Sunkissed

When I tell Danish people that I come from France, images of the sunny Provence and the warm waters of the Mediterranean sea very often come to their mind. They get really excited and tell me how lucky I am to have lived in such nice climate... haha yeah, right, La Mayenne is really famous for its warm climate...how I wish :D

Oh, it's not that I don't love the countryside where I am from, but in all the reasons why I love it, the weather doesn't usually come first in mind. Heck, it probably wouldn't even make my top 100 list!

... Until you get weeks like we got last week during our vacation.

It was all SUN SUN BABY, and it made us forget about all the rain -past, present and future!

Hanging out at the beach with the Gardais clan....

...and we also had the pool variation of that :) A nice afternoon, as simple as that. Relaxing. Having no plans and nowhere where we have to go. Being silly and laughing until our bellies hurt.

Just enjoying good time with friends....and my favorite of all girls :)

And to top it off, we finally got to meet little Louise, cutipie that she is!


I watched her little feet go around in the grass and her eyes twinkle from so much joy splashing in the pool for the first time. Let me tell you, this little girl is oh-so-well loved, and I am going to love to see her grow.

And Pam, Matt and Louise got to meet Olivia for the first time :)

Pure bliss.

Drinking wine and taking the time to enjoy it for all it is. Hanging out in the shade when it gets too hot for anything else and starring at the blue blue sky for hours to the sound of crickets. Kissing baby soft cheeks, bellies and feet.

Sunkissed skin. Sunkissed hearts. What else in the world could you possibly wish for?

Let's be completely honest - we lucked out on the weather. But hey, it was just nice, for that time, to feel like the sun always shines in Gorron.

Drinking it all in

...and I am not talking about wine, people :) - Although I wish....but I am still breastfeeding so that will have to wait a bit more!

No, I am talking about our trip to France.

We usually only come back for 3 or 4 days at a time, planning to do more things than we could possibly fit in Mary Poppins' bag. But not this time. No no no. This time, no running around left and right to try and fit it all in our crazy schedule. This week is all about sipping it all in, enjoying the small things at my parents instead of running around like mad people.

Here's a little sneak peak at what we've been doing so far.

Never-ending lunches by the lake. Because, why would we want to rush eating when everything around us is just so beautiful and quiet?

The lakes are our hanging-out spot, a retreat just 15 minutes away from my parents. Oh how I could imagine a beautiful little country house right there for the summer... someday, who knows?



Watching them play together. Nils loves to make her laugh, and she gives him all the love that can possibly fit in that little heart of hers.

We built a little "house" made out of branches so that they could get away from the heat. They just hung out there, the two of them, playing, looking at their roof of leafs, cooling down in the shade. They were drinking it all in.

Swimming like little frogs in the pool. Summer hats and sunscreen, little legs wiggling in the water, screams of laughter, water splashing all around. Ha, how I love thee.

Evening BBQs with good friends. Somehow they remind me of my childhood, I think because my parents' have always loved having people over for evening BBQs in the garden at our house. These long evenings are just special to me.

Like last Wednesday's night with the Poullains. Friends that are like family.

The sun doesn't want to go to bed, and we don't either. We chat and laugh until late in the night, passing around plates of grilled meat and roasted potatoes and fresh summer salads.

We pretend that none of us have to get up to work the day after. Because it is so good to just get lost in the moment.

All of this, people, is just the pure essence of summer :)

Celebration!

It seems like, some weekends, the celebration never ends. It is just one thing after another - a Tour de France of celebration, if you want. Last weekend we celebrated: my sister's house-warming party, her improvised wedding, my brother's birthday, and father's day. The only thing that we actually didn't celebrate was the French football team....'nough said about it though, I'll let the media waste their ink on them :)

My sister is finally done renovating her big beautiful house in the countryside, so she had a "barn party" to celebrate...and she thought "why not use the day of celebration to also get married?". Just a fun, casual, unplanned wedding :) And so, extra celebration it was! My sister and her now husband David are expecting a little baby boy for September, so talk about a busy year for them.

Too bad for us that Olivia was super tired and not in the mood to party. I guess waking up a baby at 4 am for 9 hours of traveling in plane, train and car, and then arriving in a house with 80+ partying French people will do that to her - haaaaa bad bad parents that we are :)

The trip back home always seems soooooo long... but when we arrive, it takes just one listen to the birds singing in my parents' backyard and a glass of my dad's wine in our hands, and we forget all the neverending travel. Plus, the trip back home was more than needed - it had been too long since she had seen her papou, her cousin and the rest of the family.

While the party went on wild, we managed to escaped here and there for some walks in the beautiful countryside and found the peace and quiet that our little Olive needed. And Nils tagged along - her just LOVES spending time with his little cousin.

And then on Sunday, David turned the big 2.5.. A quarter of a century already!

And apart from the traditional birthday cake and presents, Troels and I decided to suprize him with a little bit of Danish tradition: Cinnamon in the hair when you turn 25 and you are still single :D

Of course we had to wait until after the Jaccuzi, when he was all wet so that it would stick some more. Haaaaaaaa I love silly traditions like these :D

Happy (insert whatever) everybody!

Rain keeps falling on my head

The past week has been all about rain. Light rain, heavy rain, and everything in between....you name it. Remember when Forrest Gump is in Vietman and talks about rain? Yeah, kinda like that. In Seattle they call it Spring - well, a looooong Spring I'll give you that much, but spring nonetheless.

Here, they call the "Danish summer".


Tinymus and I celebrated the arrival of the Danish summer every morning in our big bed, listening to the rain tap on the roof of the house, the two of us cozied up under the blankets.

Oh the sweetness of having a little girl cuddled against you, and looking at her as she is trying to understand what's happening around her.

This morning she gave me what I think was her first kiss, and my heart just melted when I realized what she was doing. I picked her up from her bed and gave her her morning kiss. She looked at me with a smile in her eyes, opened her mouth as big as only she can, and smacked it wide open on my cheek. She stayed there for a few seconds, and when she let go she had the biggest smile and her eyes said: "Look look, I kissed my mama :)".

She is growing up so fast. Maybe it is because of all that food we've been giving her these days. Yes yes, one more milestone down: Olivia started solids this week! And she already wants to take control of the spoon!

Boy are we in for a ride :)

The rain fell down and somehow it got me caught up with all sorts of thought about the course of life. Where I have been, where I am right now in my life, where I thought I would go, where I think I might go. These days I feel that I am at another cross-road, having to decide which path to follow by imagining what the destination will look like. Damn...sometimes I wish I had a guide book you know? :)

Tonight though, the sun came out in the evening after a gray day, and all I wanted to think about was the good old "Carpe Diem".

So I picked up Olivia in one arm, a blanket in the other and we headed down one of my new favorite spots - only two minutes away from our house and wooohooo, guess what....no mosquitos :) Smits 1 - Mosquitos: 1

The minute I put my little girl on the blanket under the big tree, she wiggled and giggled like I have never seen before from so much happiness. She listened to the birds, and the cutiepie even tried to answer their calls with her own little screams.

It was priceless. These few minutes just made up for all the rain that had been falling for a week. Now your turn - go, go out now and enjoy life for what it is today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow.

Wishing you a big happy Carpe Diem!

"I am a sewing nerd" (understatement of the year)

Ok. It's official.

I am a nerd.

A sewing nerd, with that.

What's the remedy, doctor?

Lately I have been going crazy with photography, leaving behind all of my sewing projects.

So it was super nice to have my friend Katharina come over a few days ago. Kat is an avid sewer too, and she brought all of he fabrics with her so we could do a bit of "brainstorming".....

.....and it ended up going completely bananas. In the best way, that is :D

Because you see, Kat is as bad as me when it comes to sewing.....so the two of us together.....ohhhh dangerous. It led to this:


Us putting all of our fabrics together into a color wheel. Oh nerdy nerds :D And the worst part is, we had SO much fun doing it hehe :D Now all of that made me want really bad to take a trip to New York to find even more cool cheap fabric!

Oooooh the fashion district. Katharina is game for a fun week out there, and I think my Lilo is too! Anybody else reading this interested? Give me a shout out!

And the real outcome of our afternoon together? We've challenged ourselves to a few projects....now to see what comes out of it! Stay tuned for an update in a few weeks :)