In honor of the Olympic Games some members of Ravelry organized the Ravelympics. The idea is to cast on a project during the opening ceremony of the Olympics and be finished with the chosen project(s) before the Games end. I challenged myself to do the Presto Chango, a baby sweater. I’ve never attempted anything of the sort before plus I wanted to use a sport weight yarn instead of the worsted recommended. So I had to swatch and measure and use mathematics to find out how many stitches to cast on and which needles to use. It wasn’t that hard to figure out, but it did took some patience, something I just don’t have when it comes to crafting. Ideally I just print out the pattern and get going. Luckily for me however, this pattern is now flying off the (4mm) needles. I’m about halfway through already and it looks pretty much baby size. So far so good! All I’m worrying about now is if I can find suitable buttons for it on time.

Oh and to everyone takes any interest in crochet or knitting at all and hasn’t done so yet: Go over to Ravelry and sign up for an account! It is really one of the most inspiring places on the web. I spend nearly all my online time there nowadays.

June 26
We had no set plans after Paris and so on our last night there we picked a random spot to visit next. We ended up driving towards the Lac d’Orient, which was about half a days drive, since we still took only the smaller roads. There was a little beach at the lake where we spent the rest of the day. The water of the lake was very clear and there were millions of little fish. Near the beach was a campsite, called L’Epine Aux Moines (pdf), where we put up our tent for the night. It was a quiet site and we were the only “younger” people there. After putting up the tent we went to look for a nice place to eat. Unfortunatly we didn’t find anything to our tastes, maybe because neither of us was much in the mood for dining out again. So instead we did some groceries and munched on those while chilling by our tent.

Now since I’m pregnant, I need to use the ladiesroom a lot, something which wasn’t much of a problem during the day, but was a whole nother story during the night, because of the quiet and dark campsite. M. and I had agreed that I could wake him up if I needed to go. But he was sleeping so adorably (Haha, it’s a good thing he doesn’t read this!) that I felt sorry for him and decided to pop out by myself and find a spot behind the tent, instead of walking all the way to the toilets. So as I’m doing my thing, suddenly I get really scared. So I’m looking around and I see a fat man standing about 20 metres away from me. I started freaking out, pulled up my pants and ran back to the tent entrance. I looked in the direction where I saw him once more as I’m entering the tent and see him now standing on the spot where I just peed. Convinced we’re about to get slaughtered by the fat guy, I dive back in bed, in my sleeping bag. M. is now awake and he asks me what’s wrong. I tell him what I saw and he laughs it off and falls asleep again. I lay awake for another hour, waiting to get murdered.
No such thing happened, of course, and whether there actually was a guy or a ghost or whether it was just my imagination, we’ll never know.

I can’t believe it’s already August and I still haven’t completed the report on my vacation back in June! When I got back I was thrilled to have so many things to blog about, but then my well known laziness set in. Thankfully M. and I kept a little diary during our trip because I’ve forgotten half of it already!

June 25
This was to be our last day in Paris. Perhaps you remember that the day before we were told that the Louvre was closed. Today we returned and found it open for the public again. What really surprized me was compared to the crowds outside of the museum, inside it was quite empty. Sure the main attractions, like the Mona Lisa were very popular, but the lesser known pieces could be studied in peace, and there was almost always a seat available for us, which was great because we both were very tired. The place is huge and I decided that I really needed to return there to spend a couple of days on the museum alone. There are so many things I haven’t seen yet, like the Venus de Milo.

As I mentioned before, M. and I were dead tired, so after a couple of hours we decided to leave the Louvre and Paris behind us and return to the hotel, where we slept untill the evening and only got up again to get a sandwich for dinner.

I took a lot of pictures of the art at the Louvre so be sure to check out my photoset.

June 24
Instead of the RER train and metro, we took the car into Paris today, because we discovered it was considerably cheaper to park the car in a carpark all day than to get two round trips to the Parisian center. As it turned out, M. blends in perfectly among the average Parisian drivers; he’s just as reckless and frustrated when driving a car.
We planned to visit the Louvre this day so we parked the car near Centre Georges Pompidou and made our way through Les Halles towards the museum. Unfortunatly, when we arrived we were informed that it was closed for the day. We decided to go back the next day and instead headed towards Galeries Lafayette. On the way we had lunch at a bistro where the waiter royally messed up our order. After visiting the store we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower, where we chilled at the park for a couple of hours. I’ve visited the Eiffel Tower quite a few times now, but never actually went up. The lines are always outrageous and I just don’t really see the appeal. In the evening we had a pizza before returning to the hotel, exhausted!

June 23
We left Dieppe behind us quite early, considering that when at home on a day off we don’t get up untill 2.00PM. We did very well on this trip altogether, eventhough we were extremely tired most of the time, we never slept in.
One our way we once again avoided the main roads (thank goodness for the navigation device) and it took us about half a day to get to the Paris area. In Roissy-en-France we checked into the Ibis Hotel and we headed towards Paris by public transportation.

We had our hearts set on seeing the Sacre Coeur that day, so we got off the train at Gare du Nord and started walking. M. had assured me it wasn’t too far. Now whether it is a long walk or not, I’m still not sure, but I do know that it took us several hours to get there: we got terribly lost and walked in circles. Sometimes we saw a glimps of the white cathedral, only to lose sight of it a second later. Once we finally did reach the Sacre Coeur we were both so worn out that all we did was sit on its steps and be grumpy. Neither of us was in the mood to take pictures. After about thirty minutes of sitting and grumping, we got up and took a drink near Place du Tertre. We were fully aware how stupid this was since those touristic areas are always so expensive, so we were not surprized when the bill came and we had to pay 18 Euros for one Iced Tea and a Coke. It was money well spent because our moods really improved after that. We made our way back to Gare du Nord by Metro and travelled back to the hotel from there. In the evening we had dinner at the restaurant near the hotel: Steak Hachee and Fries. No one ever said this was going to be a healthy trip!

What’s a girl to do when her knitting project has gone wrong and instead of falling asleep peacefully, she’s just getting more and more worked up over it? That’s right, a girl spends money. I just got myself a Pro Flickr account. It’s not like I really have money to spare, but I haven’t had my priorities straight this month anyway, so a little more waste won’t do that much more harm.
Don’t look at me that way! It’s my summer break, remember? I think I’m allowed to be a little reckless.

What’s next is my report on the first day of my trip to France!

June 22
We left home earlier than expected, rushed through Belgium and crossed the border with France at around 1.00PM. We left the main road and took smaller, touristic roads in the direction of Paris. The night we spent at Dieppe, at the Hotel L’Europe. Dieppe is a lovely town with a lot of history to it and no doubt a lot of pretty sights to see. I wouldn’t mind going back there some day to explore for a day or two. We, however were tired of driving and had our hearts set to Paris, so in the evening we took a stroll along the pebbled beach and had dinner in the harbor. As a starter we both had the Salmon Salad which both blew us away, unfortunatly, the main course consisting of Steak and Fries were a lot less impressive. After dinner we went to bed almost right away. The next morning we left the town behind us, imidiatly after breakfast, heading towards Paris. More of our adventures in France coming soon! Do visit my set on Flickr dedicated to this trip for more pictures.

We came home late Wednesday evening and we’re still recovering! There’s another week of vacation left which we’ll spend working on the nursery and chilling. I’ll be filling you in about everything that happened on our trip soon. There is a lot for me to blog about and I’ve completed a handfull of items on my 101 in 1001 as well, so that needs some updating as well. For now I’ll just leave you with a picture of me at the Louvre. There’s a ton of pictures to come, so stay tuned!

This is probably my last post for a while. On sunday M. and I are off to Paris for a couple of days and after that we’ll be heading towards the south of France. The plan is to stay there for two weeks. I can hardly wait! I definatly want to visit the Louvre this time, I’ve been to Paris a handfull of times, but never visited the Louvre and I can’t see myself going there with a small child either, so this is probably the last chance I have in a long time. Wherever we’ll end up, we’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures!

I just came back from a checkup at the clinic. I was more relaxed going there then the previous times. Now that I feel the baby move almost all the time, I’m confident he is doing well. I weighed in at 65kg (143lbs) which means I’ve gained 7kg (15.4lbs) since getting pregnant. I’m 23 weeks along now and I do feel like work is getting more and more of a problem. I’m so very tired and my belly and back are starting to ache sooner every day. As of yesterday morning my legs are aching as well. I’m so glad I only have two days to go untill I have three weeks off!

During the last week of our leave, M. and I will be focusing our attention to the nursery. A couple of weeks ago we got the closet of the series we want because we’ve been showered with baby items by friends and family and needed a place to store them! On our next visit to IKEA we’ll be getting the cot and the commode. As for the theme color of the room, I want a light/mid green.

On a last note: the Netherlands will be facing Russia in the quarter finals of Euro 2008. This will be a very interesting match since Russia is coached by Dutchie Guus Hiddink!

Well ta-ta everyone, see you on the flipside!

4-1
And that makes the Netherlands, no matter what happens next, the winner of Group C. One more group match upcoming Tuesday against Romania and after that it’s off to Basel for the quarter finals on Saturday!

What a match yesterday! As you might have read, I wasn’t too confident that the Dutch National Soccer Team would have a chance of winning the match against Italy, simply because Italy is the current World Champion and the Netherlands hadn’t won a soccer match against them in 30 years. But boy, was I wrong!! Italy was crushed with a 3-0 defeat, with goals by van Nistelrooy, Sneijder and my long time personal favorite, Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
I think the other game played yesterday had a surprizing result as well. I was convinced that France, being one of the teams that a lot of people consider a favorite for the title, would beat Romania with at least 2-0. Needless to say, the 0-0 result is a lot better for the Dutch team, because they are now in the leading position of Group C and that makes me very happy.
I can’t wait to see what the matches on Friday bring, when we will be facing France!