Hello December!

I turned the last page of Clara's Calender of 2014.

December is probably Clara's favourite month of the whole year.

The Advent season, St. Nicholas Day, her birthday and Christmas

all in one month.

Who cares about the cold and dark then?

We celebrate.

Pink Moment of the Week

This week we celebrated Carolina's third birthday.

And how it turned out at the end of this busy party day it also became the birthday of Carolina's and Clara's new cousin. My sister was due with her first baby actually a couple of days later, but how many babys really care about their due date? - statistically about 4 percent. I quickly knit up this little baby hat (it is this pattern here) with wool my mother once gave me for Carolina and finished it right on time (what can be quicker then a newborn baby hat) to send it out to my little niece. Aunts do things like that.

Hello November!

I turned the calendar before we left for our vacation:

It will be Carolina's third birthday at the end of the month.

Right now November for us is not full of rain, cold and dark,

but more like July.

(and remember you can still win some sweet souvenirs 

in the Travel Quiz)

The cold and rainy moments will come,

but we'll take some warmth home with us

and light three candles later in November.

Hello August!

It's birthday time again in August, says Clara's calendar:

Oma and her dog will be celebrating.

For our family August will mostly look like July.

More sun and beaches to come.

Beginning of the Blues

No, I am not sad. Quite the opposite. I am actually very happy, because the blueberry self-picking season has started this week. We have discovered a blueberry farm last year and this year the blueberries have grown even bigger there (as have the girls).

 Hello fresh blueberries galore, smoothies and muffins!

Cherry Tree Dream

Instead of Monday's running and rushing ...

... why not sit down and dream a bit.

I hope you are having a relaxing start to the week!

Hello June!

June kicked off yesterday with a bang:

Oh yes, my 37th birthday.

And it will also be Clara's Papa's (aka Hubby) birthday soon.
Time to party
and enjoy the start of summer.

Babuschka

In honour of my Russian grandmother who passed away on Monday, 

I made a little collage utilizing a birthday card she once sent me.

Akal.

(that's the mantra we use in the Kundalini tradition)

and

Do svidaniya.

Knitting in Husum

Last weekend we had a large family gathering from my side, in an old barn converted into a guesthouse, up up North in Germany. All my aunts, uncles, cousins and all their loved ones and offspring under one roof (and also my parents and my pregnant sister, of course). It actually rained nearly all of the time, but that didn't spoil the cozy mood. Carolina and Clara just had a blast, running around and playing or sitting at the fire at night.

The town of Husum was about half an hour away and we ventured out once and left the clan for a couple for hours. Called the "grey colourful town at sea" - Husum lived up to its name on this rainy Saturday.

But we had just entered the pedestrian zone, 

when a lot of colour shone our way.

 The Lana Grossa Store Husum.

Wool galore on two floors.

 I was really surprised how large the store was.

The two nice ladies who worked there (one was knitting) didn't want to be in the pictures but told that there is a lot of knitting going on in and around Husum, validating all that wool.

Proof - next store down the precinct:

a book store with this on display:

We walked on and then Hubby pointed out to me:

"Look, yarn graffiti!"

(that man is knitting-conditioned)

And not only one!

The whole street "Neustadt"

got its lamp posts yarn-graffitied:

Oh yeah, big time knitting in Husum.

And three hours of knitting in the car for me.

Pink Moments of the Week

 Here come our Pink Moments of Paris:

at Montmartre

not far from the hotel

Flamingo Chinese cedar

at Parc Floral

a tulip which name and colour resonated with me

40 000 tulips were blooming in the park

at Cité des Sciences

 at Centre Pompidou

How pink can you get?
 

glace framboise

 on our last day it got so warm and sunny
I even got an upper lip sunburn (red, not pink)

Hubby took loads of pictures

and didn't cook vegan

but invited nearly every night 

for dinner at this superauthentic Indian and Sri Lankan restaurant.

At night we could nearly forget where we were:

But then,

we remembered: