Summer Update and Heading to Southern France - September 26, 2021

It was a whirlwind summer! 

We were fortunate to see many friends and family. We learned that 5 weeks in the PNW was definitely not enough time for all the visits we would have liked to make, having some fun outings and taking care of necessary maintenance on the Adams house in Bellingham. That said, thanks to the goodness of many friends and family, we were able to catch up in person with a lot of folks.

Cousins picnic half way between Bellingham and Bellevue

View from Mount Baker south side Park Butte Lookout hike
 

August 15 came all too quickly and we returned to the Netherlands with Anika and Nina (Martin). Tessa stayed behind in Bellingham; with the responsibility of new renters moving in and to finish staining the back porch.

Vroom Family news:
Visit to Lopez/Orcas Island
 
 

Martin is now Nina. She came out as transgender female a few months ago. She has been working up the courage for years to share openly about her gender identity. She was very brave and ready to share with the extended family and friends about her journey so far.
It was very difficult for Nina to find a college room at Twente University near to Enschede, The Netherlands. There is an incredible housing shortage for students in the Netherlands (an estimated 40.000 students are looking for rooms). Luckily, the stars aligned and Nina was able to move into a room on campus before her classes in the Creative Technology degree program started. So far, the classes are challenging and fun.

Tessa continues to work remotely as a sound editor and artist for the London based podcast company, Rusty Quill. In October, she will be doing some travelling to the east coast, then back to Portland. Mid-October, she heads to England with her grandfather. This will be followed by a visit to the Netherlands, and finally she plans to spend a couple of months with us in France. All this is only possible because Jan and Aunt Susan are willing to have Tikka stay with them at one house or the other for the next three months.


Anika is in the second year of an Environmental Science Master's at the University of Delft. She continues to improve her photography website and enjoys photographing events. Anika has had a rough couple of months following her second pfitzer Covid vaccine. She has had extreme fatigue, chest pain and dizziness for two months. Finally she is starting to regain some stamina. The most likely explanation for her symptoms is myocarditis or pericarditis, but none of the tests she had fully confirmed the underlying cause.
 
Morning selfie in the Ardeche, France
 
Currently Herman and I are in France travelling south towards the Provence region. We will start a 7 month "house sitting" in a small town called Auty about an hour from Toulouse. This time we will be staying in a carriage house and care taking a chateau with a beautiful resident cat named Vinnie!

Follow us on our trip ‘En Route to Chateau Dumas’ for a daily update. We plan to arrive around October 12 to learn the ropes of Chateau and kitty care taking.

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