Update

Dear friends,

I'm sorry for the unexpected break but we have been MOVING! We traded our appartment for two rooms at Jeff's parents' until we can move into our very own house. This wednesday we'll finally be signing the papers and we'll really be house owners! So exciting :)

We'll only get our keys mid-September because the guy will still be renting the house until he can move into his new place - you know ho it goes... 
Starting mid-September we'll do some large renovating works before moving in. We're talking taking down some walls, putting in heating (the guy living there has been heating the entire house with one little fire place!) and changing two windows into big doors to the garden.

Life has been good these past weeks, except when it turned out that Jeff's mom is allergic to our little bunny haha! She's fine as long as we keep Janneman in our attic-rooms. We just have to make sure it doesn't get too hot in there!

I'll be back soon with more posts now we're finally settled a bit.
Hope you're enjoying the rest of your summer!

Little sister growing up

Last week my little sister graduated highschool!
I'm so proud of her but she thought it was no big deal... She came straight from a party, not even took a shower haha!

 Hannah and one of her teachers
Look at the hair... Can't believe she's my sister haha!

And other good news is that she FINALLY has a boyfriend! They were waiting for almost 2 years (yes, more than 500 days! - but nobody was counting, right?) for him to turn 18 because his parents didn't want him to date before that :)

He still is 17 years old actually, his birthday is in 15 days! But my baby sister will be going on a missionary trip to Ethiopia for a month so everyone decided that it was ok to start the relationship now :)

Congrats little knollekie!

Daddy's Day

Dear Daddy,

Thank you for being the best daddy in the world!

You can fix anything, you're always there and you're always the best!

Excuse the weird look, I had only been a wife for a couple of hours at this moment and was still adjusting ;)

My parents at our civil wedding. My mom started to cry the moment we said we had a present for them haha!


We gave our parents a story about a man  that cuts a branch from a tree. The tree feels very sad and angry because it has lost a branch, but when the man comes back it turns out that he made a flute from the branch and is now playing songs for the tree... A bit difficult to translate really, but you get the idea! 

Jeff's father even teared up and he is totally not the emotional kind of guy!

Thanks to my husband I now have a second dad that can fix anything, is always there for us and is just the best :)

Fear and excitement - less than 2 months left!

There are less than two months left untill we will move in with Jeff's parents. We'll stay there in August and September. I'm getting a bit nervous about it all, really... I love Jeff's parents, but what if we'll all drive each other crazy? Haha :)
Or what if the kids keep running into "our rooms"? They used to live there and still sleep there about once a week. So they'll probably see it as "their rooms". (They won't be sleeping there when we live there, obviously)
We'll need to make some good rules for them!

 part of the rooms we'll be staying in!

I'm also getting pretty scared about the move to our own home! I mean... We'll really be on our own then. No friends that live next to us or in our street. No people stopping by 'cause they were in the neighbourhood. No people standing at our door when church is over.
It's going to be so different!

Jeff and I both love peace and quiet, we don't mind living a bit out of town. But we also love people! We want to invite them over for dinner or just to watch a movie or play a game, but will they want to make the ride to us? Everyone's so used to us living in the centre of Ghent...

But at the same time, I'm so convinced that God has a plan for us there! I can't wait to see what we'll make out of this beautiful old house! I can't wait to see how we will be a light to the people of our new town! I can't wait to see our futur kids running around in our garden! I'm so excited :)

Summer Days

 Last week we took advantage of the great weather to take a little trip to the sea. Jeff's mother wanted to go because she LOVES the sea! And she was babysitting the girls so she could use some help.

We arrived and Jeff had to go rescue a little girl that was stuck in the sand... She was screaming and her mom came screaming for help (I don't know why she wasn't with her children, she was REALLY far away!) It sounded like the girl had broken a leg or something -so much screaming!!-, but she was just in panic because she got stuck in the sand...
Still, my husband is my hero <3

 Isn't she a little lady?!
Precious little girls :)

Sadly we didn't really have the best time 'cause this little girl got really sick. She probably ate something bad and was crying all the time and saying she wanted to go home... So sad :(

I couldn't help but think about our future... We'll take our babies to the sea and my hubby will be the best dad ever!

Bummer, Bridal Shower Fun and my Little Sister!

Soooo...
I guess the house didn't work out last night. Well, it DID work out, we loved it! Maybe a tad too small for what we were expecting but we could make it work! The garden made up for every little negative thought we might have had about the old house!

But it was an open house night so there were lots of people! There were even people measuring everything, taking pictures and looking at us like it already was their house and we were just intruders! Haha :)

The sales girl told us they weren't supposed to go under the price (which was indeed pretty low for a house like that, they wanted to get it sold as soon as possible), especially since there was so much people that really seemed like they wanted to bid on the house! So we had to let our dreams go... (not the baby dream, ofcourse!!)
I may or may not have cried a little... (or a lot?)
If the house is still for sale next week we'll give them a call to see what we can do.

On a brighter note: tomorrow is the bridal shower!!
I still have to find some things but the big things are all ok, thank God.
Tonight I'll do the decorations, tomorrow morning its the bridal shower brunch, yeeey.

AND also: my sister will be staying with us for the weekend!
She's very sweet but very different than me hah!My parents will be going on a weekend-trip and they didn't want her to be home alone because she's had such a hard time on school. She really needs her rest and she really doesn't know her limits haha :)
So I got the nice job of pampering her! And it's fun because now she can come to the bridal shower too!

I love this picture SO much!

It's so typical of each of the three people in it :)

Hannah, Jeff, my Daddy

Raspberry-chocolate cake

Yesterday we went to my SIL's birthday party!
Ofcourse I had to make a cake :)

 

It was a chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache and raspberry filling... I liked it, but I never seem to LOVE my cakes like other people do... What's up with that? Maybe I'm just so tired of working on that cake so I can't appreciate it as much??

 

Don't you love this picture? Sophie got a new photo camera as a birthday present from her husband and I love how pretty the pictures are!!

And a picture of the two of us.

I was getting very tired because my sweet husband brought me breakfast in bed at 8am haha! Thanks sweetie :)

Opa Hans

Today we're going to the Netherlands... Sadly it's to go to Jeff's grandfather's funeral.
He was a very friendly, very wise man, a law professor!

We're sad that we'll have to miss him from now on, but we're so so so grateful that he still managed to come to our wedding...

We'll miss you Opa Hans!