Where do I begin?

Hi guys!

Wanna guess where I have been???

I'm back from a wonderful vacation in Florida (USA).

When I got home last weekend, I wanted to read what everybody had been writing about in the past couple of days, but soon I felt like Lucy in the chocolate factory. No matter how much I read, you always manage to keep new posts coming! I even didn't have time to leave comments. I really didn't know where to start. And then there was a house that needed to be cleaned, the laundry of two weeks vacation, working in the garden or blogging? And of course I suffered severely from a jet lag....I'm always a week out of control when the clock is put one hour ahead, let alone six...

I have never been to the USA before, but our son desperately wanted to visit Disney World in the year of a million dreams. Such things are important, next year there will be another theme of course and we definitely are people of a million dreams.
So we went to Miami, Orlando, Sanibel Island and the Keys and we had a terrific time.

I think we have made about a 1000 pictures, but I'll give you 10 to give you an impression of my impression of the States:

Americans are honest people:

Americans like to hug.

What you see is what you get:

There are a lot of things that are larger in the States than they are in Europe.

The soda's are bigger, the Magic Kingdom is bigger than Disneyland in Paris. As a matter of fact Disney World is huge.

Plastic surgery is common in the USA, even so common that some window dummies have had a boob job as well:

Americans like to dress the same way:

You don't agree huh? Well what do you think of this???:




They even like to drive in the same cars:

(This was the first time ever I saw two stretched limo's in one shot that were there by chance, they didn't drive together!)

There are real sharks in Florida, our children were already asking when we were swimming in the Ocean; 'You don't think that there are sharks here, do you? And I told them; 'No of course not, why do you think that I'm swimming here too?' But once again Mummy was wrong...

On the other hand; I knew that there are crocodiles and alligators in Florida, but I only met them at Disney World;

Lucky me!

We had such a nice vacation!

When we came back the weather here in the Netherlands was so nice too, so the garden was growing as fast as possible and it was very dry too. The little pansies were like straw, so we had to replace most of them, but I'll keep my garden pictures for some other time.

The other day I received a huge package from Carol (Boxwood cottage). I told her not to hurry with her Junque in you trunk swap parcel and to send it after my vacation. So it arrived here this week: This picture was taken by Carol as well, as the German Post office was thinking it was better to hide her lovely label by sticking a very ugly white and yellow one over it, you just don't believe your eyes. Though I'm still happy with the delivery service (even Beth has received her package, after I threatened in my post about mailmen and -women), perhaps a course 'How to handle lovely packages' still would be useful.

Lovely huh? Still I was very anxious to open it! And this

was inside, in Carol's words; it felt like Christmas and my birthday at the same time to me too. Inside more boxes and more packages and inside those:

And:

Look at that!!!! Whoooweeeee!!! What a treat! OOoh it was all so wonderful, exactly my taste, so carefully wrapped, with gorgeous dresdens, ribbons, pins and flowers and do you see that welcome spring banner?

This was inside that lovely antique tin. Oooh even when I'm writing this I have to sigh.........

I was secretly hoping that Carol would send me one of her self made pendants. And YESSS she did! What a talented lady isn't she?

Another opened parcel:

Package before:

And after:

You will not believe this but there is still more:

And more:



The loot:


Don't forget to click the pictures to have a large photo so that you can see even the smallest parts, it's worth it!
Oh my, I was spoiled rotten by Carol. Look at all these lovely things, it's all so me!! I cannot wait to use some of these materials to craft with. Thanks so much Carol, it has been so much fun swapping with you. And of course thanks to Heather who has matched us so well.



I already told you that I was hoping for one of Carol's self made pendants, but I did receive three (3!!!)! Ooh I was so happy with this parcel and everything in it and every little piece. I'll keep every paper and every ribbon too!

I have been working on the panels for Beth and Karla's birds and bonnets swap too, hopefully they will be there in time, but I will save these pix for another time too.

Now that I have written this post it feels like I have really come home. I will soon visit you all! Take care and see you!

(A very short dutch translation this time:

We zijn in Florida op vakantie geweest en we hebben er een geweldige tijd gehad.
De tweede serie foto's zijn van het swap pakket dat ik van Carol van Boxwood Cottage kreeg.
Druk, druk, druk...ik denk altijd dat het volgende week rustiger wordt, jullie ook?
groetjes L.