Winter holiday pictures

My parent's house was looking lovely in the snow!

The newest addition to our little family is a tiny boxer called Ion who is rapidly getting bigger

We asked for snos and we got it. Yay! Tiny one got to play in it plenty... but she found it rather cold.



Hubby was delighted to meet our sweet little dog!

Used to be a beautycase, now it's a babycase!

Merry Christmas!

posting from home

Wondering if I will be able to upload this message, since it is the first time in weeks that I've been able to connect to my blogger account due to crappy African internet.
Holidays are coming up for me, as I am leaving for Belgium with the little one on the 16th. Hubby will be joinging us the 7th of december. Initially we planned my early departure because of the iminent elections, but lately it is becoming clear that they won't be happening. Nothing nis know officially, but unofficially they will be postponed as far as next year. That's what seems logical to us, because so far there has been no talk of candidates, nor are there campaigns.
I will be taking advantage of this extra time in Europe to get somre doctors appointments, spend some time with my family and - to my great joy - prepare Christmas and let Aini have her first Sinterklaas. I'm trying to convince my dad to play Sinterklaas for her. hehe.

All has been quiet this past weeks. Mainly because first Aini had the Flu and then me too. She recuperated much quicker then I did though! Must be the breastmilk.
Next week another expat woman will be joining her husband on the plantation. They have two kids so I'm hoping they'll get along with our daughter, which would give her an extra playmate. (Because she's wearing out our neighbour's little boy!)

Dinner party menu

We had some people over yesterday for dinner, here's the menu:

Fried shrimp with lemon and stuffed tomato
***
Fish 'en papillote' with white wine, served with a blue chees 'gratin dauphinois'
***
Tiramisu

Little babysitter

Aini spoonfeeding her little friend at last night's dinner party

Swimsuit edition

Too cute in the little swimsuit she got from Nunna at the Côte d'Azur

Wildlife

Some guys passed by this week trying to sell this little Crocodile they found in the Dodo, the river that crosses our plantation.

Sunday at Dawa

We had this beautiful beach all to ourselves!

Aini ate all of Françoises fruit salad! She's such an ogre!

Aini and Leila have become good friends over the past couple weeks. They actually start playing together, so cute!

A little peek of the 'hotel' in Dawa where we past that sunday. It's more of a ruin, the drinks are hot, so like regular Dutchmen, we arrive packed with our 'frigobox'. The advantage of going there is that there's some shade and you can get a chair.

Catch of the day: Françoises batch of Langouste

Enzo. Aini's little friend. THough he won't be little for long. He's a Beauceron and belongs to Françoise and Thierry.

Big love

Plantation life

Aini's favorite place

Some more home deco pics

Update

Having some more internet problems, resulting in no internet at the house since tuesday! So, here's a quick update.
David's superior from Brussels was here the past week... Sadly, we didn't get any security about where we're headed. We only know he's been included in next years budget, so we're all the lmess sure about when we'll be moving again. All the more reason to get the house in perfect condition! Gives us another excuse to have our new furniture made!!!
So yesterday we had a smallish party at the hubbies boss' house. We ended up dancing to 90s music until twelve! We had a jolly good time indeed! Haha!!
Aini has been sleeping in her own room since monday and she's doing really well. She only wakes up once at night now and she can even get herself to fall asleep every now and again.

On a sad note, our puppy (we had "reserved") was born on september 1st, but died shortly after. They should get another litter around the 28th so lets hope there's a male for us!

So sad...

We will be putting Aini in a seperate room tonight for the first time. It really makes me sad, but I think it is the way to go. When we just got back in Ivory Coast, things seemed to turn out for the good, but now, the past week, she's been waking up every hour or so, wanting to feed and I'm very tired and have a cold that just won't go away.
Every night, my hubby end up taking her out to the living room and walking her until she sleeps, because when she's close to me, she just wants to feed...
So maybe this wil bring relief to all of us... Fingers crossed!

La Baie des Sirenes

We went to La Baie des Sirenes again today. It had been a while since we'd been. Aini had a wonderful time again playing with the sand, so I think we'll make it a regular thing again. Sadly, it started to rain after about an hour, so we came back home.

Funny Bunny

In mommy's shoes