Maastricht IV

A dominican Church converted into a bookshop! Fascinating! They appeared to have renovated the church beautifully and then they placed (bolted in on the floor) a structure in black steel on one side of the church, not damaging any of the original structure.

I can only imagine the contreversy it must have had using a church for anything commercial but the way it has been renovated,in such an amazing way, the way the books are presented made me feel like it was done with much respect and I prefer this than having a church get into ruin because the clergy can no longer afford to keep it up. It is a way to preserve cultural heritage.

Une église dominicaine reconvertie en une librairie! Fascinant!




The Ceiling / Le plafond:




The coffee shop:


It has won an architectural interiors prize.

Maastricht III

I fell in love with this old fashionned bakery!

Bhavishya singing

Enjoy!



I guess with the "Z" she's got the British inflence of her Father ;-)

Maastricht II

This shop is attached to "the Notre Dame" Church in Maastricht. Needless to say I just had to bring home some tulips!

More pictures later in the week...

Maastricht I

Ha ha! (Inside Joke with D&Y ;-))

I had a blast with Yvonne and Dolly in Maastricht this week-end! It has been nearly as long as we have known them (nearly 5 years) that we said we would go to Holland with them. D&Y are our very good Dutch friends and "the parents" of Luna, Pashmina's best friend!

Well, this week end was the week end for me as we decided we to:

"Shop until we dropped" and we ate like pigs and drank like fish (litterly) HA!

I took 227 pictures with my Camera!

I did regret not taking Mark's camera because it is such a wonderful peace of equipement (thank you Amy for recomminding it) but I thought it was a little too big for a weekend out with the girls so I decided against it on Friday morning.

I must admit I was ever so reasonnable about the shopping...I bought 5 bunches of fresh tulips, 3 pots of white jacyinthes (I love the smell of them) , 3 pots of Muscaris and 6 of dark red helleborus (Christmas roses) one cannot resist buying flowers and bulbs in Holland. I also bought a light blue raw silk tie with some flowers for Mark, a lonely planet guide to India for us all, a fun thing for Easter for Bhavishya, some Dutch cheese for Mark and myself (Miss B being intollerent to Lactose) some beschuit and haagel (dark chocolate which is nicer because not too sweet and because it doesn't contain lactose) andsome Dutch cheese.

Oh and some fantastic magazine about gardining!

Voilà.

Thank you Rachel!

I bought these from Rachel's Itsy store. Here is the black one:


This is the brown one:



and received them in the mail last week.

Rachel makes them in her free time (I'm not sure when as she works as a medical doctor and has 4 kids...and she is on the C25K resolution!).

Her Itsy store is called "Simple Wishes" and the sale proceeds go toward projects for orphaned children. Last year she managed to make christmas special to 70 school age chirldren from a Russia Orphanage.

Thank you Rachel! They are great and I just love them. I took the black one with me to Holland this week-end.

Livre

Ce matin, j'ai reçu un mail d'Amazon.fr qui dit:

Cher amazonaute,
Nous avons remarqué que les clients qui ont acheté ou
évalué un livre de Jean-François Chicoine ont également commandé Au risque de
l'adoption de Cécile Delannoy, c'est pourquoi nous souhaitons vous informer que
Au risque de l'adoption sortira le 6 mars 2008. Vous pouvez le commander
dès maintenant en cliquant sur le lien ci-dessous et nous vous l'enverrons dès
qu'il sera disponible.

J'ai pensé que cela pourrait interesser certains d'entre vous!

Bonne journée ;-)

Humeur et humour du jour

Debriefing

7 jours dans les alpes suisse.

Beaucoup trop de baggages.
au moins de 7 décentes par jour sur la pistes des petits pour Bhavishya.
2 longues promenades par jours pour Pashmina min.
15 descentes à luge avortée pour Bhavishya (elle préfère tirer la luge que de s'assoir dessus).

2 trajets sur le moto neige (Miss B ADORE!).

1 (petite) descente sur les épaules de son Kalou chéri malgrès quelques larmes.
Au moins 50 heures de soleil.
10 centimètres de neige fraiche.
Trop de calories ingérés par Sas
Trop de temps passé sur le Blackberry pour Mark
428 photos et 49 minutes de video
8 machines à linge au retour

7 days in the Swiss Alps

Far too much luggage (drives Mark crazy!)

at least 7 baby runs a day on the baby run

2 long walks for Pashmina a day (min)

15 sledge runs aborted by Bhavishya (she prefers to pull the sledge than sitting on it).

2 trips on the snow mobile (Miss B loves it!)

1 small run on her Kalou Darling shoulders.

At least 50 hours of bright sunshine

10 centimetres of fresh snow

Too many calories eaten by Sas

Too much time spend on the Blackberry for Mark

428 photos and 49 minutes of video

8 loads of laundry upon our return

We had the alarm set for 7.45AM. Got dressed, underwear, thermal underwear, fleece, ski pants...take Pashmina out for her "business", breakfast...brushing teath, cleaning face, ski jacket, gloves, helmet, glasses / goggles, sunscreen, ski boots and skis and then ski school for 9:45 AM.

...

Ok one done...

...

One to go...

...

Back in the hotel room, feed Pash, take her out for her 2nd business...and ski or walk Pash

1:00PM Pick up Miss B...and lunch

2:15 More skiing but with Miss B

4:15 Tea for me, coffee for Mark and Apple juice etc. for Miss B

4:30 Walk Pash

5:30 Bath/shower time for all

6:45 Aperitivo by the fire place

7:15 Dinner

8:30 In the room, Loo, wash hands, brush teeth, bed time story, prayers and dodo

8.45 Mark and Saskia watch a dvd on their laptop on their bed and are happy that Miss B & Miss P both had such an enjoyable time!!

10:45 Last "business" for Pash. Thank you Darling for being "on duty" ;-)

HEAVEN...I wanna go back!

Thank you Coco for these beautiful holidays. You spoilt us ;-)

*Nb sadly Mark and I could not ski together because of Pash. But there were plenty of people to ski with so we needn't ski alone. We took turns on who was walking Pash and who was skiing.

Je ne sais pas me garer / I don't know how to park

EXCELLENT!!!




...et pour en commander, clickez ici.

...and to order some click on this

The type of holiday souvenirs you'd rather not have...le genre de souvenirs de vacances que l'on préfère ne pas avoir!

Siiiiiggggghhh! Grands Soupirs!

Just love

Notre Graine de Championne / Our little Champion

As of Friday we (again) have a champion...Bhavishya came 4th in the little "Snowli" slalom. 1st Girl in the Group!

Depuis vendredi, nous avons (à nouveau) une championne...Bhavishya a terminé 4e au slalom du groupe "Snowli" (groupe des petits)la 1ère fille du groupe!

Le thorax de son Papa a triplé de volume tellement il est fier!

Her Daddy's chest tripled in volume! He's so proud!

When she saw us, she shouted: "Mama, Daddy coucou" and waived! Is this darling or what?

An assistant to the ski teachers...helping the kids go back up the lift


Apple juice in a champagne glass to celebrate!

The prettiest blond on the slopes / la plus belle blonde sur les pistes

...





Notre Pashmina Nationale!
Our little Pashmina!

Bhavishya's 1st day of skiing video / le 1er à ski de Bhavishya

More later...j'en metterai plus tout à l'heure!

Bhavishya's progress on skies / les progrès de Bhavishya sur les skis

I cannot believe how much progress she has done in just 3 days on skies!

INCREDIBLE!!!

J'en reviens pas des progrès que havishya a fait en juste 3 jours de ski!

INCROYABLE!!!

Bhavishya's 1st day at ski school / Le 1er jour à l'Ecole de Ski pour Bhavishya

Today, Bhavishya went to ski school for the 1st time. She did ever so well. Yesterday I took her on the skis for the first time ever...she did ever so well...needless to say my back was very sore this morning. Unfortunately I am experiencing problems downloading the pictures of yesterday from my camera. But here are some of today taken with Mark's camera!

Aujourd'hui, Bhavishya était à l'école de ski pour la 1ere fois. Elle a fait d'immense progrès. Hier, je l'ai mise sur les skis pour la première fois...elle était génial...inutile de dire que mon dos était en compote ce matin. Malheureusement j'ai des problèmes pour télécharger les photos prises hier (elles sont sur mon appareil). Mais voici les photos d'aujourd'hui grâce à l'appareil photo de Mark.

Vous la reconnaissez? Can you spot her?

Hands on knees, Darlin', bend your knees and bottom in the air / Les mains sur les genoux mon Trésor, plies les genoux et les fesses en l'air












Le chasse neige mon Coeur! The snow plow Sweetie!














Coucou Maman, Coucou Daddy! Hi Mama, Hi Daddy!













On your mark, get set, ready? GO! A vos marques, partez, FEU!















Give me a five Bhavishya!

Yesterday afternoon, hier après midi...

This playground is only about 200 yards away from our house!

Ce terrain de jeu se trouve à + ou - 200 mètres de la maison! :-)

Award / Distinction

A mon tour de m'la pèter grave! Savez-vous pourquoi je me la pète grave depuis 8h30 ce matin?
Parce que Rachel m'a décérné cette distinction:



Merci Rachel!

Bon je pars réfléchir à qui je vais l'attribuer...

Bonne journée à toutes et tous!


My head is getting bigger and bigger by the minute, waow! Is it serious Doc? Nope nothing serious it is just that Rachel has awarded me the "E for Excellent". And, sorry for bragging about it, I am feeling rather proud. And I am showing it off by inserting in on the left collumn! But just in case you cannot see it here it is:


I'm honoured! Thank you Rachel.

I'm going to think whom to hand this award to next....

You all have a beautiful day!

Bumbed & bum cover

First of all I am bumbed...I was happily surfing this morning and found a cool blog of a mother of 4 she talks about something, I click on the link she is referring, to read all about it and even put it on my favourites. The phone rings, I come back I no longer can find the link to this funny Mom but the article of clothing she was referring to I can! Oh well!


So what was it she was talking about then, you may ask? Well, it is what Americans would call:

A plumber's crack cover

or what Brits would call :

a builders's bumb cover

It seems to do the job even if you have a muffin issue!

You can check them out here.

I love the idea of this garnment. I would like to order a couple....uuhhmmm! Let's think about it.

Lady, I hope I will find you again, thank you for the link and thank you for making me laugh this morning!