Zeeland in May celebrations

Wonderful week in Zeeland😍 Only 1.5h drive and we were welcomed with sun, beaches and a cute holiday house in a quaint neighbourhood. Our previous visit to the area dated a while ago and I had not realized how child friendly the Dutch can be. Free play grounds or Provincial domaines with great facilities; restaurants had kid menus, boxes and activities to keep them busy while waiting. Every day we visited a new attraction: Mini Mundo, Tropical zoo, Marine museum..With my husband we enjoyed the visits to the capital Middebourgh, Vliessingen and beach resort Domburg all with plenty of pedestrian streets in the old center to stroll on. The kids were obviously thrilled and considered this one of the best holidays ever (auts, and only with 1/10 of our caribbean holiday budget😊 ) Today, on Mother's day, I was pampered with hand-made cards, love poems, drawings and hand-made berry pavlova cake..Mommy's heart is spilling over of gratitude ❤️

Easter à la Maltaise

I look at the beautiful azur-blue Mediterranian sea. My four mermaids are playing in the sand and dipping in the sea. Another relaxed afternoon at the beach near St. Thomas' Bay and our holiday appartment. It is simply too tempting not to enjoy the sun and sea, especially in these early days of spring. I feel the joy is twice as strong after the long rainy winter months just behind. Malta has taken us by a positive surprise. The sun, affordability and plethora of activities (for both parents and kids) for a full week. It took us a few days to dwelve into the Island's relaxed atmosphere. Well, by relaxed I mean when not behind the wheel. My husband has had a chance to practice "the other side" of the brain while navigating in the left-side Easter traffic. After a few days we got hang of it, although feel still uncertain on where to look when crossing the street. People are reserved, but polite. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of our holidays has been the excursions. And we have covered a lot in a week! Kids' highlight was the village of Popeye which was originally built for the Disney musical of the same name starring Robin Williams. The village has since turned into a thematic parc for families with several shows that kept us enterteined the whole morning. The setting is really beautiful, as it built in the Bay between rocky falaises with amazing views. The close-by historical Mdina is a wortwhile visit, however be sure to check the wheather forecast as we were welcomed with a glacial wind accompanied with zaharienne sand storm! Rarely have we appreciated so much to find refuge in a restaurant with an open fire and indulging with the local desserts - simply a perfect afternoon pause. Among my own favorite was the day trip to the Cozo island. We took the car on the ferry and enjoyed the nature and calmness of the island contrasting nicely with the business of the main Island. Our final day in Malta will stay in our memories while admiring the near by lagoons and villages on a half-day cruise. My youngest ones were very brave and dipped again in the 17 degrees celcius sea! The winter coats are definitely thrown out now😁 The cherry on the cake - all flights took place and were on time..yey!

Paris with my Girl

Thank you my dear teen for the delightful and long-waited weekend in Paris! 6h45 on Saturday we started our marathon weekend and 23hoo on Sunday we returned. I am again amazed by how much one can experience in such a short period of time: shopping, high end vintage market (with entry fee?!), Dior show, musical comedie, not to forget the bitter taste of the most expensive capuccino (9 eur..). Thanks to my teen, I got to discover whole new face of Paris! It was so refreshing not to have to visit and line any of the usual suspect tourist attractions either. The program and itineries were planned for and partly by our girls, it was their weekend. What did I observe? How well dressed the Parisians (even with babies) still undeniably are. The mom breastfeeding her baby in the middle of the restaurant while eating raw minced meat (I am not sure it is harmful, but it did make me an impression). Preparations for the Olympic games in June were full on - restaurations of parcs and interestingly the tourist tax had increased 4-fold since the beginning of the year. Finally, the Parisians can, regardless of what is said, be nicesh (=treat tourists well) and fortunately we had a chance to interact with several of them. The biggest source of joy for me, however, was of course to spend some private time with my girl❤️ Thank you love.

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..