La Isla Bonita (jealous, anyone?)

Woohoo!
Thanks to an excellent tip from my sister-in-law, we booked our summer vacation.
We will spent two weeks in this 'casita' on the island La Palma:





















And then another week in this casita:






















The first one is in the south-west part of the island, close to a little village and lava-beaches.
The second one is in the north-west part of the island, more remote, and situated at the end of a cove... Both are in hiking area's with trails starting near the houses.
We were wondering which one to pick, until the girl from the travel agency made the real clever suggestion to book both places (-:

I am so excited!
I only have to wait 5+ months )-:

Oh, and Katherine: there is a spare bedroom in the first house and an extra bed in the second, so if you want to visit us on La Palma instead of Amsterdam...

Food fest

A little while ago, we had our annual 'Vreetfeest'.
Translation anyone?
'Food fest' comes to mind now, but there is probably a better word.
Anyway, 16 years ago, in our first year of college, we decided we did not want to do a regular St. Nicholas celebration with our new-found friends. But we wanted to do something festive.
So we decided on this Vreetfeest.
It is basically a pot-luck dinner, where everyone brings a dish.
Nothing special, you might think.
However, our group is the only group I know of who has a completely non-organized pot-luck dinner. Not only are we completely free to decide what kind of dish to bring, it is custom to keep it a BIG secret until right before we start the dinner.
The first year we had so much food we didn't even taste the final dish (which was mine )-: ).
We quickly learned to bring as much food as you could eat by yourself. So when there is a big group you will have very tiny portions, but in the end you will have had enough.
Only once did it not work out for people like me who cannot eat too much sweets: we had 2 main courses and I believe 8 desserts... Usually it is a great mixture of appetizers, entrees, and desserts.
On the big night we write the name of our dish on a poster on the wall (as cryptic as possible), and 1 or 2 of us decide the order in which the dishes will be served. Here's this years poster:















And some of the dishes we had:





















I love our Vreetfeest, can't wait until next year!

Then on the 9th it was Martijn's birthday. I had a picture of Bram printed on linen for him (60 by 60 cm, so about 2 foot long and wide):












And here is Bram working on his present: his first ever drawing!

Happy new year!

It has been way too long since my last post,
but Bram has been sick, work was hectic, and then of course there was Christmas and New Year's and all...

Here's an impression of our Holidays:


We had our first Christmas tree!
Finally enough room for one...











Visiting family (here is Bram with grandma Dineke, uncle Valentijn, grandpa Ben and grandma Marri)











Great home-cooked dinners with fabulous food and nice decorations.











Spending the night at different places. Bram sleeps all right no matter where we put him to bed. Here he is playing at grandma Dineke's house on Christmas morning.







Present from grandpa Ben and Atie, he LOVES it!








And this one is just to show you his cool new outfit:














On the knitting front: I finished all the cat toys from my magic ball. Here is Masker playing with one of them.











And the promised pic of Renske wearing her hat: