At the Dutch Marines' open day

Check out Lucas fighting a marine! Our cool dude! I'm having a problem embedding, but the clip can be seen here.

We had tons of fun last weekend at the 'Mariniers open dag'. And I filmed some bits there with Cool FM. It's been 7 years since I talked nonsense to a camera, but I still love it ; ) Here is some of what we filmed. The other clips should be on Video Aruba (Aruba's Utube) soon.

Camping

It's tradition in Aruba that families go camping on the beaches at Easter. We joined the happy campers this year and, my goodness, did we had a blast!

We were 'taken in' by the 'Macamba camp', which consisted of about 8 families in 11 tents, plus a big communal (party) tent. Throughout the day and in the evenings, there were things organized for the kids: a talent show, a kids' disco, a spooky night-time treasure hunt, a flea market, a 'survival dinner' (organized and presented by one of the campers, who is a Marine), plus a ride on the partybus. It was all spontaneously organized by the parents (many of which were teachers, which explains their organizing talents)

I just know that experiences like these will stay with our kids for ever! No money, toys or expensive vacations can top these simple pleasures. Lucas wanted us to live in our tent on the beach for ever.

My mum and Lucas in our borrowed tent, which- on the last night- slowly started to collaps on us. It really was time to pack up!

See how close we were to the sea? And we were right next to the (cornered off) breading ground of Leatherback Sea Turtles. The night before we joined the camp, they saw a turtle checking on her eggs.

The 'party tent'...the place where everything happened. This was just before the scary treasure hunt. On this picture you can still see Andy in normal clothes. An hour later he was turned into a scary knight who had to protect treasures. Other parents were turned into witches, pirates, a green monster and more.

View from the light house, where we drove with the partybus. Towards the right on the coast, you can just see our camp.

Lemar (the birthday boy). It was his birthday that we were celebrating on the partybus.

A beer and some pumping music and a cut-up toe was quickly forgotten ; )

RetroMatic was back at Chaos Cafe

And we had a blast! Though I wasn't too keen on the late night start. We hit our first note at about 11.30PM and didn't finish till roughly 2.00AM

That is late in my books (these days)....still...I was able to 'sleep in' until 8 o'clock whilst Andy took the boys to the beach. My kids usually get me up at 6.00 AM, so sleeping in that 'late' was wonderful.

The reactions to the show were great & we definately had a giggle on stage, so all was well. Now we just have to decide how soon we'll be playing again...

It's always great to have my mum and my sister there...

Aruba Carnaval 2009

Our RetroMatic performance

I am blogging? That must mean that I am traveling again ; )

Yes, it's true. We are traveling again. Andy and I are in Belize. Andy is staying for 3 weeks & I am here for 1 week. We are running the Jungle Dome whilst Karen is on holiday in Canada.

Our two boys are with my mum and sister in Aruba. And I have to admit, travelling without the kids has been very enjoyable so far (only 3 more nights and I am back home again). Of course, we always have a great time when we travel as a family, but it is also nice, for once, to not be responsible for anyone but myself. It feels rather good to have a break from being ‘mum’. As a mother, it’s so easy to lose your sense of self. Because you put everyone else’s needs before your own (generally) & you feel like you are only nurturing yourself with the scraps (of time) that have ‘fallen off the table’. But for now, my time is my own. And, as long as I know that my boys are happy (which they are), I can continue to enjoy myself and enjoy spending time with my husband. So to us, this is in part a working-holiday and part honeymoon (which we’ve never had before).

And being back in Belize has been great. It’s like I had almost forgotten what a beautiful country this is. It’s an absolute paradise! In a way, it’s much more beautiful than Aruba. It’s just so lush. Aruba has better beaches, that’s true, but apart from that, it’s a rock. It’s a rock with some cacti, some donkeys and some goats. Oh, and with a lot of mega hotels and resorts (these, obviously, do not make the landscape any prettier)

The Belize inland (which is where we are) consists of jungle, amazing birds and wildlife, rivers, small villages and character-filled lodges, like our own (much nicer than those gigantic monstrosities of the Aruban time-share hotels)

Still, each country has its own charm. Aruba is such a comfortable place to live (and, unlike what the US press says about the island, it must be one of the safest and most peaceful places on earth), Aruba truly is ‘one happy island’, where everything has to be celebrated excessively and abundantly, it has great bars and restaurants, good schools and facilities for families and the different cultures on the island seem to blend well together.

Belize, on the other hand, is an oddball country. It's a country steeped in contradictions. Many people have no running water at their houses, but they do have a cellphone and cable television. Many call themselves Christians, but they believe in witches, ghosts and shape shifters. It's a country of many cultures, each with their own traditions, yet they all feel Belizean.

Belizeans are generally polite and quite shy. They don’t party the way the Arubans do. When the Belizeans go swimming, they keep all their clothes on and the women refuse to dance when the men can see them. The country is steeped in religion. Any office you go in will have biblical versus stuck to the walls & church is often people’s only form of entertainment (I am now mainly talking of local rural communities and not the ex-pats) Many of the local Mayan women here seem to go to church so they can show off their new clothes, to join in what can only be called karaoke, to sway to the music and to enjoy the BBQ. Some will be genuine believers, but quite a few seem to go for ‘just a bit of fun’.

I have found living in both countries very enjoyable. Aruba because of it’s so ‘normal’ and ‘easy’. If you can live in Europe, you can live in Aruba. It isn’t all that different from each other. But living in Belize has been enjoyable especially because it is ‘not normal’. Nothing is like it is in Europe. It’s like a different world all together. How often have Andy and I not looked at each other over the years, laughed and said: ‘only in Belize’ (meaning, something as weird as this could never happen anywhere else). Every day is a surprise waiting to happen. And the more flexible your attitude is, the more you are able to ‘go with the flow’, the better your experience will be in this country. You may have planned to go from A to B on a certain day, yet you end up at X for some bizarre reason. And all you can do is laugh, which, by the way, is something the Belizeans do a lot. They laugh easily and heartily. It puts us, those from wealthy Western nations, to shame.

In countries like Belize, people seem to generally be more content and happy. Even when they live in a wooden shack, have no electricity or running water, no shoes for the kids and the women spend much of their time collecting wood for their open fires to cook on.

And it’s amazing how many people can live in one wooden shack here. The logistics of it are baffling. You wonder how on earth it all fits. Yet, when more family members or friends show up from Guatemala, everyone bumps up even more and that family is taken in too.

But in Europe we complain when we only have one flat-screen TV (the one in the bedroom is broke and we have no money to buy another) or we say that our house is too small because two of our children have to share a bedroom...I mean, what are we on about? It is embarrassing to hear everyone complain these days.

Recession or no recession...we are the fortunate ones. You are sitting behind a computer right now, you can explore the world (even if only online), you obviously can read and have been educated, you have a roof over your head, you have eaten and you have clean drinking water. So let’s stop complaining & start being thankful. That’s what I’ll do today. I will say my thanks for the rich life that I am living and have lived so far.

As Moby and I always used to shout out at each other (and what will be my mantra for today): ‘Life is nice!’

halloween, football, etc.

So much personal stuff has happened lately. Lucas turned 6, my mum had a successful hernia operation, it was Halloween, we've found another house to move into in December & we planned a trip to Europe (leaving Aruba tomorrow)

I won't go into all the details. But instead I will just share a few pictures (more to come). Lucas dressed up as Harry Potter, Aidan dressed up as Batman and Andy playing in the Plaza football tournament.

When it rains it pours

Here in the tropics we are usually blessed with gorgeous blue skies, a warm breeze and swimming pools that don’t make you scream out when you jump into them. But when the whether gets bad here, it gets real bad.

For the last day and a half now, it’s been raining on Aruba & there have been quite strong winds. Nothing too extreme, as Aruba is one of the islands located below the point where the hurricanes usually form in the Caribbean. In Dutch these islands are called ‘De onderwindse eilanden’.

But still, this island can’t deal with the amount of rainfall we’ve been getting off the tail end off the Tropical Storm Omar.

Straight away the roads turn into rivers, roofs and windows leak, trees and cacti fall down, the power is out, the schools close, the shops close, everything simply stops.

So- whilst I’m typing this- we are out of power (relying on my computer’s rather weak battery), the boys are home from school and climbing up the walls, our house is leaking like crazy and the toilets won’t flush.

Last night- when we still had power- I used the washing machine and heard a loud ‘Whoosh!’ It almost sounded like water was shooting out of something. I looked around and found nothing. Only that somehow the washing machine has leaked a bit. But later on, when I walked into the guest bathroom, I saw what the loud ‘Whoosh’ had really been. The septic tank had somehow backfired and the shower cubicle was filled with nasty blown slush. It was disgusting! Andy cleaned it as well as he could. But I will have to bleach it like crazy today (if I can manage to get to the local supermarket somehow and if it is open). And we will have to hope that the septic can be emptied today.

It really is a muddy, wet, windy mess on the island at the moment. And the sad part is that my little sister Iris is here from Holland with a friend. Yesterday we had wanted to celebrate Iris’ birthday on the beach, but of course that was impossible. Even the cinema (our plan B) was closed. And now they are stuck in this mess just like the rest of us.

Let’s hope that in a few days things clear up again (not much chance of that today). And let’s hope the power comes back on before our hyperactive kids drive my husband and myself insane!

P.S. Aha…help is near. My sister Miriam is coming to evacuate us to my mum’s house, where they still have power. Miriam’s car is high enough off the ground to get us through the flooded roads. Now we just have to hope that our house doesn’t flood completely whilst we’re out.

My lack of regular blogging...

I'm sorry that I haven't spent much time on this blog in the last few weeks/months, it's just that my daily attention has been going to my music blog: http://simonesmusicblog.blogspot.com

I will upload some new pictures on this family travel blog later today though.

And for those of you who want to see specific Aruba pictures, Aruba real estate & Aruba Hotels, then you're better off checking out my sister's blog: http://arubaconnections.blogspot.com/

Thanks & happy family travels everyone...

Do you want to spend more time with your family? Move abroad!

Tired of the rat race? Starting to forget the names of your own family members? Then it is time to take action! Go on an adventure together. And I don't just mean an adventure vacation (though that can be a nice start), but a real life-changing adventure. Move to a new country! And why not? If you're not happy in the new place, you can move back. Where ever you've come from will not just disappear.

Having done it ourselves, I can definitely recommend it. And starting a lodge or B&B with your family is something else that I can recommend. My two boys were born in Belize as we were building up our jungle lodge, The Belize Jungle Dome. And it was a wonderful lifestyle for us as new parents. We were always together as a family as the lodge was also our home (we later build a house at the edge of the land to have some more privacy). And, as a new mom, I didn't get the feeling that I was just 'sitting at home with the kids'. We really had the best of both worlds. Building a successful business and being full-time parents.

Starting this project as a couple also brought my husband and myself closer, as we don't have many of the same interests in life, and having something like this to share has been great for us.

So why have we moved away from Belize and our lodge after all these years? Because we felt like our job was done there. We did what we said we were going to do and created a great business. We didn't want to expand anymore and our staff had become so good at running the lodge that there wasn't much left for us to do.

Also, I wanted to do something in the creative field again and didn't see any opportunities for that in Belize. So now we are living in Aruba and I have joined a local radio station, Cool FM. And I sing in a band here on the island, called RetroMatic.

The lodge still runs wonderfully well without us and provides us with a nice income so-again-we have the best of both worlds.

My mum's brilliant birthday party!

Andy's birthday....out on a quadbike!

This is quiet beach we found on the North of the island, where thousands of people over the years have been piling up rocks for good luck. I built a little rockpile myself whilst there and made a wish. It's a shame that in this picture you only see a small part of the beach, because these piles of rocks go on forever and even are built high up on giant bolders. Very cool place indeed.

After having been on our little tour of the island in the morning, Andy picked Lucas up from school with the quadbike in the afternoon. Of course, Lucas was delighted!

And here is picture of a us with our neighbours, who we'd invited over for dinner by the pool. We served them chicken, rice & beans, to show them what people eat in Belize (there's not much chicken, rice and beans being served in Aruba)

father's day, going orange, etc. Some recent pictures...

Some old fashion partying....but still in bed before one ; )

What I find so enjoyable about being in Aruba is that I have a chance to just be myself sometimes. To go out dancing with my sister, for instance. It allows me to, just for a few hours, forget that I am mom & that I have a family that needs me. For just a few hours I can simply get lost in the music, jump around & talk rubbish to people that I don't know (actually, isn't that also what I do when I blog and do my radio show? Hihi...)

These pictures were of a double birthday-party we had at someone's house recently. As you can see, it was a 'white' party. I've also been to a 'trashy, fake' party at another person's house/pool here on Aruba, which was also brilliant. These actually are the most fun places to go to (I think). Much more chilled than going into town to a club/bar. Most people seem to hire a DJ, catering and sometimes additional entertainment. At the 'trashy, fake' party they brought in a whole mariachi band which was a great surprise.

Anyway, guess this means that life on Aruba is still wonderful (apart from this terrible cold that we've all been suffering from).

Wishing you sunshine and happiness, where ever you are....

Cool FM

Starting the first of May I will be joining Aruba’s number 1 radio station, called Cool FM.

Of course, this is a small island, so if you compare it to Europe or America, than the radio over-all is pretty basic in Aruba. But still, Cool FM is the best station the island has. And they are very involved when it comes to live events. These guys are everywhere!

I’ve never done radio before, so it’s actually a nice challenge for me. I’ll be doing a show every Saturday morning from 10 to 12, called the Weekend Express. It will be a ‘standard’ radio show, with some tracks from the Dutch, English and American Charts, the Caribbean & Latin charts, some classic tracks, some dance tunes, some mash-ups…you get the drift.

The thing that’s rather worrying is that I am meant to do the show all by myself & I get very intimidated when I see lots of buttons, computer programs, etc. I just haven’t got a clue how to work these things. Also, I am starting so soon (May the 3rd) that I have no idents yet, no jingles, nothing. Still, I know how to introduce music and as long as the songs are good, the show should be okay. Right?

On the first of May the radio station is hosting a big event here on the island. I’ll be presenting part of the day and also my new cover band (RetroMatic) gets launched on that day. We have never been on a stage yet together & just two weeks ago we got a new drummer. And now our first performance will be in front of 10.000 to 20.000 people, plus be broadcast live on air. How crazy is that? We always envisioned playing our first gig in a smoky old bar somewhere, not in front of such a large audience! Still, we’re pretty confident that it will work out alright. And anyway, it’s just some covers we’re playing.
Wish me luck!

More happy days

My goodness there's a delay on my blogging since we've moved to Aruba. This picture for instance was taken at the 2008 Carnival (late January) and I haven't yet uploaded the clips of Aidan birthday (14th of February)

Guess I'm just too busy having fun ; )

Nearly ran over a wild goat yesterday, which a true 'Aruba' moment. There's loads of them on the island. They are stinky, but fun to see around.

Now what to do tomorrow???? Shall we go sit on one of the many beaches, climb some rocks, take the kids to the playground or go to the cinema? Oh what a tough life we have...hihi...

So, just in case you wondered...are things good here? Yes they are! Apart from the fact that the drummer of our band suddenly has decided to leave the island. So we're currently drummerless. Still, we're working on finding a replacement. It'll all work out, it always does.

Funny things kids say

All is well here on the sunny island. My little sister Iris and her partner Remon came over from Holland, Andy went to Belize to check on the Dome (it's running great, so we can continue to hang out in Aruba), Lucas and Aidan are enjoying their schools and I love singing in a band. So yes, we're a happy bunch.

We also celebrated carnaval here which-by the way-was great fun. I'll post some pics in the coming days.

Anyway, I believe it's time again to write down some classic 'Lucas comments'. Like the other day when we were bickering and he said:

'My brain thinks you're stupid...but I think you're beautiful'
Now how could I respond to that? It did make me laugh though.

And when he talked about how he misses Belize, he said:
'You know mum, I love Belize like a brother'

Talking about his brother...the other day he got very confused when he saw Aidan outside and a second later he noticed that Aidan was inside. He was convinced that we suddenly had 2 Aidans and looked for number two for ages.

And finally, we were talking about how Andy and I used to be on television. Lucas said that he wanted to be on TV too. When I asked him what he wanted to do on TV he answered:
'Oh nothing, I just want to go in there and have a look around'.

Oh, the innocence of childhood.

Aruban life

Aidan loves having his aunt and his nan so nearby. Strangely enough, he calls them both 'Opa', which is Dutch for grandad. Oh well, guess he's a tat confused.

Lucas has been struggling the most with our move, but he is just starting to get settled in now. He has started school (finally) and is loving it. It's a brilliant Dutch private school, called 'De Schakel'. So he should be talking Dutch in no time, seeing as he's already got the basis of it, with me talking Dutch on and off to him since he was born.

Our dear friends Roy and Cindy came down from Rochester, New York to stay with us. They brought their son Joshua along for a few days. We had never met Joshua before, but he turned out to be a wonderful guy. They are such a nice family : )

Chilling at 'Fisherman's hut' with Cindy. This is the place where we spend many weekends...

Our little pirate Aidan

Still in love after all these years. If only we could remember for sure how long we've been together. Has it been 11 years now?

Happy 2008!

Christmas and New Year has been very enjoyable here on Aruba, with plenty of presents, plenty of family time and plenty of crazy fireworks. Pretty much the oposite of the quiet Christmasses and New Years that we've had in Belize for the last 6 years.

In Belize we had to remind ourselves that it was New Year Eve, for instance, whilst in Aruba there's no escaping it. Everybody spends a small fortune on fireworks here and goes out on the street creating their own little (or not so little) fireworks show. So at midnight the whole sky above Aruba was alight with fireworks, you simply didn't know which way to turn, it was everywhere. Andy was really surprised to see it as even in the UK people don't do that, but I told him that it reminded me of my childhood in Holland as the Dutch do the same thing.

Something else that I really enjoyed here were the traditional Christmas singers. I forgot what they are called, there's a special name for them. Anyway, they are big groups of people (about 20 per band, with about 8 to 10 of them singing). The music that they make does not sound like Christmas music to me though, it just sounds Tropical and kinda salsa to me. It's really good fun. And these bands are everywhere around the Christmas period in Aruba. They play at the supermarkets, in the shopping streets, out at parking lots, etc.

The traditional Christmas lights on the islands were wonderful to see as well. The boys (of course) loved them.

And the other traditional thing that the Arubans do is scare away the bad spitits from the past year by letting off thousands of firecrakers outside virtually every store and business on the island around New Year's Eve. It's rediculously noisy, but I like the thought behind it.

The following pictures were from our Christmas Eve dinner, which was at a Lebanese restaurant. Which is of course not particularly traditional for Christmas, but we had great food and good fun too.

So there you go. That's what's been happening here. I hope you've all had plenty of good times and I wish you all good health, love and joy for 2008 and for the years that follow.

Blog on!