Kaat - Wow!

Our little girl Kaat is not so little at all anymore. A real girl she is but not afraid to get dirty at all. Kaat at the moment is one of the kindest and easiest kids I know. Gives out compliments to any and all, all day. Is accommodating to her brothers, does not nag much or get upset easily. Can entertain herself and his happy also if you entertain her. She enjoys a million things and is clear in what she wants and goes after it.

A gorgeous fabulous girl in a fabulous phase.

In new pajama's she picked out herself

WIth face paint and princess dress at a christmas bazaar.

With Duuk who loves her to pieces and misses out of all of us Kaat the most when we are all away from home.

Kaat has the best freckles ever.

And a cute now wrinkle. He she is telling me a secret - which consists usually of just whispering pspspspspspspspssss in my ear.

And Kaat takes charge. Here in the Indian costume shop to help buy the appropriate outfit for Rick for a wedding in a few weeks.

Meeting Eye Candy

Eelco and I never have meetings together. It happened once, the 2nd month Eelco worked for Shell. And it has never happened since, apart from some communal town hall sessions.

But last week Eelco was roped into some scope for the Iraq portfolio as the principal expert,….and I got to go to as 'the customer'. Eelco had to be serious and all as he was in full view on the video conference screen.

I was placed of to the side of the table, out of view somewhat, and so I secretly snug in a picture of the eye candy in my meeting.

As I always complain that I have very little eye candy in the office I posted the picture to Facebook. Eelco actually in the end appeared flattered and he got lots and lots of comments (and likes). 

Don't think though that us being in the same meeting is going to become a regular occurrence.

Cirque du Fer a Cheval (Backlog-blog, Mieussy)

On our last day in Mieussy we drove down to the end of our valley to a famous natural amphitheater called Cirque due Fer a Cheval (after the nearby village). The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed the view and a nice forest walk.

Thanks to the beautiful scenery and the happy kids we have lost of fun family pictures from that afternoon:

Eelco & another 1/2

Eelco got back into the running again and there was finally again also a running event in Bangalore on in a weekend in which we were actually in town. So last Sunday morning Eelco left the house very early to get to South Bangalore, somewhere near Nice Road (yes it is called that as it is a well paved road).

The wife of Eelco's running buddy came out also and took some nice pictures of him.

Eelco did pretty good considering there was a looooong uphill stretch at the end of the run and that he had not been able to run much at all in the last 2 weeks before the event.

Although we are normally avid supporters also, we and the kids did not make it out this time as we knew there would be barely any facilities there, the place was 1.5 hr drive without traffic and because we did not have our driver around and I did not fancy driving there myself with 3 kids (Eelco needed to  be there early). Fortunately Landry was running with him so all was ok.

By the time Eelco arrive back home at 9:15am the 4 of us had literally just gotten up and were hurrying around to get ready for touch rugby -:) It 's clear who are the lazy bunch at home! All of us except Eelco.

Happy in Villakula (Backlog-blog Mieussy)

After the family left in October we spend another few days on our own in Mieussy. Happy happy days, with the gorgeous and tranquilizing views at Mont Blanc

Duuk and his cheeky grins

Or cuddle time with Duuk

More views

New princess dresses and snow clothes

Lunch with Opa and Oma

Girl time

Zapunzel time

Story time

And outdoor play time (with Rick lost in the field or the trees)

Lovely and relaxing!

Party-Mama

I have had a busy few weeks between the Diwali break and the xmas holidays. It started off with some big meetings in Dubai, fortunately with some fun colleagues as well.

I also spend a lot of time at work - plenty to do with my scopes converging to deadlines and continued negotiations around the project in Iraq. Due to the time difference between Iraq, Dubai and India I have extended work hours anyway, and then their work weeks are from Sunday to Thursday meaning that I also have to work at some unusual hours.

Also time for fun though - like a disco party at the rooftop bar of the posh Taj hotel.

And brunching with a friend (and our kids) when the husbands are out traveling for work

And then some more long long work meetings

Followed by an annual team away day - in which of course my team, with the most ladies and all the Iraqi team members of course won. Not just the prize for the best team selfie!

Then I had a few farewells for friends leaving, including one who is known for her gorgeous sarees so I wore mine. Pinned in by my neighbor, under supervision of Kaat.

Farewell is sad, but a night out with friends is nice

We also had the special holiday events of my different groups and clubs - such as here the Wednesday Stitch & B**** club.

Christmas lunch with the Windmills ladies. 

We now have Monday evening drinks (just 1.5 hrs time slot at the end of the day, 1.5 drinks max), but it means the group has gotten closer and there were well over 30 ladies at the lunch. A really good group of neighbors.

And of course some christmas gift exchange game

Then I hosted the Bangalore Professional women's xmas event at my house, which meant mainly the ladies from this side of town attended, but still great turn out and fabulous evening. With Eelco entertaining some of the husbands in our local bar, Duuk decided to join is and literally walked into our circle with a toy phone to his ear and a litle attache suitcase in his hand. Our little businessman was not afraid of 20 business women all talking at the same time.

Fab evening again.

And so there were a few more, like the night out with the parents of Rick's class, a few dinners, Pokeeno night, entertaining business visitors to Bangalore, lunches, Touch Rugby BBQ etc etc. People suggest that Bangalore has one of the longest christmases of all, as we start celebrating so early so everyone can get their events in before we go home or on holiday and all celebrate it elsewhere again!