Geronimo's Birthday

Yesterday Juleen went to Gerimo's birthday party (Geronimo - now 3 years old - is the boy on the picture next to Juleen). Geronimo's parents, Ramiro & Paula, had organised a fabulous party for the little ones : a petting zoo (little ducks, chicken, rabbits, a pony...), balloons, crafts, yummy food and a magnificent cake. The bar has been raised, once again ...






my first pony ride !

Jules says PEEKABOO !

Santa brought lots of gifts - but I have to wait till Sunday to open them :-(

The biggest one is sooo special I can't wait to tell you ...

... I am getting a little brother or sister in the new year !!!!!!

Mummy and daddy are so happy and excited! I am also getting a baby, b'cause my tummie is very big.

I have asked Santa for a real baby doll to learn to hold and feed a baby.

Almost Sunday ...

Breaking up Belgium?

From Crickey (Australian independent online media source) - Charles Richardson writes:

Last week's big story in Europe was a hoax "news" broadcast on Wednesday evening reporting the break-up of Belgium.

RTBF, the public broadcaster in the southern, French-speaking half of the country reported that the Dutch-speaking north had declared independence, leading to great consternation and even panic among viewers.

Back in 1938, of course, Orson Welles demonstrated that you can create panic even by playing on completely unrealistic fears, when a radio dramatisation of The War of the Worlds convinced many people that martians had landed in New Jersey.

A spokesman for the Belgian prime minister described Wednesday's broadcast as "very bad Orson Welles, in very poor taste".

But believing in Flemish independence is of a somewhat different order from believing in a martian invasion. Belgium is an accident of history: its northern border represents only the line that the Spanish armies held at the end of the Dutch war of independence. Logically, northern Belgium (Flanders) should be part of the Netherlands, while the southern half (Wallonia) should be part of France.

Logic, however, does not always rule in international affairs, and clearly many Belgians have developed a very strong attachment to their artificial country - hence the strong reaction to the hoax. The head of RTBF, Jean-Paul Philippot, admitted the following day that "the impact of the broadcast was greater than expected".

Nonetheless, the tide of globalisation is tending to break apart such artificial countries. The existence of the EU reassures people that independence need not mean isolation, and is a contributing factor to independence movements in such places as Catalonia and Scotland.

Belgium's federal arrangements are due to be renegotiated next year, and it is quite possible that wealthier, more populous Flanders will ultimately decide that keeping Belgium together costs more than it is worth.

If that happens, RTBF might get to run some of last week's footage as real news.

Sydney Zoo

It was about a year ago that we visited the zoo for the first time. Turned out that most animals were too passive to be noticed by Juleen ... but the views on the city were spectacular.

This weekend we returned and guess what ... the views are still spectacular! We paid up to become friends of the zoo which means we need to go at least 3x a year to make the numbers work. But Juleen (and her swimming pal Zach) loves the zoo and therefore we all do !!

Juleen and Dylan make X-mas crafts

 

New Zealand Trip - part 2 (final)

PART 2

After 4 days in Queenstown we travelled north, passing by Wanaka / Lake Wanaka, along the West Coast, to spend two nights and a day in Franz Josef. The Frans Josef and Fox Glaciers are unusual for several reasons - first of all they are still there, unlike most of the glaciers Al Gore shows in his movie The Inconvenient Truth! These glaciers are quite spectacular because they descend from the Southern Alps to just 200 metres above sea level amidst the greenery and lushness of a temperate rain forest. The 2 hour hike high up the glacier was truly amazing.

We then continued to Marahua, located at the entry of the Abel Tasman national park. We stayed in a small cottage (Pukeko Cottage) on the farm of Will and Jenny. This was arguably the highlight of our trip - to give you an idea of why it was such a unique location we copied some background info on the farm :

Will’s father built this house in 1962 (in Nelson) for his parents to retire to. In 2003 it was moved here and renovated by Will, to use as a holiday cottage. We manage the orchard organically, originally exporting our produce but now selling to local markets. Main crops are Kiwifruit, plums, pears, apples, mandarins, lemons and Macadamia nuts. All are available to buy in season along with some vegetables and organic free-range eggs.We have recently harvested 4 hectares of pine trees and have replanted with native vegetation to create habitat for native bird life. We have a predator-trapping program in place for possum’s, stoats and rats. As a result, we now enjoy increasing numbers of Kereru (native Pigeon) Tui, Bellbird (Korimako), Fantail (Piwakawaka), Tomtit (Miromiro), Grey Warbler (Riroriro) Kingfisher (Kotare), Morepork (Ruru) and New Zealand Falcon (Karearea). Within his area we have walking tracks that lead to some views that are quite pectacular and well worth the puff to the top!!

We recommend anyone who visits the South Island to stay in Pukeko Cottage. We had breakfast in the same cafe where Matthias and Christine had breakfast a year ago when they visited New Zealand.

We finished our trip in Nelson, a small but pretty town on the Tasman Bay, where we stayed for another 4 days. Some pictures of the final part of our trip can be found here : Pictures

New Zealand trip - part 1

PART 1
We flew from Sydney to Queenstown, on the South Island of New Zealand, where we stayed for 4 days. Queenstown calls itself the "adventure capital of the world" because of all the adventurous activities that are being offered, by everyone, everywhere. The city is surrounded by impressive mountains (e.g. the "Remarkables") and situated at the beautiful S-shaped lake Wakatipu.
We especially loved the deer park, the day trip to Glenorchy and Paradise, the walks and the great lake views from our apartment. The city itself is overly commercials and quite small - Queenstown's reputation is the result of a successful marketing effort focused on benji, snow fields and water activities. It proved a good starting point for our 2 week holiday.

For more pictures, click Pictures

Nonkel Akim

Bij onze terugkeer van vakantie wachtte Akim ons op in Sydney - op doorreis van Aukland (het in vele opzichten meer relevante maar ietwat minder spectaculaire noordelijke eiland van Nieuw Zeeland, terwijl wij en en een triljoen schapen op het zuidelijke eiland vertoefden) naar Japan.


Dat betekende barbie, bij zomerse temperaturen ...


... en nieuwe kunstjes leren : Juleen vroeg voor een pamper voor Big Bert (we zitten in die fase) en liep voor ze het wist zelf met 3 pampers rond.



Altijd leuk om nonkel Akim op bezoek te hebben ... maar wanneer komt meme Natje ?? ;-)

Reisverslag en foto's van NZ zijn op komst.

Nanny/au-pair wanted for 2 months

Help to all our family and friends... Our lovely nanny Sandra is going on holiday back to her home-country Urugay. She leaves on Feb 22nd and is not back until 22nd April. We are looking into temporarily solutions here in Sydney, but if anyone feels like spending some quality time with Juleen and us, you are more than welcome! 

Who am I ?

(it's a family thing ...)

Look at this...

Juleens latest trick is to show off and ask people's attention for it
Look at this, papa!

My trip to Singapore

We had a marketing conference with our Asian Pacific region in Singapore last week. We arrived on Sunday night and I shared a room with my friend Di. Monday was a day-off for the Aussies and I did an amazing shopping spree in the morning (Orchard road trees nicely decorated), I've bought half a suitcase in 3 hours (Far East Plaza shopping mall, basement for cool & different stuff). At 2pm we went for lunch with the team, followed by a touristy boatride (see lion & angels), continued with some Singaporian Sling cocktails at Raffles (at the Long Bar - way too sweet for my taste buds) and we had a fantastic chilli crab dinner in one of the local restaurants (No Sign Board resto) where we seemed to be the only tourists... The conference itself was a great experience, if anything to see all the local differences in people - I now could nearly put a nationality on each face (and some character traits), whereas before I wouldnt have been able to. We had 2 great sessions during the week and Peter Fisk (book Marketing Genius) was the most inspiring. I would highly recommend his book for all marketeers among us (even though I still have to read it myself now).



On Wednesday night we had Lynette's hen's night, a great night out with all our Aussie collegues. And whilst one was about to get married, my friend Di got proposed! Darren arrived on Friday night as a total surprise (not for me, ;-)) and they decided to stay on for the weekend, where Darren proposed on Saturday night (whilst Lynette was saying 'Yes, I do').

The last night we went to little India and had great low-fi dinner at Banana Leaf Apolo where food is served on real banana leaves and eaten with hands (they do have forks!). We then checked out Mustafa Shopping Centre (11pm) - which was an unbelievable experience. For anyone who stops by in Singapore, I would strongly recommend to come with half a suitcase and pass by Mustafa. It is a 24/7 huge supermarket/bazar where you can buy anything from jewelry, watches, sports gear, baby clothes, suitcases, handbags, china ware, home decoration, hifi/technology/mobiles/ for significantly less money and huge choice. Make sure you have at least half a day to spend there, I was very sad to leave at 12.30am, my flight the next morning was calling me...

As much as I loved the shopping, it was really disappointing that there is not a lot of other things to do. And all new buildings under construction were to my greatest disbelief even more new shopping malls.

At the airport back in Sydney it was a very special and unique moment - our little family happily reunited. A smile and hug from Juleen, a kiss from daddy, a little tear of happiness from mummy.

Fashion Victim

Anouk came back from the shopping capital of the world with ...

... and guess who loved it the most ?!?!?

Fun in the Park

Saturday morning we went to the Bi-Centenial Park with Zach and his dad Pete - because there was no swimming class !!




Juleen & Zach




 

Foebal

Reading about the declining popularity of Belgian soccer makes the cynic in me smile. When you see how much efforts, professionalism and resources are invested in each of the popular (and even less popular) sports in Australia, where sport events are true family events ... a long way to go. And let's not even get started about our the national soccer team...

We just had a huge sports weekend with both the Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final (Sydney Swans lost this replay of last year's final against the Western Eagles from Pert ) and the National Rugby League (NRL) Premiership Final (the Brisbane Broncos defeated the Melbourne Storms after a few contested calls by the referees). I guess that's already too much information for most of you :-)

The action on the home turf becomes "emotionally relevant" when the draw of the next round of the UEFA cup puts Club Brugge against some of Europe's strongest teams, with 2 games drawing particular attention: First there is Tottenham, which has a strong fan base in Australia starting with our neighbour Andy who is an enormous fan. Final game for Brugge, 29 November, against Besiktas, home team of Cem (still living in NYC).

In good old Aussie tradition I may be tempted to take a punt and put some money on those 2 games... on my black & blue team, because you never know...

Papa - Juleen week

A special week for papa & Juleen: Anouk has a conference in Singapore. We drove Anouk to the airport on Sunday. To put it in Juleen's words :

"Mama gone
Mama airplane
Mama Sinapoor"

Sunday afternoon we went to the playground at Fox Studios and bought a tricycle (typical dad behaviour...). Afterwards we went home and played and finished our painting.

Monday is Labour Day in New South Wales so we had an extra day to hang out together. In the morning we went to Paddington to play tennis with Ben & Leslie. Juleen observed from the side line and from the umpire's chair. We had brunch at Five Ways and by that time Juleen was crashing (not following the morning routine, no morning nap - again typical ...). When we got home we both had an afternoon nap for 3 hours! Around 5 we went to Bertoni's on Darling street, Juleen on her tricycle and dad behind her, where we had a flat white and a babychino (foamed milk with cacao powder - an Aussie classic). We bumped into Dylan and Ben, who where also driving their tricycle around ... it does get quite busy on Darling street on a bank holiday. We were invited over to Dylan's house where Juleen and Dylan had dinner and a bath together. It was dark when we got home, had a bottle of milk, gave mum a call to tell her we survived our first full day on our own, and went to bed.

4 work days (9am-5pm, for a change) to go before Anouk arrives on Saturday evening. We will report back on how it all went.

Impressions (20)

Daar is de lente... eindelijk.

Our dear PM John Howard on global warming

TONY JONES: What do you see as the biggest threat to Australia in the future, terrorism or global warming?

JOHN HOWARD: I think terrorism is a greater threat because I think we are doing things about global warming. We're doing things about terrorism, but terrorism is more arbitrary, it's far more capricious, and of course its immediate consequences on the people it touches are more hideous.

TONY JONES: You'd be aware that that was a rhetorical question that Al Gore asked in his film.

JOHN HOWARD: Yes, (indistinct).

TONY JONES: Precisely, because he is saying that the difference is that the actual fate of the planet is at stake with global warming, not with terrorism.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, I will see the film, he sent me a copy and we had a brief discussion about it. But whilst believing that the planet is getting warmer and whilst accepting some, I don't accept all, and I believe that the methods that he proposes will do a lot of short and medium term damage to the Australian economy. It will send industries offshore, send Australian jobs to countries like China and Indonesia. I think we can tackle the problem in a different and equally effective way.

TONY JONES: You might be aware, I don't know, that there is a strong, sort of, rumour, it has been reported widely now that President Bush is about to do a huge U turn.

JOHN HOWARD: I've seen some reports.

TONY JONES: Would that influence you if he did?

JOHN HOWARD: We make our own assessment of these things. Our own assessment is that if Australia were to sign the Kyoto Protocol, we would damage our country's interests because the arrangements would impose obligations on us that would not be imposed on countries like China and Indonesia. Therefore it would be less costly for industry to invest in those countries and they'd take their investments from Australia elsewhere and we lose jobs.

From ABC Lateline interview, 19/9/2006

Rainy Weekend

It continues to rain in Sydney ... hopefully the final convulsions of this winter, as spring started on 1 September!

We stayed home all weekend, but had plenty of visitors to play with / cook for / talk to ... Sunday morning we had Ramiro and his family (wife, 2y old son and 1y old daughter) with us for brunch. Originally from Argentina, Ramiro studied at Columbia before spending a few years in Brazil. He and his family transferred to Australia a few months ago and we hope to see them more often as the kids (and the parents) get along really well.



Saturday afternoon we caught up with our Belgian friends from Killara (North of Sydney): Lise, Anja and Peter. Anyone who considers a trip to Australia should have a look at their website : they just finished another great trip (Darwin -> Broome) and the photos of this and their previous trips are spectacular!

Lise and Juleen

Finally, Nicole, Paul and their newborn son Christian stopped by on Saturday as well. Nicole is a colleague of Anouk and she gave birth on 30 August.

Hoping for better weather soon - the rain leaks through the terrace roof and our garage is getting wet...

Frog in the Garden

Deze namiddag hebben we de "pond" (een putje van 1 vierkante meter) uitgekuist om er binnenkort enkele visjes in te kunnen zetten. Bleek dat er al een kikker in het mini-vijvertje woonde. Een spannende namiddag!

Celebration dinner

Met z'n 3-tjes uit eten op een doordeweekse dag ; "lederen bruiloft" (what's in a name) vier je dan ook niet elke dag! Stock, de lokale Bistrot - cuisine Francaise, was uitstekend. We kijken uit naar de volgende verjaardag. 

...whilst Juleen had a great time at Sandra's

Awesome weekend in Thredbo

Just the 2 of us...

Jules loves magnets

 

Artist at Work

Juleen had a particularly productive day today - she finished two paintings full of bright colors and lots of physical emotions.



 

More Hamilton Island

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Daddy loves me!

Hamilton Island Break

We zijn net terug van een lang weekend (vrijdag-maandag middag) uitrusten op Hamilton Island, een van de 74 eilanden van de Whitsundays. Hamilton Island is rechtstreeks bereikbaar per vliegtuig (2.5u vliegen van Sydney) en liet ons toe om voor een weekendje van de (warmere) zon en de natuur te genieten - terwijl we hier toch nog steeds in putje van de winter zitten.

vanop het terras bij het ontbijt

De highlights waren
- rusten, slapen en soezen in de zon
- het zand, strand en de oceaan (vooral voor Juleen)
- de duik/snorkel trip naar Bait Reef (Great Barrier Reef)
- ontbijten met de koala's
- het schitterende decor (natuur, infrastructuur...)


De koala's - 20u slapen per dag, en een beetje eten


De 2 duiken aan het Great Barrier Reef (eerste keer) waren schitterend, al waren de haaien (de ongevaarlijke soorten) spijtiggenoeg niet op het appel. Ook de snorkelaars kregen werden beloond: waterschildpadden, de indrukwekkende Humphead Maori Wrasse en talrijke kleinere vissoorten. Vanop de boot zagen we walvissen aan de oppervlakte komen en onder water konden we ze horen spreken/zingen, een speciale ervaring.

Humphead Moari Wrasse - van zeer dichtbij

Juleen was er graag bij! Van 6u 's ochtends liet ze elke dag weten dat ze klaar was om te vertrekken. Ze liet er geen twijfel over bestaan waar ze wel en geen zin in had - de jonge dame heeft geen gebrek aan attitude. Zo lieten we haar op zaterdagnamiddag voor 2 uur in de creche, als test voor een volle dag op zondag (duiktrip) ... waarop we na een goed uur een telefoontje kregen met het vriendelijke verzoek om onze spruit te gaan afhalen, ze had er geen zin in. Gelukkig vonden we Holly, de kinderoppas, bereid om de volgende dag op Juleen te passen (buiten de creche), zoniet hadden we onze daguitstap kunnen vergeten.

Effe poseren tegen een palmboom, deze keer met de glimlach

Juleen & babysitter Holly & de kleine koala

We hebben veel foto's van Juleen-in-actie gemaakt en we zullen een selectie op onze foto-yahoo site zetten.

"Nice" "Beach" "Nice"