last week Dominique came over for the first time since Leslie lives here and this week Leslie's sister Lizzy came over as well. so we have a family xmas this year. I am gonne enjoy it to the max and yesterday we went for a night stay to a beautiful chateau in the city of Valkenburg in the South of the Netherlands. We had lots of fun!

it has been a while and a lot has happened during the last month. on November 9 I got the message that cancer is back and cannot be cured anymore. That is a big blast in our face and it took a while to accept the concequences of that message. We did deceide to go for a week holliday to Tenerife to process it all before starting with a chemo treatment. By the way not to cure but to lenghten my life a bit. So our sun holliday in our private hacienda was as good as it gets. It did drain some energy but it was worth it. We also celebrated possibly my last Thanksgiving but it does not make me go in panic so far. I guess it's part of life (and death) but I feel extremely sad to leave Leslie behind in the close future. We will see how things evolve from here!

Close encounter of the hedgehog kind

October has started and that also means that fall definately came in. Temperatures are dropping a bit and also more rain shows up around this time of the year in the Netherlands. This week I was stopped by this little hedgehog in the middle of the road just around the corner from our house. I love these little cute annimals and as this "egeltje" (Dutch for hedgehog) was sitting in the middle of the road and not moving I had to try to help him/her to go into the park before somebody else would accidently run over this precious annimal. In the end that worked out and I felt good doing a good deed haha. Furthermore my medical situation is about the same. Everyday I have moments of not feeling well in my stomache but luckely there are also moments of feeling a bit better. Next week I will have an MRI scan to see if my prostate is to big and needs help so my blatter can function good again. Fingers crossed for that one!

After two months we are finally back on board Freedom again. physically I am still not at my best but mentally I was definately ready for this. We plan to just stay for a couple of nights and we will see what the weather brings us regarding if we go sailing and if so where to. For now, sleeping on a slowly rocking boot feels good again!

we are enjoying our family trip in the USA right now. tonight we watched skyporn on the beach of Captiva Island together with Dominique. Last night I had my first medical misshap as I had to go to the hospital because my catheter was blocked. Luckily they could help me with a brabd new catheter so I felt very relieved after the whole procedure. Tomorrow our goal is to go to the North of Florida to visit Leslie's friend Roberta for a night.

it's been almost two weeks since my surgery and I must say that this one had more impact on my body than the big surgery last year. reason is ofcourse that my body weight is very low and therefore I have no reserve. Eating starts a bit so that is not so much my worrie point right now. But I still have a katheter in as my bladder was not working good because of the anesthesia after the operation. well, I hope that all will be solved before our planned family visit to the USA in August....

so another chapter is written in my short medical history. a week ago I had surgery again to correct the position of my intestals after they relocated over the last half year as a result of the big surgery last year. the operation went fine with no complications but as I definately have no extra bodyfat at this moment, the recovery might take a bit longer I guess. hopefully my capability to eat enough to get more kilos will improve soon. the above photo was taken the weekend before the operation when we spent a night on anchor on our boat with amazing nice weather. hope to be back in sailing soon again.....

In May we enjoyed two weeks of relaxed sailing with our own boat and exploring the Southern province of Zeeland combining it with a visit to the Belgian city of Antwerp. We did pretty good and all went well during this trip even while my energy level was not at it's best due to my medical status. Leslie was the best first mate everrr (she only needs to realise that as well haha). Join us during our "little" trip where we still made close to 170 Nautical Miles! Check our photo's under our photo albums in this BLOG!

Join us on our "green" trip in the beautiful Lake District in the North of England. We hope these photo's prove that it is not always necessary to use expensive pro camera’s as at least half of the pics is taken with our iPhone. To me it is more important to "see" the beauty and capture it at the right time. Yes, this was a camping (glamping) trip for us and no, we did not suffer from it at all. Our tipi stood even in very strong wind and no problems occurred. We absolutely loved the peace, green and tranquility of this part of England. Maybe one day you will enjoy it too..... View our photo's in the photo album list on the right side of this BLOG page

Last weekend we had a great visit and stay in the city of Bruges in Belgium. We enjoyed a nice hotel within walking distance from the old historic city centre so being able to visit all the places without even seeing our car or any other way of transportation. It was busy but not too busy and food and drink ofcourse was very enjoyable, even for me haha. If you want to see more pics we took check out our photo album of Bruges which can be seen by clicking on the link in the photo albums on the right side of this BLOG. For this you have to switch to "view web version" at the downside of the page.

Our photo album from our Irish roadtrip in 2007 is up now. Travel with us along the narrow Irish roads and visit the many music filled pubs with us on this trip. Highlights for sure were our visits to Dublin, the Celtic graves, the Giant Causeway, camping next to a whiskey destillery, walking around in the "The Troubles" in Belfast and Londonderry, our horse-and-wagon adventure, Connemara, the Cliffs of Moher, the Ring of Kerry and many more.......and that all with not to much rain as well haha!

Our photo album from our road trip to Greece in 2006 is up and available. Click on the link under our photo albums to enjoy our memories.

last weekend I made a walk on the Kampina nature reserve with our guest from Germany. To my surprise we met one of the wild horses that live in this area. i did see horses here before but this was the first time that a solitairy horse deceided to walk with us for almost an hour. It was soooo much fun and the horse was totaly relaxed with us. I hope we meet again horsy!

Hope you all had a great start of the New Year? We just posted a new photo album from our trip to Luxembourg in 2004. Yes we know, it sounds like memory lane and in a way I guess it is. But don't worry we will make present day memories as well haha. Anyhow we hope you enjoy and you will find the album in our album list that you can see if you click on the full view option of our BLOG.