It's that time of year that one is thinking of where to go on vacation. I have several options, but last year we talked about traveling to Iceland during summertime. Tomorrow I'm going to get me some brochures at the travel agency. If we decide otherwise for whatever reason, maybe we'll spend a week or two at Yellowstone .

On the other hand, Ed would rather visit a place you can reach by car. A few city trips are also cooking in my mind. Napoli , Lisbon (again), Paris , I've never really been to Paris, just traveled through, Berlin , Sevilla and more.
Oh my, there are still so many places I want to visit but first I have to find a place for our cat to stay. I want him to be in good hands, not easy to find a home for him. Any suggestions are welcome.

It's been years since we had such a cold winter. Temperatures of -17°C feel very cold and still we sleep with the bedroom window open. I have headaches if we leave it closed. We also had a lot of snow this week, about 15 centimeters. Yesterday the sun came out and I went up the attic to get my moon boots and walked over to my aunt. Too bad she wasn't home, I continued my walk to the grocery store. I noticed when walking that my heel was sore. I took a close look at it when I got home and noticed a big open blister. Auch!

Carine, Edwin and Yara came over at New Year's eve. We had fondue, wine, good times and chocolate fondue for dessert. Can you believe it? I didn't take any pictures. Shame on me! I did film Yara while she was reading her New Year's letter at midnight. I still miss having Jolieke here on New Year's eve. I can't believe she will turn 15 this month. So much happened in our life the last couple of years. I just can't believe it.

Eef is about to move out soon, she has a new job and is going to rent/share an apartment with her friend Marissa. I'm going to have my extra room back which is good because I had to move all my stuff out when she came to live with us. It's going to be an adjustment when she is gone. I'm curious how often she is going to visit us once she moves out. It's not easy for me to let her go. We got so used to having her here but when she thinks it's time to go, we only can accept her choice.

I decided to stop being a member of Hasseltlokaal. I can't stay a member when I can't obey myself to write or take pictures anymore. I'm sure thankful to Dorien that she wanted me in from the beginning. I'm grateful to the activities team, Eef, Niels and Chretien for all the activities they arranged over the years. I had a good time but now it's time to say goodbye.

2008 is about to end. Looking back gives me mixed feelings about a lot of things that happened in my life this year. There were good things and bad things but that's life. "All things happen for a reason" they say.

• January: some of our pictures of Hasselt were published in a 2008 agenda, we booked our vacation to the US, I was invited to Eef's first press-trip, Ed and Eef had the flu, Mom had arthroscopic surgery, Jolieke turned 14.
• Februari: we were invited by Yara to have breakfast in Genk, the weather was beautiful all month, Floor hopped around a lot on our terrace, I started to work out at the gym, Ed booked our SUV.
• March: Yara's birthday, Jolieke has a boyfriend, we went to Initia's restaurant-day, Geert who has Multiple Sclerosis asked us to take pictures of him playing his first handball match in a long time. Kreso Durasin, one of the Initia players,Spring Celebration, we finished watching all episodes of Ally McBeal on DVD, we were considering to buy a British Shorthair cat, we had thunder, lightning, hail and huge snowflakes in one day, the snow ruined our magnolia tree blossoms , Cherine and Alisa came to search for Easter Eggs, we had lunch with Eef's parents in Kelchterhoef. My aunt Christiane passed away.
• April: Eef, Ed and I went on vacation to the US, we drove 2628 miles or 4205 kilometers in 2 weeks.
• May: we came back from Arizona on Tuesday, the week after on
  • Friday morning, Eef left for Hungary
  • Monday morning, Ed left for Denmark
  • Monday evening, Eef came back from Hungary
  • Friday morning, Eef left for China
  • Friday evening, Ed came back from Denmark
  • Tuesday evening, Eef came back from China!
• I went to a friend's mom's funeral, Initia lost the Play-offs from Sasja, we did a communion photoshoot, we started our own little business as www.fotomakers.be, Dad had his 72nd birthday. Floor got sick and passed away shortly after,  R.I.P Floortje  - Saturday May 31 2008 at 13:55 PM ,
• June: we welcomed baby albino rabbit Sjoefel to our home, we ordered 2000 liters (= 528 gallons) of heating oil. The price was really painful: 1800 euros! That's 2768 US dollars. Counting down 4 weeks until we could get our kitten Fumeni.
• July: summer rain keeps falling, the real estate agency Dreamhome hires me to take pictures for them. Every year you'll find us at the Belgian Rhythm and Blues festival in Peer,
• August: my blog is now 5 yrs and 203 days old but I neglect it more and more, we welcomed our British shorthaired kitten Fumeni to his new home, Eef and I went to Pukkelpop to watch Lykke Li and Sigur Ros.
• September: taking pictures for an assignment of a 2009 calendar of the city of Liege , Eef, Ed an I went on vacation to Tuscany
• October: more pictures for the 2009 calendar of the city Liege, there were Ed's, Eef's, Marc's and my father in law's birthdays. There were the Jenever festivities , I met Liesbet, saw Myriam back after 6 years and went to the exhibit of An Vanderlinden. Eef painted her room, We met 'my boyfriend is a twat' Zoë and Andy at Judy's place,
• November: it was our 28th wedding aniversary, we were invited by Sigurd to watch an international handball game in Germany. I went to see Quidam of Cirque du Soleil with Eef, Marissa and her parents, Eef and I went to see Sigur Ros in Brussels.
• December: Well, it's my first post this month. Sinterklaas stopped at our house to bring toys for the kids, Fumeni left his jingle bells at the vet, Eef starts a new exciting job she wanted for so long and her facebook status says, 'in a relation but it's complicated'. Initia sold jenever at the Christmas market. Hasselt opens it's first year of Winterland.

Goodbye 2008!

Mister Winter entered our land early this year. In all of the 28 years that we are married I only remember the one time that we had some powder snow before November 28th.
Last weekend we were invited by Sigurd to watch an international handball game in Germany . Sigurd's sister Elke drove with us and Jolien who also is a player at the ladies team of Initia. The five of us took off at 3 pm. When we arrived in Düren (GER) it started to snow. We were inside of the Arena and didn't about how bad the weather became outside.
The game was amazing! Ed took pictures and us ladies were spoiled with vip seats. I was amazed by the German players. They were real athletes and played so fast! I could become a fan of them ;-)  After the game we were invited to enjoy a meal in the players' lounge.
When we left the Arena I was amazed by how much snow already had fallen. It started to snow again and we really had to watch the road, we drove carefully. We arrived home safe, but later we heard that Sigurd's car slipped and had a minor bumper bender.

On Saturday, Eef , Marissa, her parents with grandchildren and I went to see Quidam of Cirque du Soleil. We were all dissapointed at the end of the show. We expected to see a much more spectacular show. Mind you, it was beautiful, but just not wow enough! Or are we that spoiled? We had to pay 70 euros for a ticket, another 5 euros to park the car and the prices of the beverages were outrageous. After the show we drove home and were just in time for the Initia - Sasja game .
Marc and Fabke were also at the handball game. It was the second time they went. Sasja won the game, which was a pity because Initia came so close to winning. Just two points short!

Have you ever been to Brussels? Eef and I went to the Sigur Ros concert last week. The concert was amazing! I told Eef that we had to drive early because I knew that it's hard to find a parking space at Vorst Nationaal . So off we went, plenty of time left.  Now the man who read this will say "Women!" Well yes, we managed it to pass the right exits about three times with a GPS ;-) I hate the streets of Brussels!!! Send a US citizen to Brussels and he freaks out! It's a real maze or are we really that stupid ;-p
Of course there was no free parking space left by the time we arrived and we had to search the streets for a small parking lot. After a while we found one and by the time we walked to Vorst National the concert was about to begin. Well, in the end we had a real good time!

Well, it's been about three months since my last post.  I was very busy these last couple of months taking pictures for an assignment of a 2009 calendar of the city Liege that will be released soon. We had to make interior shots of about 30 stores but it was fun.

The 20th of September we drove to Tuscany in Italy. San Gusme was the place where we stayed for one week. Tuscany is very beautiful and the house that we rented was just perfect. Our garden was located in the middle of the vineyard. The grapes were ready to be picked. Eef loved the taste of the wine grapes, I didn't like them at all but I loved the finished product ;-) Each day we drank wine with our meal which is not so good for my bad liver but hey, when you are in Tuscany you don't drink water, do you? We bought a few bottles to bring home. Sienna is the city I loved the most of the Tuscany region. It's a very cozy town. On our way back to Belgium we slept in Switzerland for one night. I promised myself to go back to the vierwaldstättersee (pictures are coming soon). That place brought peace to me. I could really live there.

The handball season is going strong but I'm not going to take much pictures this season. I'm not happy with my camera anymore and will wait until I have my new one. My 5D is too slow, the new 5D MarkII is not as fast as our 1D MarkIII but it's faster than the old one. So for now, Ed takes most of the pictures and I do the finishing works in PS.

October went by fast. It was Ed's, Eef's, Marc's and my father in law's birthday which made me gain weight GRRRRRR. There were the Jenever festivities in town and I met Liesbet, saw Myriam back after 6 years and went to the exhibit of An Vanderlinden. I'm spending too much time on Facebook and hardly read any blogs anymore. Eef has painted her room and yesterday I bought paint for our bedroom. Eef is painting it, she loves to paint and does a great job on that.

Last weekend we were invited at Judy and Willy's place to eat mussels and we met Zoë and Andy (My boyfriend is a twat) It was so great finally meeting them. Thanks Judy for the wonderful evening.

Fumeni is growing and his weight after almost 7 months is 5 kilograms which is a LOT! But it's normal if you think that his father weighs 11 kilograms. I'm going to call the vet today to make an appointment to take his manhood away (poor thing) I'm afraid he is going to mark his territory and I don't want my house to smell like it. Ugh! Well, I think that's about it! I'm still not finished converting our Tuscany pictures but here is the link where they will be posted soon .