Birthday surprise

It is my birthday! And, what was the surprise waiting for me: snow!! Can you believe this?! 10 inches of snow! Nice gift. But it gave me the opportunity to relax and just enjoy the day with my boys. They had to stay home...because of the snow! Sometimes snow in the spring can have a good side too...

New doc, new hope

The reason why my blog sometimes takes a longer break is my disease. I have Crohn’s, unfortunately pretty aggressive. The last year was very tough for me and I expected some relief after the surgery in November (my eighth abdominal surgery!) but it did not happen. We visited a specialist in NYC this week. He has a good plan for me and gave me new hope.

So, let us cross the fingers that the new medicines work.

And that my blog continues without bigger interruptions!

The "red" day

This is the most important holiday in February in the USA: Valentine’s Day!

Yes, we celebrated too. It was never really important to us before…but why should we not take every chance to make a romantic dinner, to have a glass of good wine…and to get a new perfume, ha,ha. So, I decided for myself: I love Valentine’s Day! And maybe we should celebrate it more often than once a year – maybe even every day… What a challenge!

The big "two"

A two-digit birthday! Our son Jakob entered the two-digit age last Sunday. He is now 10 years old!! A whole decade! On the one side I am so happy he is getting older, more independent, but on the other side it just scares me. Soon, the easy (??) years are over and the teenage problems start. And once this is over (I hope we survive!) he will go to collage… Well, but first we celebrated his big birthday with a party. His words: “Awesome!!”

And Darth Vader was here too…

Vermont, we are coming!

It is already a tradition, our annual ski vacation at Burke Mountain (where the Burki bear lives…). We usually never go to the same place for vacation, but Vermont is an exception. We meet there our friends (and always the same people in the small Inn where we stay, ha, ha). What can I say, we just love it. My boys went for skiing, I did this year snowshoeing.

I almost like it better than skiing: no waiting, no freezing in the ski lift…and peace. If you meet one or two people on your way, you are lucky. You just listen to your own breathing (oh yes, like an engine…it is exhausting!). And you have to be able to read the trail map – obviously always a challenge for me… But we had fun!

And the New Years Eve party in the lodge was a blast! So, we decided to break with our annual tradition. We do not wait until December, we go in February again! Of course, to the same place. And to the same people.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

Happy New Year!! Here we go again: a new decade! Just decorated the Christmas tree and it is all over again (until December!).

And Santa found the way to our house too…

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree...

The Christmas tree hunt is one of our favourite things to do. My men just love it! It is such a “manly” (ha, ha) thing to go in the woods (in our case a farm), to pick the tree and to cut it down with a saw, to carry it to the car… (ha, ha). The picking part took us two days last year (I have to admit it was my fault), it is not easy to find the perfect tree, you know. The least funny part is to get the tree in the stand. This can cause small fights between the married couple (in this case us). Who put the ornaments on the tree there is no arguing about it : me.

My husband watches this process from a distance; our son sleeps at this time. He gets up in the morning, surprised and excited: Christmas is coming!