Thank God for his long weekends... 26-28 May

The participants: Tim and Sander. Matthias, Jeff and Lukas. And us

The weather conditions: Perfect, 27 degrees, sunny

The mosquito's: In good condition, providing lots of trouble... citronella to the rescue.

The activities: Trampofootball, reading, barbecue, biking, music making, picnic, water war-game, sunbathing, theater, table tennis, darts, trimming the garden, baking etc

Beautiful children, relaxed parents, all in all a great, long weekend where everything was possible. The bees are back, to our great joy after not showing themselves last year.

The kids saw a snake like reptile in the garden, a hazel worm. 

Madeleine was ill for half a day, woke up with a fever at 10 o'clock, mute and white, went back to sleep and woke up at 2 o'clock, completely recovered, it was impressive! 

Posing ;)

Pic-nic by the grape vines

breakfast

7 kids in the trampo

Lukas

front to back: Emil, Sander, Jeff, Louis, Matthias

Madness away from the madness 17-20 May

Just the five of us, escaping everyday madness, in favor of rural fake blood and brocante madness :)

Two Brocantes. First the one in Villevenard on Thursday on our bikes before heading home for a take away pizza from Vik' pizza in Sezanne :) Mike and Glenis joined us for a nice chat on New Zealand and Oyes.

We finally tried out Glenis' fake blood recipe which Louis has been talking about since Halloween... it's made primarily with maple syrup, a lot of fun for our theatrical kids :) 

Saturday we were at the neighbors' watching football, Madeleine had a sleep-over at Lili's.

Sunday after breakfast at our lovely neighbors' again :) we headed to the Brocante in Soizy... we bought all kind of stuff... got a little bit carried away, but it is so much fun when you feel like you get a bargain every time :) ... 3 chairs, a mirror, a large frame, a huge lamp, 10 plates even silver cutlery... I bought it of these two elderly people who explained to me that it had come from Switzerland and it was a wedding present from 53 years ago... it has their initials in it... I promised to take good care of it and got it for 20 euro... life is funny sometimes.

fake blood

the favorite game

Ouch

Bloody Madeleine

Roses are out

Michel has got a new toy :)

Waypers and Duponts 2-6 May

Way overdue this blog, but it has been quite hectic around here.

We had a very nice weekend with Stefan and Marije and their kids. They came on Wednesday and we left Reet as the school bell rang on Friday afternoon. 

Coming to Oyes to freshly cooked dinner on Friday night was a pleasant experience :)

Saturday we went shopping in Leclerc in Sezanne, the 10 of us. Marije and Stefan are big on the local French products, so they wanted a bit of this and that. 

Stefan cooked a very nice dinner for adults only and we chatted away about old times in Amsterdam and the kids and everything and nothing. 

Sunday we went to Epernay for a Champagne cellar visit, we went for the Mercier cellars, which I have seen before, but they are good with the children because you drive, rather than walk through them.

All in all, a weekend to cherish, in the sign of long lasting friendship. Thank you Waypers :)

Cruising

Cool mama's

It actually hailed at one point and we did have a leak in Madeleine's room! need to keep an eye on that.