Quest for change – We visited a sailship on a mission.

Quest for change

https://www.clean2antarctica.nl/explore/challenging-companies-and-millenials

Me, my mother in law and the Girls visited the Sailboat the “Morgenster” (meaning “morningstar” in dutch) in the dock of the Scheepvaart museum in Amsterdam.

Not just a pretty boat… but a floating think tank, where young and bright minds are creating new sustainable solutions for a better, cleaner and brighter future of this planet.

One of those young people is our niece Esmee! She was selected to go on a 29-day voyage with the morningstar and be a part of this fresh enthusiastic, optimistic, flexible and creative group of minds. These millennials are going to help companies to find sustainable solutions.

All of this while being challenged by the ocean and all elements and forces that nature can possibly throw at them. Shanking loose all of those creative juices and breaking through all the boundaries in their minds. Making it possible for them to take a step further and think way out of the box to come up with these new groundbreaking solutions.


She told us all about their journey. 

About weeks and weeks on the open sea without any land or life in sight. About the storms, flying people, climbing the ropes, steering the weel, freshly baked bread.
About “no yogurt for breakfast” only to realize after two weeks that there WAS yogurt, but only on every other day. Exactly on the days she had the late-shift so she slept in on those days. About scrubbing the deck, and about the “Nightwatch”… No not the “game of thrones” kind, but maybe equally as scary and exiting so it seems. She writes in the logbook of the ship’s on the website:

“DAY 12, 10th of February 2019 – Atlantic Ocean

At the moment, the ship feels like a 10 day ride in the Villa Volta. We are currently sailing 11 knots, our course is 100 degrees, the waves are smashing over the deck, the swells are 5 meters high…
…I had the night shift from 12:00 till 04:00. I can’t say it was an easy watch, as the boat was surfing over the ocean due to the high waves. After learning how to sew, it was my time behind the steer. Right before the end of our watch, my attention levels were considerably lower compared to 4 hours before. Suddenly there was one big wave which turned be boat completely out of course! This resulted in a huge shift of the boat to portside. Suddenly the entire right side of the boat disappeared in a cloud of white foam and at the same time I saw David flying from Portside to starboard. Luckily I handled immediately and this boat is a rock, so everything was fine, but it was a once in a lifetime experience!”

Continue reading the complete day to day logs written by the crew on the website: https://www.clean2antarctica.nl/logbook

Here are some of the photo’s they took on their journey:

Photographic source: clean2antarctica.nl

Needless to say, we all captivated by all of these stories, listening to all of their adventures and funny stories of everything they faced along their journey. The girls were enchanted by the idea of stepping on one of these ships and sailing off to adventure and exploration and to be honest, I was too!

Of course, we are super proud of our niece and we are really curious of the sustainable groundbreaking concepts and solutions they are presenting the companies that are willing to make a change in this world!
Allso curriouse on their findings!? Keep an eye on their website: clean2antarctica.nl for news and updates!

These initiatives make us so hopefull. I really feel like these kinds of think-tanks are needed to come up with solutions that will change the world. The fact that companies are initiating, funding, stimulating, that they are OPEN and LISTENING to these new ideas is heartwarming and inspiring.

Offcourse our little family can just make a tiny little change in the whole climate story that will hardly be noticeable, but we do our share of sustainability as much as we can. Luckily we are not alone, there are a lot of conscious people out there making a change in their own way. If the rest of the world would join us and big companies would jump in, this little ripple we are making could turn in to a giant green wave! Maybe together we can save the world.

Are you working on making your life as sustainable as possible!?
What kind of changes, (small or big) did you make?

Love,
  Jolanda, Michiel,
Miley Haley & Quinn

Quest for change – We visited a sailship on a mission.

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Dance all the way to South Africa

South African
Dance battle!

Whaaaattt!? We had such an amazing weekend! We are still in awe about it.

We went to a South African Dance battle Livestream recording who invited a select group of reporters and influencers. Organized by @ontmoetzuidafrica

We took off from Amsterdam central station in a riverboat where we had a traditional South African diner onboard. We had a great time and met lovely and inspiring people!

We docket at Zaandam and entered “de partonage where the event would take place. And oh, my! We witnessed a spectacle of energy, movement, rhythm, emotion, and passion. So amazing! #mindisblown

Inspired and determined to go to South Africa someday we entered the boat to go back to Amsterdam. Had left us totally impressed! 

Could you imagine the surprise when we heard that we where the ones that would walk off the boat with two tickets to go to South Africa!?  Say Whaaaattt!?!?
@ontmoetzuidafrica Is actually sending us to South Africa!!! We still have trouble wrapping our heads around it. So while this information is sinking in I’m telling you guys to prepare for some epic video’s coming up on our YT channel this year!       Love Jolanda

To all the Dutch readers:  WIN JIJ EEN RETOURTJE NAAR ZUID AFRIkA!?

Jaja alleen voor de “dutchies” YUP! Je hoort het goed! Wij zijn al volop onze reis aan het plannen maar JIJ kunt ook twee vliegtickets bemachtigen, en wie weet komen we je wel tegen op een avontuur door Zuid Afrika! Hoe tof zou dat zijn!? 

Hoe? Wie? Wat? Waar?

Doe mee en win! Stuur jouw versie van de Gwara Gwara dans in en maak kans op twee vliegtickets naar Zuid-Afrika! Plaats je dansfilmpje in de comments van dit facebook bericht. En de dans met de meeste likes wint!

 


WE LOVED it!

Ik zeg het nog maar eens… Wat een weekend, wat een weekend.
Nou, je weet wat je te doen staat, de voetjes van de vloer en laat ze je beste dans moves zien!

Liefs,  Jolanda

Kijk de LIVE stream hier terug:

Het was zo tof om bij de opnames aanwezig te zijn! 
Voor de zeer oplettende kijker, we stonden verdekt opgesteld links in beeld te kijken naar dit spektakel. Volgens mij flitsen we 1 of 2 keer wazig door de hoek van het beeld! haha!

 

Shoot us mom!

Never let children pose… let them be themselves!

From the moment Miley was born until she was 4,5 years old we had a big photo studio. She grew up surrounded by camera’s, lights, makeup, fashion, and set styling… She occasionally watched the models getting ready and saw me shooting them in our photo studio. She saw them “pose” naturally and make subtle changes in their pose with fluid movements. changing expressions, taking directions from me and all of that without looking forced or unnatural. And she loved it.

As it comes to photo shooting kids, I like them to be interactive. give them something to do, something to engage with, something to play with. Anything but posing! I don’t like kids posing, because most kids (Really, I mean 99%) look forced and unnatural. That kind of photo’s with kids smiling those fake (almost creepy) smiles makes my hairs stand up. Not cool. Just fake.

So whenever I’m shooting kids (my one or any kids for that matter)… I let them play.
I have a strict NO POSING rule.

But… Tiny baby girls turn in to big baby girls! And then that day came, the day when Miley (8yrs) Came up to me dressed a bit much over the top and  Asked me “Mom? Can you shoot me? I’ve made everything ready!”
I looked over and there was my living room turned in to a complete styled set. With 3 different concepts, she wanted to work on!  I was like “What the….!?!? uuuh… Ok!? I guess?”

So we could proceed in peace. After every Klik, Miley made a tiny adjustment in pose, expression or looking direction. I didn’t have to give her any directions. She was totally in control.  Like she understood exactly what it was she wanted to reflect, express and what story she wanted to tell. I felt a warm proud glow in my heart for her. What a great way to express yourself.  There goes my “NO posing rule” for her… She has got this down.

 

Turned out she had a school project where they had to take their favorite piece of clothing, make a photo of it, and write a little poem about it. She wanted to create a photo she had pictured in her mind. (Creative little creature) So who am I to refuse such a brilliant initiative from my 8-year-old.

I grabbed my camera gear and as she stepped in front of the camera. Wow! She is actually doing a really good job posing! Not one Photo where she looked unnatural or overly posed. I guess she intensively studied the professional models in our studio! My little baby copy-cat. Loving this…

After a few minutes, her little baby sisters decided they wanted attention too, and started to jump on top of Miley… So I had to promise them that I would shoot them too tf they waited their turn. And If they would go and play a bit more I would call them and take their picture.


As for her sisters… The rule still stands. No posing! PLAY! Once I called them for their turn to shoot, I gave them something to keep busy! Singing a song,  playing peekaboo, giving them a ukelele or a watering can to play with. And as usual, that way I had a fun and playful shoot with my two babies. And my no posing strategy still worked out worked perfectly fine with them! Scroll all the way down to see the rest of all the photo’s we took!


How do you take pictures of your kids? I’m thinking of making a series of DIY video’s in photography toppics like “kids photography” .
Would you think that’s something you would like to see? Anny requests on specivic photography toppics!?


Love,

  Jolanda, Michiel,
Miley Haley & Quinn

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Shoot us mom!

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VIDEO – Getting My MOM Tatoo

Baby name MOMMY Tattoo

I got my first tattoo a while back and I wrote a BLOGPOST about it!
Now I’ve also made a video of my experience. Check it out and don’t forget to subscribe on my YT channel!

So in this video, you will see me getting my first tattoo! 7 Years ago I came up with the idea of putting all my baby’s names on my forearm in one long stretched line. I’m not someone who gets a tattoo in an impulse, and Maybe we would get more kids in the future, and I wanted to include all of my baby’s names in it… I spend a long time designing a tattoo that was minimalistic and had exactly the look that I had in mind. Like practicing an autograph, The name tattoo design had to have the perfect flow and casual hand-drawn feel to it. 

So now 7 years later with 3 kids in total, I have my mom tattoo with all the names of my kids! It only took 20 minutes and didn’t hurt at all!
—-Miley—Haley—Quinn—  Just Perfect!
And The end result is exactly how I hoped it would be!

I really really love my first tattoo! Happy as can be, with my hand-drawn tattoo line design perfected over the past 7 years. Perfectly put on my arm by Manon from Le Nou Tattoo. 

So once more:  Thanks, Michiel for making the reservation and tanks mom for sponsoring half of it for my B-day! To my three baby girls, Miley, Haley & Quinn, I love you forever, just like this tattoo will be on my arm! 

Would you ever get a dad/  mommy tattoo, name tattoo or do you already have one!? What do you think of mine!? Let me know what you think in the comment section of the video here or on Youtube!

 

Love,
  Jolanda, Michiel,
Miley Haley & Quinn

Music in this video is by:
Meydän – https://soundcloud.com/meydansound/

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VIDEO – Getting My MOM Tatoo

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VLOG: June 2018 – sunshine and blackberries

Month VLOG june 2018 – Get ready for another monthly overview of 2018

This throwback monthly overview we look back at a month filled with sunshine and day’s in the garden. 

We are changing our vlog-concept for 2019.
So there will be a monthly overview for every month of 2018 but for 2019 we are doing it a bit diverently. I will tell you all about it at the end of this vlog!

 

Check a month in the live of our family and be sure to subscribe to be updated on all new uploaded video’s!

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VLOG: June 2018 – sunshine and blackberries

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