i love my dad
i love my mum
i love my brother
i love my family
i love my friends

i miss you all so much... just know i think about you lot all the time.  

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.

I promise to post news about my exciting adventures asap.

love love

Hindeloopen christmas markets! WHAT a quaint night out. the christmas markets were held in quite a tiny little square in the middle of hindeloopen, they was a santa claus, singing, bands and lots of foods. i had the glue wine (i think its called) its basically hot wine. so much nicer than cold wine! but you still get the after winey taste that i hate so much haha.

it was quite nice to be in the xmas spirit with all the festive decorations and songs around. i cant believe its something like 12 days to xmas. i appologise in advance, because no one is getting xmas pressies haha.

Its quite pretty here with the snow and the ice freezing on the tree branches. right after this photo was taken i stopped to answer a text msg on my phone, and whilst standing completely still. i slipped on the ice and landed on my butt :) i couldnt stop laughing. i wish someone else had been there just to see how funny it was :)






The days are getting quite short. yesterday mike and I watched the sunset (over the water- amazing!). only sad thing was that the sun was setting at 4.30 and by 5 PM it was dark >:( no wonder i have no energy. I feel like i should be going to bed at 6.30pm.
ridiculous!

Johnny :) mikes little brother...
He reminds me of jeremy at that age. Being near this kid makes me feel like im 10 years old and playing with my little brother. I miss jeremy so much. And Johnny makes him seem not so far away. Im quite in love with the whole family actually. They make me feel at home :) I love watching them fight with one another. Somehow its relaxing to see siblings wrestling. again, reminds me of all the crazy stuff jeremy and i used to do. like chasing eachother around with the axe and locking eachother outside for hours until mum got home. 
i cant wait until jeremy and i grow up and can be like Mike and Joanna his older sister. Somehow having my brother round for coffee and a chat seems like the best thing in the world to look forward to :)

So much happens everyday that its so hard to keep up with it on this blog haha.
here is what has been special for me in the last few days...

Talking to my brother and my dad and my mum on skype. I miss them all so much that it honestly makes my week when i chat with them :)

I really miss my life back home. It was so much more... me. haha. The morning and evening walks, hanging with friends, Just Jeans, The Movies, beach, wauchope.... MY CAR.
man i miss not being able to drive myself wherever i please. biking in the snow is not practical haha.

Another special thing this week was Sinterklaas :)
On saturday we went to Barbers parents place for a big party. We had to do a kris kringle thing and write an anonomous poem about one member of the family.
Mine was so sweet it brang tears to my eyes... almost haha.
it talked about how much everyone has come to love me and that they hope i stick around. :) quite lovely i think.
And on sunday was our family Sinterklaas, that was really sweeet. Here sinterklaas doesnt come at night. instead we all got up late. had a long breakfast and when the kids where in the bath Barber and I hid all the presents and made a treasure hunt for them :)
My haul was fantastic! i got a blond tea pot and tea spoons. Blond is a special brand hand made by two sisters in amsterdam. I also got a tea mug in similar design and a new bag. all with little windmills and dutch couples kissing. everyone jokes that its me and mike haha.

After Sinterklaas i went to mikes house to hang with them. Hessel came over and we then took the dogs to the bos :) it was so much fun, it was good to be out in the fresh air since the snow has made it pretty impossible this last week. Johnny and I threw snowballs at the back of Mikes head and we laughed when we both fell over in the snow. It was such a lovely way to spend the afternoon.

And then the cat got on the Ipad. It almost one table hockey haha, amazing fat kitty! That was a truly special moment haha.

Homesickness:
Its giving me the most horrible dreams :(
just so you all know. i miss you. i love you. but im having so much fun here.
its funny how the two feelings of happiness and homesickness can co- exist side by side.

its snowing here and the renovations have moved into the loungeroom/ kitchen. so playing with rinse isnt so easy. i have to keep him in his baby play cot for most of the day.
im about to go and pick up wende and annemijn from school.
this is the only thing i hate about living here. is that we are so close to town yet so far that picking up the girls (whose classses finish 45 mins apart- stupid i know) becomes really hard on a bike with a baby. in the snow.
Today ive decided to walk, and Barber is going to be lovely and pick us all up together and bring us home for lunch. Then its just a few hours of playing with the kids and after that im hopefully going iceskating with mike.
Tommorrow is Sinterklaas yayyy :) i cant wait. it will be a nice day out with the big family and then sunday we will have a little gathering at home and then i plan to sleep for a long time.
being sick and homesick blows haha.

This is mike... now you can all stop asking for photos. mum, dad, lindy, anna, mel etc etc.
love you all :)

sinterklaas again!

sinterklaas came to stavoren :) what fun it was! the kids had such a great time watching sinterklaas arrive on his steam boat and the zwarte pieten on their motorised bikes! what fun haha

Rotterdam with mike :)

I would just like to draw attention to the view from our hotel room.
hells yeah. beat 80 euros i ever spent!
the holiday itself was really relaxing, ive been a little bit all over the place of late. working hard, partying hard and not really taking care of myself. so it felt pretty good to fall asleep at 8.30 in one of those ridiculously comfortable hotel beds with two of the softest pillows in the world.
what wasnt so good was that we were supposed to go out for mexican and mike had to watch movies alone all night....
haha.
best girlfriend award does not go to me this year. thats for sure :)
but the days were nice. we walked all over rotterdam, just taking in the sights and checking out a few shops. we went to the national photography museum. that was really cool. never have been a fan of NAN GOLDING, the photographer with the main exhibit. but since viewing her exhibit on dirty men with hairy bodies being pleasure by equally dirty and hairy women- i can now safely say im not a fan. actually i freaking detest her.
the other exhibits were really cool but. a political figure from uganda had saved most of the paperwork from his campaigning and it was turned into photojournalism by his granddaughter. that was really cool and very inspiring.
It was also pretty cool to see the sculptural art within the city. like this dude...

 i know what your thinking, and yes. my first thoughts were of that too haha. gotta love post modern art!

What really topped this all off was being able to watch the sun rise from bedfollowed by a complimentary all you can eat breakfaast.... yep.
i cant wait to go back and stay there again!

Le caravan. is broken :(

Largely thanks to the frozen gas line my caravan slowly filled with gas the other night as i was going to bed. luckily i was more than awake and decided to go into the house and sleep in the office. which i have now made my own until the new bedroom is ready.
im nery grateful that barber and sander put the living room renovations on hold so that the shilders (painters) could make the new bedroom ready for me. it sucks living in a fold out bed with frozen clothes from my frozen caravan haha.

SNOW!!!!

its amazing :)

There isnt to much of it yet, but yesterday mike took me to the 'beach' in Hindeloopen and we played on the frozen ice. Its crazy cold here at the moment and its only going to get colder. some parts of the netherlands are reporting -14 degrees already! thankgoodness i have moved into the house. i think i would be frozen in my caravan by now.

 haaha