this neck of the woods

Imagine me saying that while shaking my fist at these pesky grey skies..

All I can say is: Bring It Spring – we’re so ready for you! I keep checking the trees for signs of new growth.. and the ground for the first signs of daffodils.. and the skies for an uninterrupted patch of sunshine. I am proud to report that the first two are coming along nicely, green has been sighted, daffodil stalks are on the rise. The last one I haven’t seen much of lately, but I’ll keep checking.

I’ve also seen the first sheep (yes sheep – exciting I know!) in the fields around here, which is another sign that Spring is just around the corner. Speaking of, I managed to find some photos from Spring last year and was feeling warmer just looking at them.. these were from a walk through the forest/fields behind our house. Yay sheep!

Hello hello! I’m still here, and very sorry (Dad) for the silence these last few weeks! I really feel like we haven’t been doing much that warrants pretty photos and exciting stories.. I’ll have to change that :)

One thing that we’ve found pretty exciting is that my little sister has been staying with us for the past week or so. She’s been calling our place home while she does a little bit of travelling around, and we’ve been really enjoying her company (and cooking)! At some point last week, we decided that we would attempt to make some red velvet cupcakes. They turned out really nicely, except that our tiny little tube of red dye only produced half a tablespoon worth, instead of the 3 that we needed. Consequently, our cupcakes were pretty much just chocolate.. extremely tasty but lacking in the overall red-ness. Too bad!

These photos were taken at night, and really didn’t turn out very well.. so I decided to just photoshop the crap out of them and make it look like we were cooking in the 50’s (not so hard to imagine if you’ve seen/used our oven).. I also have to send a hello! to Bianca, who was kind enough to give me these gorgeous measuring cups and spoons for my Birthday, with the express instructions to post about them on my blog.. Thanks B!

Some very inspiring commercials for the EF language school.. makes me feel like going on holidays!

There’s also one for Beijing, and London.. beautiful imagery, beautiful typography!

EF – Live The Language – Barcelona from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

EF – Live The Language – Paris from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

Found via seesaw.

Even though I love using digital cameras, sometimes I really miss the anticipation that comes with handing in a film and crossing your fingers for the results.. or even better – handing in a film you found in the back of a drawer, or in the bottom of a box from primary school and having a good old reminisce about how cute you’d looked back then..

A couple of years ago I bought this camera for Dave in the hopes that we could have some fun with film photography again. And we did for a while.. but then we forgot about it. Then, a few weeks ago we found the camera again, with a 3/4 used film in it.. so we finished off the film and excitedly went to have it processed…

Such good times!

So I’m not really sure how to start this post. I am finding myself a little bit lost for words..

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been glued to the news watching for updates on the floods in Queensland. The devastation is unbelievable and a little bit hard to comprehend from the other side of the world. Unfortunately today it all hit home when we found out that 2 of our close friends in Brisbane (who have 2 beautiful boys, and are 3 weeks away from having baby number 3), have had water 3 feet onto their roof, and have lost everything.

We are feeling completely helpless being so far away right now, and want to be able to help them in any way we can.

For that reason, I will re-open my shop for the next 3 weeks, with 100% of all sales going to the Dodson Family.

I have no idea if anyone really reads this blog, but I’d like to try and raise as much as I can – so please re-post this if you feel so inclined.. I would really appreciate the support.

In our family, we have a tradition at Christmas. It’s a relatively new tradition (and almost certainly the result of a few bottles of wine), but it’s stuck and we love it.

It normally begins with a water fight, followed closely by the exchanging of gift bags bursting with an assortment of random clothes. See, earlier in the year, we each draw a name out of a hat and then put together an outfit for that lucky person entirely sourced from op-shops (second hand shops, vinnies, etc.) which they must wear on Christmas day. What ensues is normally an eruption of laughter, red faces, a lots of photos..

To give you an idea, here are a couple of photos from the last couple of years:

Yes, yes, I’m quite aware that we’re all crazy! But we have so much fun finding the outfits and making everyone wear them (whether they fit or not), that it’s a tradition that can’t be passed up.

This year, with all the family over here for a white Christmas, we debated how we could carry on the tradition on this side of the pond. After a few ideas were passed around, we decided that we would create hats for each other, instead of a whole outfit. And so it was, on Christmas morning we had a huge snow fight outside our apartment (instead of the usual water fight), and then all gathered around the dining table to make hats for our chosen victim :)

(the last photo isn’t the nicest, but I didn’t get a good shot of the hat my brother made for me.. and it was too good not to show!!)

To everyone reading this blog, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas filled with family, presents and heaps of food! We’ve had a huge dumping of snow today and are looking at a white christmas tomorrow.. everything is so pretty :) We are currently hosting 9 members of our family here in Germany, and are loving it. If we’re not eating, we’re tripping around in our ‘party-bus’ (giant 9 seater van) getting ourselves into precarious situations in certain tiny Strasbourg parking garages! Thanks to some precision driving by Dave, we did actually maneuver our way out of the garage and found our way home, just to sit down and do some more eating for a few hours :)

Here are some photos from the last couple of days.. and now I’m going to go and eat.. again.

Weeeeee I’m sorry it’s been a bit sparse around here posting wise! Family has begun to arrive for our Christmas-in-the-cold celebrations and I have been otherwise occupied making wreathes, cooking and generally just enjoying everyone’s company :)

Here is the next Morocco installment.. these photos were taken around the Medina again, on various trips into the souks and around the surrounding streets, and also on/from the roof of our Riad.

On our second day in Morocco, we took a day trip out to the coastal town of Essaouira. It took about 3 hours to get there (inc. a couple of pit-stops to learn about the local oils, and pat some goats that climb trees) and turned out to be a lovely (and very sandy) little town with a laid-back beach vibe. I don’t think I’d be in a rush to go lounging around on the beach, but the back streets of the old town were gorgeous!

We’re back! Yes, we finally made it to Morocco without any more problems, and had a wonderful time! I would truly recommend going if you get the chance. We took way too many photos as per usual, so I’ve been agonising over how best to share them. I’ve decided to split them into a few different groups that I’ll share over the next few days.. I hope it’s not too much of an overload! :)