Kaio and Josefine: January 2013

Monday, January 28, 2013

10 year anniversary!

Last week we celebrated our 10th anniversary! Since our last trip it was just the two of us (in august, for Jason´s 35th birthday) and we missed the kidlets so much, we decided to plan a trip to celebrate our anniversary with them! We also decided to explore a different part of Brazil and decided for Rio Quente in Goiás.
It was PERFECT!
They have amazing hot springs and a huge waterpark and lots of fun activities for the kids. For us, just being with them and having fun together was also priceless! The kids did very well on our trip there and back (which was almost 10hrs each way)
Kaio improved his swimming even more and loved all the options for him to practice diving, swimming, looking under water, etc. He did several rides and did not stop for a second! Josefine is also very confident with her floaties and did not ask for us to hold her, she continues being very independent.
We had an amazing trip as a family!
It has been 10 years since we got married! Back in 2003, we were living in LA, in a small rented apartment in Marina Del Rey. On the 24th of January we went to the LA courthouse (close to the airport) with 2 of our good friends (Tom and Phil) and got married! We had a lovely afternoon at the four seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, with a bottle of Don Perignon. We spend the weekend up the central coast in California.... In these 10 years we have become a strong family with 2 amazing kids and lots of experiences around the globe! We couldn´t be happier!

Monday, January 14, 2013

Happy 2013!

The last couple of weeks of 2012 and this first week have just gone by so fast! We have been very busy! First Karolien and her family arrived from Belgium and it was great to get the cousins to play together! It seemed they had seen each other last week, as there was no shyness and they started playing instantly. Victor, who is now 18months, was a bit cautious and it took him a little bit to loosen up, but he finally did and he is adorable. Kaio and Josefine were all over him and they kept asking for kisses and hugging him. We also had a lot of fun hosting and entertaining some dear friends from Belgium (Lesley is my friend since I was 12 she is married to Toon and they have a 7 year old daughter called Noor). We hosted our first Christmas dinner at our house, we didn´t have a huge stock of presents under the tree since we will be moving soon. After Christmas we went to the beach (Ibirquera) for 7 days, including NewYears. They kids loved playing with Noor and Kaio did a great job in speaking English (as they did not speak portuguese) and even helped translating for Josefine!
At the beach Kaio also started swimming by himself. (with no floaties!!!) We have wanted to work on that, as he is 5 years. One day Jason and Toon (who is a former competitive swimmer) took an afternoon and he got it almost instantly. He swam 5 meters at the end of the holidays at the beach.
At the beach, as last year, Kaio had a blast and loved playing in the sand, catching waves with his board and just the joy of playing with us. Josefine also enjoyed the sand, but was a bit more afraid of the waves; she kept asking to go to a beach without waves. But overall she had a lot of fun and often she would just lie on the towel and watch people go by and see the waves come and go.
Some pictures: