And here we go again

For the first time in our history we are going to celebrate New Years Eve alone, just the 4 of us. So we decided to go to France for the weekend, to a place we have been many times before. A place where mom and dad can sit in front of the fireplace and read a good book and sip a glass of nice Alsace wine, a place where the children can take a swim, play pool or just relax in the lounge area with the hostesses dog. A place where they serve excellent food and where we find a cosy atmosphere. And if we do not want to stay in the hotel anymore we visit the little villages or try the skates in the ice rink. 

Unfortunately no snow in the slopes, so no skiing this time.

Wish you all a nice weekend and a wonderful celebration!

ON Y VA.....

Good bye Norway (for now)

We are well back in Lux after a nice holiday in Norway.

Highlights were family dinners, christmas food, meeting friends, conversations under 4 eyes and a few hours with snowy and white landscape. Unfortunately the storm "Dagmar" came and made the last few days wet and windy. 

That's the unpredictable Norway.

Christmas days....

in Norway are getting towards an end.

Happy days with family, old traditions and a peaceful celebration. 

Merry Xmas

Wish friends and family a peaceful Christmas

Snow roses

Granny's old

We have one advantage arriving early this year. 

We enjoy the good, old traditions we used to have before we moved to Lux.

Like the baking and now the decoration of the tree.

It brought back good memories when I found the vintage decorations from my grandmother. I appreciate genuine, old things and prefer that instead of cheap, mass produced plastic decorations.

Just like in the good old days!

For the first time in years, me, mom and the children baked Christmas cookies. 

Gave us good memories, 

and they tasted really good as well.

Butter for Norway!

For all you non Norwegians out there that thinks that Norway is not hit by the butter crises, you are wrong! Lack of butter is indeed serious, and yes! I have my luggage full when I am heading north! 

take a look at Colbert Report here

Holiday!!!

Finally it's here, Christmas holiday!

We are packing our bags and are off tomorrow morning.

Really looking forward to a couple of weeks in "the north" and to be with family and friends again. Since we are away most of December this year we didn't bother buying a big tree as previous years, so we picked our own little tree in the forest (with roots so we can plant it again). Just to have a bit of the good feeling the days before we leave. Anyway, a wish for a white Christmas we have, but the forecast says rain and high temp, so we cross fingers.

Au revoir for now, I'll blog from Norway next time.

Mistletoe

Mistletoe is not a tradition in our family. But since we are surrounded by huge trees full of this plant I got my son to climb up in one of them the other day and pick me some.

I like the shape and form of the leaves and the white little berries, and I think it fits well in my silver vase.

2nd update....

It is getting busy! Right now I need to concentrate a bit on our Spain project, and leave Christmas preparations for a second.

Both of the bathrooms are now stripped, as you can see on the right side. Left you can see how they used to look like (necessary to make an upgrade as you see). Now the work with rebuilding will start, and I really hope we have the right man on the task and that he understand my ideas.

I guess we have to wait a couple of months to see the final results, but you can take a look at some of my ideas here

An update...

Can you see the difference?

A short time ago husband went to Spain and to check out the progress at our holiday home. And YES!, the tree is gone!

That will give more light to the groundfloor bedroom, and as a bonus it will give us a better see view from the balcony.

St. Lucia

13th of December, St. Lucia day!

A day that is well celebrated in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

In lack of any new Lucia photos of my lovely ones, I post this old picture of my daughter when she was a Lucia in kindergarden.

Unfortunately the Lucia traditions are fading in the family as the children are getting older, but I will bake the famous, swedish buns called "lussekatter"

(and most likely play some christmas music)

3 new favorites

Do you recognize the items I bought at 

the brocante on Friday?

On top you see the 8 pieces tea-set in silver. 

It will not serve as a tea-set any more, but as a "gløgg" set.

The 4 pieces-plate was not at my "treasure"-picture, but was also bought on Friday. After Christmas it will join me to Spain and I will use it for tapas.

And at the last photo you see the big, brown bowl used (for now) as a candle holder. 

Love to search for pretty, old things, do you? 

Treasures?

Hi!

Want to show you some of the things that I found at the brocante

 in Belgium on Friday.

More will come....

♥

Love that my children never stop playing

 even though they are teenagers.

Winterwonderland?

Not very much says winter, December or Christmas where I live these days.

Sunshine, bird song and mild temperatures met us on our stroll in the forest today. But we ended up finding something that will be decorated for  Christmas, and I will show it to you later.....

Kids vs. adults

Early up this cold but sunny morning to watch the kids school team play against the adults team. Fun to see how serious the teachers/parents take these kind of matches. And sadly they won.......

Better luck next time kids!

My new favorite shop?

Hi again.

I just want to share this with you. On my way to Ikea earlier today I found out that I should take a look at the brocante that I sometimes visit.

 (I found some treasures that I will show you later :-))

On my way back to Lux I saw a new shop that I haven't seen before, placed almost in a round about. I stepped on the breaks, parked and went in. And I am glad I did, what a wonderful shop!

It is called Liégeois and has this kind of belge/dutch style that I just adore.

I think I will become a regular costumer....

Nice weekend

TGIF

It is Friday again!!!

And I am preparing a very nice weekend for us, this is actually our last weekend in Luxembourg this year. Yes, next week the kids and I are going to Norway. That's why I haven't decorated the house for Christmas as I usually do. But the hyacinth is a must, because they smell so wonderful and they reminds me of the Swedish Christmas. Which leads me to the thought that I need to get a Swedish Christmas ham, so Ikea here I come.......

Girls with the cameras

Here is my photo class (a group of lovely girls, right?) at Place d'Armes.

We took "repotage" photos when they built up the christmas market.

Hopefully I will take a trip to town this weekend and check it out.

(should have done it long time ago, but unfortunately 

the days haven't enough hours)

Cosy...

Today is a day where I prefer to drink tea, lightning up a dozen of candles and listen to the rain and wind outside.

It is also about time to start thinking of christmas gifts and make my list. 

I already now know that the list will not be any shorter than last year though.

Ok, get to work.......

Celebrating light

The two Norwegian boys living in Lux who will have their confirmation in the Norwegian Church next summer.

It was a quite and peaceful service with candle lights and christmas hymns.

Waterloo

My big plan to have a nice, christmassy day in Brussels yesterday went down the drain. The awful rainy weather did not fit in, but since we needed to go to Brussels for our son's confirmation education, we stopped by the impressive Butte du Lion at the battlefield of Waterloo.

On a sunny day I would like to climb up the stairs, but yesterday it was OK to just sit in the car :-)

Champagne brunch

Lucky me got an invitation to a friend's annual champagne/christmas brunch on Saturday. Delicious food, lots of bubbles and a beautiful decorated table set the standard for an amazing day with the girls. Just what I needed after a rather depressing period.

THANK YOU 

♥

Dear all....

... I am back!!!

After a couple of weeks with a lot of work, parties to organize and a bit of a hard time (this is a bit personal though) I have my head over the water again.

But I can tell that we had to say good bye to a very good guy today, my daughters best friend and boyfriend for 2 and a half years. He is moving back to Canada after 3 years in Lux. And tomorrow I will say good bye to a beautiful Norwegian girl, she is going back to Norway.

 This is the hard life being an expat, people come and leave, but hopefully friends will stay in touch!

Even though I've had a bit of a hard time, I also had 

some golden moments,

 like girls lunch at Sensi, 

dinner at Ikki and Cercle Munster,

husband removing his "movember mustache" (hihi)

and

our son's 14th birthday 

(and my mothers 60th anniversary)

and the INTERNATIONAL BAZAR

 as the high lights 

See you soon 

Have a nice weekend