“Holiday Pounds”

Ok… here’s the long overdue update of last week… I am sorry I won’t have anything to say regarding my last post, but I will fill you in on more details soon.

So… I am not really in the biggest Christmas mood this year, but I have to say that I do love Christmas get-togethers and we had two of them last week with yummy food :) On Tuesday, my sister had invited my granddad, my great-aunt, my parents and me for waffles with hot cherries and whipped cream *yummy* Nina won’t be there on Christmas Eve because she’s going on a skiing trip with Dirk and his parents, so she wanted to get together beforehand.
I also used the opportunity to inform my great-aunt and granddad about our wedding plans. It was good to have my parents and sister around, because I wasn’t really sure how they would take this surprise, especially as everything is moving along fairly quickly now, but they took it pretty well :) I think my great-aunt was a little “shocked”, but I hope in a good way!

In the morning, my sister had been to the doctor, because she had this terrible cold last week and was still coughing so hard that her whole upper body was aching. So she went to see her doctor again and -guess what?- she had broken a rib from coughing. Can you believe that? I have never heard anything like that, but her doctor said that this is not so uncommon.

Wednesday morning, my sister and I went Christmas shopping (we both still needed some small gifts) and in the evening, Nina, Dirk and I were invited for “cheese fondue” at Ira’s place. It has become kind of a tradition to get together once before Christmas over the last few years and I was really looking forward to being able to be there this year again. First we had a delicious salad and when the cheese was melted, we started with the fondue. It was so good!! We finished a whole big pot of cheese and when we all felt like we couldn’t eat anymore, Ira came out with her special dessert… “Creme brulee”. OMG… that dessert was divine :)

Later Ira got out a “whine flavor set” with little flavor samples that whines can taste like… it was amazing how many flavors/scents you know, but can’t necessarily identify. The only samples I could identify were “cinnemon” and “lemon”, a lot of the other flavors smelled familiar, but I couldn’t really say what it was… and at some point my nose couldn’t handle all these extrem smells anymore. It was really interesting though ;)

Well, and Thursday I just ran some errands and got some Christmas mail on its way… I hope it’ll all get there on time. I must admit, I’ve been a little slack with my organization this year. My apologies.

Friday my sister and I went shopping with my great-aunt and had more coffee and cake in the afternoon. Let me tell you, these “holiday pounds” are definitely finding there way ;) it was fun though.
I also stayed over at my sister’s place that night, because Dirk was gone for the weekend and Nina always likes me to come over then for a “sister’s night” :) Oh, of course, Emma, the cat, is always part of it… she likes to be in the middle of everything! We already looked at wedding gowns… way too early, if you ask me, but my sister seems to be even more excited than I am *LOL*.

We got up real late Saturday morning, went to my Mom’s for lunch and then later drove over to my Mom’s friend Marita to help her set up her wireless Internet. It almost took us the whole afternoon and evening (I have realized that the instructions usually only come with the “easy setup instructions”, but never with some troubleshooting for complex phone and Internet connection systems.)
It was a fun day though, because my Dad came over in the evening and we went out to an Italian Restaurant in between to gain new strength ;)

I am still not done with my Christmas mail (although I’ve been working on it today) and I have tonz of things to do this week, since I realized that I will be leaving for California in a week! OMG. I don’t know if I have to time to do all the things I need to do.

Hugs to you all… and a nice last pre-Christmas week :)