The Showroom:

This is how it feels. We came back about 1 hour ago (it's nearly 1:00 pm here) after 13 hours driving....And we're flying to Portugal tomorrow for our vacation. Dh only visited a couple of weekends in France. We had a fantastic time. Totally fantastic. Perfect weather, a great party for my mother's 70th birthday. She celebrated in style with family and friends. So much fun to see everyone again: 35 adults and 23 kids!!! I don't have time to really write about everything we did and see (so much to do till tomorrow) but I have some pictures...Backlighting, backlighting all the way. The sunset light was just so beautiful.

But in a nutshell..

I took so many pictures and will be updating my website as soon as I am back. I really had a good time shooting. Everything fell in place and I just could enjoy it.

2 days in, the boys threw their swim floaties in the air and started jumping, swimming under water etc...I was desesperate for this to happen: 1) the stress of my mum's pool is much less 2) I can see Diploma A (a Dutch thing) is in sight....I spent my youth in a swimming pool and even made the French U-15 team, so you can imagine my sorrow (lol) to have 3 kids who despise water (well till this summer, YEAH!!!)

Manouk became bilingual in 2 weeks. She could understand everything in French, but rarely spoke it. 2 weeks with my family and she could have been a French kid. Totally amazing. This bilingual thing really amazes me. I'm in awe of seeing kids like mine switching from one language to another. I wish I had as much ease to learn Dutch!!!!

I again realised that there is nothing like family and special friends. I saw for the second time in about 20 years a good friend of mine. I cannot remember if we were best friends, but we were extremely close. Our families were too. We picked where whe had left off and it was so amazing and so special. And I know this time I will not let time and other things come in between for very long...I am so happy to have had our paths cross again.

Ok I miss everyone and believe me it's hard to not go and check your blogs (although I could not help peeking at some!!)...I just can't live without internet and my cyber friends!

Now for the pictures...

The party..Can you tell the kids had fun! My mum had rented that huge castle. it was HUGE...Not use to these at all.