Diary: Ready for our big move, buying wedding rings and no time for blogging..

Guys! It has really been a while since I last opened my laptop, started Word and sat down for a blog again. But now, in the calm before the storm called moving, I have finally found time to write. So in this blog: what is currently happening in our lives and what is yet to happen ;-)!

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Boring January, no skiing, but a sweet little niece!

The previous dairy blog ended just before Christmas. I was terrified that I would be infected with corona, but after a test and quarantine, it turned out I was not infected! Yes, that meant a nice Christmas Day with my parents. Also New Year’s Eve was fun, we celebrated with friends Thomas and Christine, lots of champagne and good food.

Just like the rest of the world, we felt a sense of relief that 2020 was over and a sense of hope for 2021. Now, in mid-March, that hope is back again. But in the first month of the years, it felt like 2021 might be even tougher than 2020. January was really a gray month and I’m sure everyone will recognize themselves in this. All the joys and lights of the December month are gone. The corona contamination levels just kept on rising and there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, we had no idea if there was an end to the tunnel at all.

Blue Monday

During that January month, both Ries and I had a hard time thinking that we could get married in June. Our destination wedding is scheduled for mid-June in the champagne region, France, but with tight borders, high infection numbers and a lagging vaccination rate, we saw our fairytale wedding evaporate like snow in the sun. To be fair, in the third week of January (how appropriate Blue Monday), I had a corona dip and my normally positive attitude was nowhere to be seen.

Fortunately, after a nice zoom conversation with our wedding planners, a reserve date in September came up and we had a little more hope.

A second niece!

What was certainly a ray of hope during January was the birth of our second niece. Ries’s brother had his second daughter at the beginning of January and what a sweetheart that is! She is growing very well and is a lovely baby! It is also nice to see how her older sister, two years old, now suddenly looks huge and will really get the role of big sister.

Travel in January

Hahaha, this title alone is hilarious, because as you can imagine there was no travel at all. A few months ago (when the prospects were very different), we booked a skiing holiday, but of course we had to cancel it. We also decided in January that our trip to France with our ceremonie masters, for mid-March had to be rescheduled. And that means that we have no trips planned until May. A strange idea, also because it means that without new travel inspiration, it is also gets quiet here on the website.

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Winter in Amsterdam followed by summer

February felt completely different from January. Yes, the restrictions got even tougher, with curfews and more, but still it was a wonderful month looking back on it. Especially because of the weather: it felt a bit like with the beautiful winter weather followed by the summer temperatures, Amsterdam wanted to give us a worthy farewell ;-).

Of course it started with snow! Although our skiing holiday was canceled, I wore my ski suit every day for a week. Ries and I took a long walks through the snow every day to see Amsterdam in this magical state. It was cold, but soooo beautiful!

Less than a week after it was -10, it was suddenly 20 degrees in Amsterdam. Because yes, after the winter weather, we enjoyed summer temperatures for a week. The Vondelpark ( a big park in the centre of Amsterdam) was much too busy, but Ries and I went out with a bottle of rosé to enjoy the sun by the water.

Interior design

Slowly we start to prepare for the move. Unfortunately, because shops are closed, we cannot actively look for new furniture yet. And that is badly needed, because apart from a sofa, mattress and a few cupboards, we have almost nothing. To do some preliminary work, I started in February with a digital interior training, a very appropriate birthday present from friends Susie and Nicole. This training is a great way to gain more basic interior knowledge and to get started with our interior in a structured way. Click here to read more about this online interior design course.

Moving, getting married and hoping for improvement in March

And now it is the beginning of March. Time flies, because in two weeks we are already moving to our new home. And something else fun is planned: on the same day that we are moving, we will also have our civil mariage. Although we cannot have a wedding cake and a cozy lunch with our family afterwards (because the corona measures will not allow this), we are still looking forward to it. Anyway, we’re going to have a nice day!

Packing, making moving plans and buy paint!

And then the move! In recent weeks, Ries in particular has been busy packing everything. We are actually almost done and now live in an empty house. Our bed has been sold so we sleep on mattresses, our coffee table has been replaced by a wooden patio table and a lot of our stuff is already in the south. At least half of our household goods are stored in the attic of good friends Thomas and Christine. The first load went there at the end of December. Overeager packer Ries had even packed our snow boots with it (super handy during that winter week in February).

As befits a real planner (see the name of this website ;-)), I already have several Excel sheets full of schedules and to do’s that can be checked off. We took the first 1.5 weeks that we live in our new house off to paint, do odd jobs and do the move ourselves. And luckily we get help from friends and family! I can’t wait for that to happen!

Here is a small foretaste through our mood board:

Shop for beds, tables, and wedding rings

And now that the shops are finally open again by appointment, we have bought a bed. The delivery time is 15 weeks, so we will probably only be able to enjoy it in mid-June. But what are we looking forward to!

We bought this bed from Swiss Sense but in the color beige:

Next to that, we also saw a beautiful dining table. We will wait a while before ordering, until we live in the house itself and have a little more feeling about the dining room. But I can be pretty sure that this is it!

Another great thing to shop for are our wedding rings. It seems that the entire Dutch population will have had at least one vaccination before July 1. So we have a lot of hope that our wedding can continue. Most things have already been arranged, but one thing is not yet done: our wedding rings. And since they have a delivery time of 5-8 weeks, we went to some stores at the beginning of March to orientate ourselves. And believe me, that is certainly not easy! But, after visiting 5 stores, I think we have decided and both Ries and I have an idea of ​​what our perfect wedding ring will look like. No sneak peek ;-), we’ll wait until June!

Engaged for two years and saying goodbye to friends in Amsterdam

We also celebrate our two-year engagement in March! And of course we do this with Thomas and Christine, good friends who were there two years ago when Ries proposed to me in Lapland. With delicious champagne, a much too large chocolate cake (and many other tasty things) and our Lapland movie in the background, we toast to two years of engagement!

Finally, March is also about saying goodbye to all our friends in Amsterdam. Okay, this really sounds like we are moving to the end of the world and never see them again, which is far from the truth. Vught is only 1 hour away from Amsterdam. But it still feels like “the end of an era”. And so we try to say goodbye to everyone through afternoon walks and games in the park. Very nice by the way, in the meantime two other befriended couples have also bought a house in Vught. We just try to persuade everyone to come there!

Blog: few new articles, much updating.

Regarding the website, you will have noticed that no more than 3 new blogs have been added in the last 2.5 months. However, that does not mean that we are not working behind the scenes. Every year we try to update a lot of the articles to make sure that the information they contain is still up to date. We check whether hotels still exist, restaurants are still open and whether the prices are still correct. And that is what we have been working on a lot these months.

However, I cannot deny that sometimes the motivation is lacking to go all out on the subject of travel. Especially now that this has not been possible for so long. But with the vaccination programs in full swing, we are starting to dream a bit again. Ries has even started planning our honeymoon again. And judging by the readership numbers on this website, we are not the only ones fantasizing about travel. After months of very low visitor numbers, we see a small increase, which is a bit more every day! It looks like everyone is ready to get out and about this summer, this autumn or in 2022!

Outlook: it will remain quiet on the website for a while

I dare to say that it will remain quiet here for a while. Due to all the beautiful but also hectic prospects of moving and getting married in the coming weeks, we will not find much time for new blogs. But I think that in mid-April / May we will be in calmer waters and then we will start writing again. I plan to write articles about various national parks in Madagascar and Uganda. And I want to write a little more about the Netherlands. And of course I will share more about our new home and interior in a diary!

Until then! Love Charlotte