Catching Up Points

As you can see I missed last Friday's Gallery and I haven't blogged about anything else for almost two weeks either, but I will try to catch up with this post and a few other posts coming up in the next few days.  So what have we been up to lately?

• My mum visited two weekends ago.  As you know, her visit ended up being a bit different than what we had planned - no time for Christmas shopping mainly - due to the flight debacle, but we had a good time anyway, and we went to the Christmas market at Sainte Catherine (too much ugly knick-knacks and kitsch, and too little genuine crafts) and baked both pepparkakor and lussekatter with Isolde.  Mamma, jag lägger upp bilder vid senare tillfälle!
• At work I have been rather busy, but there has also been time for some work-related social activities, e.g. two Christmas drinks (one with my unit and one bigger event with several units) and a lunch gathering at the Swedish Permanent Representation to the EU.
• In terms of non-work related social life, we have been to two adventsfikor (coffee, cake, glögg, etc.) at Petchie's, one with just us and one with other friends of theirs, and to the Lucia celebration (family friendly version) at the Swedish Church, and we've had Petchie and family over for dinner on Nobel Day (though with four kids we didn't get to watch much of the banquet on TV).
• Last weekend I managed to get most of the remaining Christmas shopping done by taking a trip to the nearest shopping centre to us which was open even though it was Sunday (not normally the case in Belgium but around holidays they can stay open), and also on Saturday the whole family went to the local toy shop here in Stockel (and for the best gaufres in town from the local market!).
• The whole family except me have had colds on and off, though Isolde has only had the sniffles so she has been attending school every day.  Harald, poor thing, was better for a while but has a fever today.  I hope he feels better by Saturday when we're flying to Sweden.
• I have started packing for our two weeks in Sweden, but will do most of the packing tomorrow Friday when I'm not working (last working day today, yay!).  It doesn't look like it's going to be that much colder in Stockholm than in Brussels, but I'll pack the snowsuits and winter boots just in case.  I really hope there will be some snow during the two weeks, for Isolde's sake!
• What else?  I've been preparing Christmas cards and other photo-related projects, and also performed my Secret Santa duties!  Tonight Isolde and I are going to bake gingerbread cake (mjuk pepparkaka) to give to her teachers tomorrow as a little token of appreciation.
• And only two days until we go to Sweden!  Can't wait!