Uncle Biek

I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong with my right arm / shoulder during the vacation but when I move it around there’s a muscle (or maybe a few, I’m no doctor) giving me serious distress signals. I must have sprang it somehow and it doesn’t feel all that great. All I did all week was run around with my two nieces taking turns on my ar …

It’s hurting me the most after about a half an hour of driving my car. Unfortunately the biggest problem now is that I’m at least one hour away from work, and in the afternoon I’m that same hour away from home.

Operating the odd gears is the most painful move I can make at the moment while the even ones are almost painless. So now I’m trying to use only three gears a bit: second, fourth and fifth. Poor IFO.

Hopefully the pain will leave the same way it came: by itself. I’m giving my arm as much rest as I can now and will see what that brings.

Um … listen up. I’ve been messing with how I was going to post the vacation diary and the best way is to be filling in the blanks on the actual holi-days because I want them to be dated correctly. Easier for me to read back what happened and when, you know.

So you’ll see the daily posts ‘magically’ appear below these last two starting from the first day until I returned.

Hey folks, missed me?

I’m back and as you can tell I survived the vacation last week. Please hang on as I’m going to fill in the blanks off this vacation in the upcoming few days. Since my trusty laptop wasn’t coming with me I did the whole reporting thing on in writing so now I have around twenty eight pages of daily reporting on paper to convert to my blog.

When that’s done you should have a rather good idea of what it was like out there in the field, but I can give you a hint and sum it up in one word: absolutely great. :-)

Stay tuned, the rest of the reports are coming soon.

A bit of a dramatic title, I admit, but both the girls experienced a bit of a waterloo moment today. ;-)

In the morning sis, Eva and me went for a quick shopping run. While Karlijn got the items from the store, Eva conquered the climbing tower in the plaza again and again, gaining confidence with each step she took in there. For a two year old she is getting very mobile, very fast. It’s a truly amazing sight to watch her have a go at this climbing unit.

When she had enough we went to find her mom who had just finished shopping and we the three of us returned home again. When we got there Stevie was watching the Tour again and I got through a few pages of the Subsim almanac again. A lovely relaxed afternoon.

Around lunch time we all went for a picnic together. Stevie, sis, Eva, Sofie and me made our way to the small lake where sis and I so desperately tried to get that water-cycle to move. :-) Sofie slept through most of it but Eva had fun in the water with Karlijn. We actually had planned to rent one of those four person bicycles and drive around the terrain. Unfortunately there weren’t any left when Stevie went to get one so a picnic was organized instead.

We had pancakes for diner which are everyone’s just about favorite meal and the perfect way to finish a splendid vacation. Tomorrow will mainly consist of packing everything up and maybe go for a quick swim once more before we’ll go home again.

Sofie was restless and couldn’t sleep all that well in between meals. This could very well have been her personal warmest day ever and to not being able to explain things to her really bothers you at these moments. It’s no fun hearing her cry and not being able to talk to her about it. To me this must be the only downside of these small infants; the lack of communication one can have with them.

Eva on the other hand can be talked to but at times she had her off-moments and totally looses grip. It takes a lot of patience and huge skill to get her calm and acting radically again. In the evening, both Stevie and sis had a couple of turns in trying to get Eva to calm down and sleep and in the end she (Eva) finally did fell asleep.

Oh by the way, my ear has finally unblocked somewhat! It’s not opened up all the way yet but it’s a very good start. For someone like me who has a very good hearing it’s hell to loose the ability to listen with one ear. All notion of where a sound comes from fades away and it’s very disturbing. But it seems there is light at the end of this tunnel too. :-)

I overslept myself a bit this morning because I simply didn’t hear the alarm I set. The problem of temporarily having only one good ear is that when you sleep on it, the world goes silent. So at eight thirty I finally woke up an joined the family who assured me I hadn’t missed anything. :-)

Today was one of those ‘let’s take thing easy and see what happens’ kind of days. So while Stevie was watching the Tour de France I was getting my butt whooped by my sister at a board game.

Later on we did some shopping too, Eva went to a cookie baking event for kids and Stevie and I tried to do some PS/2 racing. Unfortunately a faulty controller messed up that plan. In the afternoon sis and I took Eva to pick up the cookies she baked and they were absolutely delicious!

During the afternoon I played a lot with Eva. She’s such a lovely kid to be and have around, I feel truly blessed being so close to her in general and over the passed week in particular. It’s bliss, absolute bliss.

In the evening Stevie and I took Eva to see a doctor because she was having irritating itches in her groin and bottom. He prescribed a paste which should help this get better soon and I hope it does. It’s been spoiling the little girl her fun at times.

To conclude another nice and relaxed day we had a pasta diner which are always a good idea of course. ;-)