily, he’s still willing to eat pizza and fired up his wood burning oven to make us dinner.

Unfortunately, 8-year-old Allie didn’t really remember the girls, but she was willing to let them sleep in her room and play with their dogs.

Ashlynn especially enjoyed Khan, an 8-month-old Newfoundland. On the flight over, she announced, “I’m going to be so annoying on this trip. I can just feel it.” Luckily, she was wrong!

LAMDA, Musical Theatre Examination...

When Veronica started taking singing lessons, she knew that she didn’t want to take the traditional British singing examinations. Her instructor Jenny suggested that she take the LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) exams instead and Veronica loved that idea. In early April, we went with Jenny and one other student to Brussels for the exams.

Veronica sang two songs for her Grade 6 exam, starting each with a short monologue. Here she is setting the scene for singing Skyfall by Adele from the James Bond movie of the same name.

I really loved her performance of Cabaret, which was sung by Liza Minnelli in the movie version of the musical by the same name.

We got to watch the girls rehearse, but couldn’t watch the performance in front of the examiner. Veronica had to wait weeks to find out that she passed. You can watch her performance from Jenny’s earlier that week.

Environmental Committee Co-Chair...

Veronica has really embraced her role this year as Co-Chair of the Environmental Committee at school. For Green Day, she helped to plant a tree which was actually dedicated to her for her hard work and enthusiasm in leading the committee.

She especially loves working with the younger students to come up with ideas of how to make their school more sustainable. One of the big changes they helped push forward was to switch from disposable plastic cups to students carrying their own water bottles.

Upgrading our Yard...

When we first viewed our house, we saw the owner’s wonderful outdoor sofas and hope they’d leave them behind. We didn’t get our way and it took us an extra year, but we finally managed to buy our very own set of outdoor sofas. It’s amazing how much having proper furniture transforms how we use the yard.

There were a lot of options, but we knew that this set was the winner as soon as we saw the table with the little stools since it matches the indoor wicker that we brought with us from North Carolina.

Witness to a Hanging...

Since I’d been to the festival before, I knew that we needed to make our way to the fairgrounds in time to watch the finale: the hanging of the Spanish Commander.

It looked incredibly realistic, but thankfully was all in jest. Immediately afterwards, we headed to the bus for our journey back to The Hague. Fun day!

Interesting Sightings in Brielle...

There were great sights on every corner in Brielle. I loved this fellow’s combination of medieval and modern.

There was an old-fashioned fair with oddities on display on a table. The baby parts in a jar were particularly creepy.

One of the AWC ladies paid the 50 cents to peak in the box at the three-breasted lady.

The simplicity of this calliope makes sense with old date shown on it, but the strange dolls imply a modern twist.

One of the streets was covered in clotheslines and flags, which made it quite festive.

There were several booths with artisans making old-fashioned crafts including this woman with bonnets.