Weekend post

On Saturday morning we had the farewell party from our friends Paula, Ramiro and kids - unfortunately they are returning back home to Argentina. We are very greatful we've met them and are already looking forward to a trip to Buenos Aires in the near future.



We enjoyed a beautiful morning at Clovelly beach, where we had a birthday catch-up with a colleague of Anouk. In the meantime Anouk officially started her maternity leave...she had a lovely baby-shower party at work last Friday (a wonderful surprise!).

Reality bites...

Email conversation today between me and 2 girlfriends of mine (one pregnant mum-to-be and one cool mum...). Sad or hilarious - you judge - but ohhh-so-true!!!

From the cool mum to the 2 pregnant ladies (incl me):
Now dinner....I know we said we should go out for a glamourous dinner but if you guys are both exhausted maybe we should make it an early dinner out with the two little girls. Bathers is good as we can spend arvo on beach and then eat about 5:30 (how tragic) and be in bed by 7:30 (even more tragic) and no-one has to cook (fabulous) how about next Sunday 20th May??

Lots of LOVE

fxxxxx

Holiday in Noosa

Back home after a great week in Noosa : beach, pool, nice restaurants, lots of sleep ...

Juleen loved having the pool in front of our apartment - as you can see on this video clip on YouTube.

Mama & Juleen week

Juleen en ik waren alleen thuis deze week, Frederik had zijn 5-jaar-MBA reunie in New York en hij heeft een weekje vrijaf genomen zodat hij wat tijd met zijn vrienden daar kon spenderen. Ondertussen hebben de girls het goed overleefd, maar we kunnen niet wachten tot dinsdagochtend!

Happy Easter!

Juleen really enjoyed the arrival of the 'paasklokken' and the 'haaspaas', nearly as much as mama and papa did - we suddenly felt like kids again ourselves ;-).
The challenge now is to limit J's daily intake of chocolate with all the easter eggs around, since it's by far her favourite sweet - she's definitely Belgian! Now the time has come though where she prefers to speak English to us - even if we 'force' her to speak Dutch...hhmm hopefully this is just a periodical thing.

Hello Aurelia

Pete, baby Aurelia & Juleen

Hello Clementine

Ben, baby Clementine & Juleen

Look mummy ... a spider

Juleen gets a big bed

And she loooovvessss to help with papa to put everything together...Guess whom she takes that from??

Newsflash

Australische vriend stuurde me dit bericht en vroeg me waar we ons in Belgie zoal meebezig houden ...

Further proof that the Prime Minister was right to defy the EU on the Kyoto accords. This illustrates the potential threat to the Australian way of life if Kevin Rudd gets his way and cedes Australian sovereignty to the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels! Forget the AWA....what hope to the great Aussie tradition with black painted helicopters flying over Australian suburbs on the weekends???

From Novosti, a Russian news service:

The government of Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia, which has a population of about 4 million, has approved a tax on barbequing, local media reported.

Experts said that between 50 and 100 grams of CO2, a so-called greenhouse gas, is emitted during barbequing. Beginning June 2007, residents of Wallonia will have to pay 20 euros for a grilling session.

The local authorities plan to monitor compliance with the new tax legislation from helicopters, whose thermal sensors will detect burning grills.