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And a very happy, healthy New Year to everyone!

We're home again after a week in the Netherlands.
It was wonderful to see my parents and other family and to celebrate x-mas together.
Unlike here, there was plenty of snow and slippery roads, so we couldn't travel around too much, but that was fine. The place my parents live is beautiful and full of history and nature, so we did a nice walk every day and just enjoyed the sights and company.
And then there is the food, stoofpeertjes and rollade, stamppot boerenkool met rookworst, zuurkool met spek en Hema worst and best of all, kibbeling. Yes, I enjoyed that for sure.

In a way it was strange to go back without having my own house to go back to. 5 years ago my parents moved also, so I never lived in their house either. On the other hand, at the end of the week I was ready to go back home, to Jack, the doggies and my son.
Yep, I guess I feel at home here.

Any plans I might have had on bringing stuff back were undermined by my Dad who promised my son hagelslag. Little did I know than that that would end up being 6 kilo's of the stuff.
LOL, that is 10 x 600 gram boxes.

Add some cheese to that and the suitcases were full.













Although, at the airport I found myself a bag of these:
Salmiak kogels, love those. And since neither Jack or my son likes them, I can eat myself sick if I want to without feeling guilty over not sharing.

Also, I decided against bringing the mix for oliebollen for this year, didn't really feel like getting of the plane and start baking right away, so we skipped this year. But for next year I'll be ordering on line so we'll have some. I did kind of miss having them.

Yesterday morning we did our gift exchange under the christmas tree and I think every one was really happy with their gifts.
Unfortunately we could watch our christmas movie last night. The brand new DVD decided not to play.
Which was a bummer, but with some neighbors over we still had a great time. At midnight we stepped out on the porch to watch the beautiful fireworks the town organized. Love how we can see it really well without having to leave the house. And it is far away enough not to upset the dogs.

All in all, we started the new year really good and today isn't any different. We're enjoying a relaxed, lazy day. Tonight I will make Sauerkraut and pork, a tradition for Jack on New Year's Day, just slightly adjusted to our taste, we'll eat it the Dutch way, as a stamppot.

Again, Happy New Year, lets make it a good one!