2015Sofia went back to school on January 5th, quite the challenge after a long winter break. Back to the routine for a while. On January 29 Sofia had her birthday. She is now 11 years young. She had a celebration at her dad's with some friends, as well as a party with girls from school at her mom's. Sofia had passed the Iowa test for the North Shore HiCap program earlier and on January 31 she took the CogAT test. Results are expected mid March. Shortly after that, on Friday February 13 (off all dates!), Jan and Sofia flew to Houston (with stops in Portland and Salt Lake City) where they went on a 5 day cruise to Mexico. Sofia had her first "first class" experience, though just domestic flights. On Tuesday, March 10, Sofia's cousin Marielle had a baby girl called Iva. Great news: Sofia passed the CogAT test and was invited to the full-time Highly Capable Children program at Shelton View, close to our house. Congratulations Sofia, we are so proud of you. Sofia also got a 1st Honors Award again and won a Math contest at her school. She is one smart kid! More great news: now that Sofia's school for next year has been settled, we could finally start looking for a nicer place to live and we found our dream home almost immediately: The sale closed on April 29 and we're already packing! Shortly after our move to the new house, Jan and Sofia left for their annual leave to The Netherlands. We spent 2 weeks in Spain with Opa Jan, who is very sick, and about 5 weeks in The Netherlands. The weather in The Netherlands was mostly very bad. We stayed at campsites and the beach, hoping that Sofia could play with other kids outside but these plan were completely ruined. Next year we'll be going just 3 weeks. In early September Sofia started her new school. She is in the EAP program at Shelton View and was very excited to meet all her new classmates. The experience so far is very good. On Labor Day this year we heard the sad but not unexpected news: Jan's dad passed away in Spain. Jan had to travel to Spain on a few hours notice and had an adventurous trip because of the Lufthansa strike that same week. However he arrived in time for the funeral. Living in the new house is wonderful, especially now that Huyen and Minh are here too. Jan got a parking ticket in Seattle but requested a mitigation hearing and got off with a warning! Huyen and Jan took a Swing 1 dance class at Left Foot Boogie (5 Wednesdays). On December 5th, we celebrated our annual Sinterklaas event with Sofia. On December 12 and 13, Jan and Huyen attended a workshop with John and Julie Gottman: "The Art and Science of Love" Sofia came to visit us on December 26th for our Christmas Celebration. There were lots of presents for everyone. On New Years Eve, Huyen, Minh and Jan went to Queen Ann to watch the Space Needle fireworks.
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