Beach Trip and Happy Mail Day

Our week at the beach is already over :o( And the picture below captures the weather quite well. We had lots of clouds, much rain and some occasional sunbeams. However, we really enjoyed ourselves. We spent our week with close friends (we just found out that my friend Birgit and I know each other for 29 years now. I guess we are going to throw a party next year :o))) We already went to Kindergarten together, then to primary and secondary school. We had our kids nearly at the same time and our husbands are cousins - so they know each other even longer... made us realize again how old we are...). 

Together we have 5 kids (all boys) younger than 5 and they didn't care about the bad weather at all.

They collected sea shells....

... and digged little river systems...

... and "spoke" to the sheep on the dike.

  

When the rain was pouring down the whole day long, we went to an indoor playground, 

that featured a complete ship to climb. That day was another great success :o)

Another rainy day was spent in a small museum for kids. It was full of exhibits to touch in order to discover and understand natural laws and physics. Even our youngest was hooked, e.g. by this giant soap-bubble-exhibit.

Another favourite: making "permanent" shadows on a fluorescent wall:

I brought along some handstitching (can you believe that?!) that I worked on while watching our national soccer team playing in the European Football Championship. Who would have thought that I'd enjoy handstitching one day... never say never... :o)

The kids enjoyed being with their friends, playing, many shared meals and some "only during the vacations exceptions" that we (aka the parents) made - like unhealthful meals, staying up late and so on.

We (the parents) enjoyed the time with our friends that we don't see as often as we would like to, chatting about the kids, remembering long gone days, drinking a glass of wine/ beer (or maybe two).

And we (as a family) enjoyed spending 7 days together, with no set time schedule, lots of outdoor activities (though often in the drizzling rain), more daddy-time for the kids than usual and we really soaked up the rare sunbeams as spring and summer have been really rainy around here until now. 

I was quite sad that our family holiday was over but was instantly consoled by a parcel that I found in the mail when returning home: Liz of DandelionDaydreams and I had agreed to privately swap the goodies we made for each other for the Fat Quarterly Sewing Retreat in London. As she was ill, she could not attend eventually and sadly we did not meet "in real life". 

I received a gorgeous pincussion that I had already eyed longingly when she posted the picture on her blog (my only two pincussions are samples that I made in my first sewing lesson - I never took enough time to make a beautiful pincussion - so I'm very happy to own such a gorgeous one now!!!). And she added some dandelion fabric, union jack ribbon and a lovely card. 

Thank you so much, Liz! Your parcel really made my day :o)

Tomorrow I'm going to pick up my sewing machine (that was at the retailer's office for a check-up while we were at the beach). I'm really looking forward to some serious sewing. Not the handstitching kind :o)

And what about you? Any "only during the holidays" exceptions for your kids? Or for yourself?

Happy Sewing!

Christine