Carnaval & Ski

This is a holiday to my liking for a change. I have my morning coffee and sunny snowy slopes in front. The kids already left for ski with my husband and my aquagym is waiting. No extensive planning, my daily program includes meditation, walks, aquagym, reading and journaling. It took a few days to get to the relaxed mode though. Those disturbing thoughts about work and the rest are persistant, but finally give in and fade away in the breathtaking beauty of the mountains. The kids enjoy as well. They are so proud of their ski achievements, draw their ski itineries, areas needing of improvement, and funny stories heard in the ski cabins. Perhaps my ado is the least enthousiast about her class with much younger kids and I do understand her. Fortunately our good friends are here and the big girls were treated with a late movie night. Last night makes my heart warm, a traditional raclette evening at our friends appartement to celebrate the Valentine's day, new jobs, babies, friendship..I had forgotten how resourcing those discussions and sharings are for us bringing meaningfulness and joy. Thank you dear friends, we are grateful to have you❤️ p.s almost already forgotten that our car broke down after 200 km on our way here and is safe back home in a garage..no journey without an adventure for us!

Arctic New Year

Wonderful beginning, horrid ending. The only unelegant way to describe this year's adventure to the North. We often get admirable nods from our surroundings when describing our traditional journey up North: two flights to Estonia, few days stay visiting the family, early departure to catch a 2h ferry ride over to Helsinki, short tram ride to the central train station followed by a 5,5h/6h train ride up North. This is one-way journey. And then there is the return. With four young kids it is an exhausting trip when following the plan, and this year we had the luck hiding taking our return trip to a whole new level. I conclude, today, every journey - short or long - involving air/train transport may become an ordeal. But not to jump events, I share the events as they unfolded in front of us. To stay within budget (or "to create family traditions at home" as presented to the kids), we had opted to stay home for Christmas and go greet out families up North only for the New Year. We flew to Tallinn via Riga and arrived to beautiful white Tallinn on time. Our appartment downtown was spacious and warm. As if ordered for children, it had snowed just a few days earlier. The kids got to enjoy sleigh rides with the grand-parents and us an adult-only dinner. Few days flew by quickly and it was time to say good buy to Estonia and take the ferry over to Helsinki followed by the longuish train journey up to the North. I had looked up the wheather forecast for our stay in Finland, but prayed it was only a forecast: we were going to experience a record cold wheather! After the springy +10 degrees celsius back home, we thought the first day felt already extreme as the temperature decended to - 15 C. I reminded wearing layers is of essence in these conditions. Fortunately, we jumped on the opportunity to ski and truly enjoyed the magic scenery of icy lake and snow covered forest. I had forgotten how beautiful the sun set here was - at 14h30 ! We whole heartidly enjoyed the loving welcome of the grand-parents. In the next days, records were beaten: -25 C, -32,5 C and on our day of departure --34,5 C. So what do you do to keep kids active indoors in those temperatures? We visited the new communal swimming pool, played board games, read, and watched cartoons. A 20-minute brisk walk to the lake ended in tears however, as even with "mom's layers" one cannot really protect from that extreme coldness. I am writing this entry on a plane in Oslo heading to Frankfurt with three unplanned hotel/air bnb/hotel nights behind. It is Saturday - we were supposed to be back home on Thursday evening. We had to change our train from the North (1st extra night in Helsinki), our first flight was postponed to Friday (2nd night in Helsinki, in a different place), and the connecting flight from Oslo was cancelled on Friday (3rd night in an airport hotel in Oslo). Oh, and did I tell, we have all been sick with the noro-virus during the return journey? Meditating on "landing home safe" has become part of my recent morning yoga routines. Perhaps we will arrive home by Monday? Did somebody dare say it is not about reaching the destination, but the journey?

The epic rentrée 2023

Evening of a very very very long day. Why does the start of the school year have to be so maniac? Is it like this everywhere or just here? I consider myself a seasoned organiser and my signature strengths shine of anticipating everything as much as I can before the summer break. Yet, the past week has been completely ridicilous and parent undermining race of preparations, reviewing of material lists, ordering books, trips to the bookshop of missing items and an embarassing number of A*orders. Add to this the arcaec system some organisations still have in place to register kids to after-school activities, such as the community swimming pool - where I queued along with other brave fellow parents in about 40 degrees celsius for 2 sweaty hours to get my youngest for her class. EVERYthing in their process was manual: one (1) person was managing the registrations, payment cash only, update of attendance list manually by another 1 person (her only task), manual filling of papers. I forgot the paper ticket we had to take (manually) to keep order of arrivals. Blind me. No wonder I slept in this morning, the First day of school! Oh we made it to the school well on time (vanity mom would have just wanted to make the first impressions with her hair washed). It was a huge day for my youngest, who changed school and language section. She was so excited and brave. The teacher seemed nice and the new girl friends as well. 5 year olds are adorable. I hope she will find her place and happimess there. I felt a pinch in my heart thinking she will likely pass her baccalaureat with many of these little angels. My baby is out in the big world now! Her siblings were as excited to meet their friends and happy faces hopped into the car in the afternoon. The heatwave continues with +32 celsius and the best place to spend the afternoon after an intense morning was of course the pool..Ode to that! Bravo babies, bravo mama (a bit papa) for having succeeded another 1st Big day!

Summer 2023 - Bretagne

Our stay in Bretagne was a success. The holiday home was fully equipped with a big garden and games for the kids, a 5 min. walk from the beautiful long sandy beach, lined by a pedestrian and biking trail, water sports centre and the village. As we discovered, the village had quite an active cultural program and a hightlight of the week was an open air cinema with my big girls at the beach (the movie was called "The Cow" and we followed the walking journey of an algerian man and his cow Jacqueline from Marseille to Paris - no where else than in Bretagne 🤣). It was nice to walk home in the dark only led by the stars and moonlight (and a few mosquitos!). Another taste of Bretagne was the long-waited village party "Fest Noz" where we witnessed the locals' love for line dancing, apple cidre and galettes! (unfortunately my youngest really hated the whole concept and so we had to leave early and very civilised). What else shall I share from our two weeks in Bretagne? We tempted again some watersports and spent an afternoon practicing catamaran. This is more of the dream of my husband, but as we are all good sports we rented two boats with an instructor. The wheather was lovely, the guide very good and we were quite proud of ourselves as he assured us we could next time go out by ourselves. I would like to offer more of the seaside activities to my kids, perhaps a half-day camp next summer if they are still into it? My heart stayed in the pretty medieval villages Bretagne has plenty of: Rochefort-sur-Terre, Roche-Bernard, Pont -Aven, as well as bigger cities of Vannes and Lorient. Strolling in the cobble-stoned streets, visiting art galleries or artisanal workshops, the castles most of them had..a very nice outing for a day. I also recalled our mishabs of last summer and was sure to reserve the table ahead in the tiniest villages, where it gets very busy at lunch breaks. 6 weeks abroad are almost behind. We wanted to offer our kids a summer full of adventure and open their eyes to discover different parts of the world. I asked my kids what they recall from this summers adventures and the answers were quite unanimous: beaches and first hotel in the Dominican republic (it was fab), spending time with their aunty in Mexico and snorkelling in the many cenotes. From Bretagne - the 350m/ 40 height triolienne we did in the Nautical center of Eric Tabary (truly terryifying), galettes (of course) and the ultimates: learning fishing for my son and ... shopping in Lorient's Zara for my girls (sniif). Thank you courageous little travellers for your resilience, it was not always easy and I think we are all already looking forward to tucking into our own dear beds. Part of the beauty of travelling is to return home..

Summer 2023 - A day in Bretagne

There isn't a more perfect day for me than morning yoga at the terrace with my gymnast girl, a good brisk family walk along the littoral enjoying the seaside scenery, choosing the ideal beach house for us (with quite different architectural tastes) and discovering an oyster/moule seller by a tiny seaside harbour. At the house, we studied carefully with my eldest the Marmiton receipy and prepared a delicious lunch "Moules à la Marinieres" with some green salad, baguette and camembert for dessert. My husband appeared to have an ecstatic experience while enjoying his oysters with some white wine. "J'aime beaucoup!"declared my youngest. I could not agree more. Namaste.

Summer 2023 - Vallée de la Loire

It feels heart warming to be back in Europe. The memories were still very vivid from our amazing summer 2020 and 2022 tours along the Atlantic Coast and hence the whole family had a mutual wish to spend the last leg of our summer vacations in France. Following two days of maniac washing and re-packing we headed our way to beloved France. We had chosen quite randomly two houses in small coastal villages in Bretagne. To break the 750 km route we decided to stop in Vallée de la Loire and visit a few castles. The lesser known Ferbre Saint Aubin, the famous Chambord and - from recommendation of an elderly local lady while buying our morning croissants at the village boulangerie - the Cheverney castle. It is difficult to summon concisely the experience and emotions visiting the French castles and their grandiose gardens trigger. Whereas their beauty and architecture makes you awe, they unavoidably make one also wonder the never-ending egocentrism of their concepteurs - Francois I in the case of Chambord. We booked tickets to an impressive and entertaining horse show/act and admired the talet and acrobatic skills of the riders while learning a bit of French history. I thanked once again for the fluency of my kids French as they are able to enjoy the French culture to the fullest. A small confession, the Cheverney castle won my heart with the beautiful decor and furniture and charming Orangerie in the gardens. The family's (who lives in one of the wings) creativity and attention is visible everywhere. We even got to cross over an item in my imaginery "bucket list" and taste and buy a few bottles of the local white wine. (For the past 14 years I have happened to be every time visiting a cave either pregnant or breast-feeding!). We did experience an almost-crises over our lunch plans as we forgot for a moment we were indeed in France, where you have to follow The choreography if you wish to be fed conveniently. Still recovering from jetlag our appetite was not in synch with the French cuisine (restaurants clise by 2 pm) and so we actually had to settle to some baguette and cheese at the village park (kids were obviously super happy). By sunset we drove the last strech to the coast and arrived to our cute beach house and home-to-be for the week to come.

Summer 2023 - Tulum

It is hard to believe our month-long adventure in the Caribbean is reaching its end! It took us a moment to dive in, but we have become quite attached now to the laid-back and friendly mexican way - and tempo - of living. Here comes some words of confession. As a family travelling solo, Riviera Maya is not as "accessible" as many other places we have travelled. Few reasons for this: Stratospheric prices - I have spent a 4-fold amount on groceries compared to home. No idea how the locals manage. The same goes for activities - the main activities for families (ie. water parks) would cost a whopping 500-600 dollars for our family (compared to around 150 in Europe..). Very upsetting. Access to beach: the sad reality is screaming loud and clear - the foreign luxory hotel chains have eaten-up the beautiful beaches along the Riviera Maya and the locals are squeezed into tiny patches of beach often rocky and bearly accessible not to mention pleasurable. One evening we adventured to a street just off the main avenue to discover the life of locals - a shanty town in all its meaning with the "homes" built of whatever left-over metal pieces attached to each other, families over a few generations sitting outside, kids playing in the dusty road, skinny dogs wandering around the rubbish and dirt. Overall, there does not seem to be a city planning ongoing in this originally small fishing village, but it appears to be growing organigally on the whims of the big investors. Beurk. As for the security, well, following a shooting a few days earlier at the hotel zone in Cancun, extra security measures were put in place and the military was very present in the streets. Fortunately, we didn't face any issues during our stay and felt safe however obviously took precautions to stay together and avoid wandering off the main streets (by foot after dark). We had also chosen to stay in a safe area of the village in a beautiful gated and guarded condo. Have to mention the heat: the days had to be structured accordingly - we departed early tovisit Chitzen Itza and Tulum ruins and planned water breaks after every couple of hours either at a cenote, beach or the hotel pool. Water became an absolute priority in all forms and as a mom, yes, my daily quest was to run after the kids ensuring their hydration and protection from the sun. Summa summarum, we got the exotic experience we searched for, we enjoyed the amazing Caribbean sea and experience snorkelling the caves. Most importantly, we all got to see my little sister, which made the whole stay more meaningful beyong words. The perspective of travelling 24h back home is still heart warming (even only for a few days before embarking for the last part of our summerholidays). Hasta la proxima Mexico!