The Three Janse girls

 
 
 
 

10 year Anniversary: highlights

1st of June 2000 was the day Arthur and I fell in love! 10 years have passed since then, 10 years full of amazing highlights...We have travelled together to many beautiful places in the world, to 24 countries to be precise, have been living 7.5 years abroad now, got married, bought a 3000 m2 piece of land in the country side of Urla, Turkey and build a house, and are now parents of cute little girls Femke & Lente.

Portugal was our first destination together and a few years later we went back to celebrate our honeymoon there. We read an article about Lebanon as holiday destination and booked a flight, then 9/11 happened.. what to do? Cancel our flight? We thought hey it can´t be any safer than in the Middle East! Nice (France) & Monaco were weekend trips with cheap Easy jet flights. On a big sailing ship we sailed to a harbour in Denmark. As Belgium is close to The Netherlands we went there several times, to Antwerp and Brugge, but also to the coast. London is one of our favourite destinations, we never went there in Summer time though, only during Christmas and New Year. In Stockholm we visited my friend Frank and his wife Irina. Dublin was a surprise trip from Arthur, he proposed to me in a park, very romantic. 3 weeks we travelled by car through Cuba. Thailand was absolutely fantastic. NY was a place Arthur wanted to go to, but I hesitated for a long time, then said yes and was pleasantly surprised. Venice we went to by car with sister in law Pascalle and her boyfriend Michel. Arthur´s auditor job led us to many European cities like Oxford, Vastervik (Sweden), Zurich (and St Moritz! and Bern!), Paris, Barcelona, Stuttgart and Milan and Lake Maggiore. Then in January 2003 we moved to Turkey and travelled extensively in the country of my parents and forefathers... The charming islands of Greece and Athens were not far from Izmir so favourite destinations for us. Malaysia and Singapore we visited in December 2008. In Curacao we stayed 2 weeks with excellent hosts Jan & Ester. Before moving to Egypt in 2009 we spent a lovely time at Lake Como in Italy and Lugano in Switzerland. Our last big trips were to Sri Lanka and Dubai.

Our ambitions for the next 10 years?
Explore the Middle East & Africa a bit more now that we live so close. Travel to Canada and check out possible areas to live. Perhaps move back to Amsterdam for a few years. Sailing lessons and hopefully within 10 years own a sailing boat.

Routine of Lente

Here an example of a day in the life of Lente!

Woke up at 5.30 for a feed, stays awake untill 6.50 and then sleeps till 8 AM
Another feed at 8.20 AM, diaper change, some time spent alone, some time at mommy's lap, sleeps at 9.45 untill 12.15
After her feed she stays awake again untill 1.45 and falls asleep without crying!
A long sleep now untill 4.45, stays awake one hour in order to sleep untill 6.45. Now the next feed is already after 2 hours but sometimes that happens! She stays awake 1 hour, and after another feed she falls asleep at 8.15 in the evening. She wakes up at 1 in the night, and lucky for me, she falls asleep right after her feed.
Another long sleep untill 5.30, we go to the living room for a nappy change and some cuddling with daddy (who goes to work at 6.30). She falls asleep at 7 and a new day has begun !!

To sum up: Her feedings are most of the time (during daytime) every 3 to 4 hours, at night she manages to sleep quiet long, sometimes even 5 hours in a row. At daytime she is more and more awake with in the afternoon a long sleep and in the mornings shorter periods of sleep (1,5 hours)

The Good Girl, more pics Lente + video...

Hi all,


For more pictures of Lente please visit the following webalbum
Here we also uploaded the birth video (C-section!).. Only for the ones who are really interested to see that of course...

Lente is now 18 days old and doing great. At night she sleeps 4 or sometimes 5 hours untill the next feed which gives me time to get some good sleep. It is unbelievable, we are waiting for the day this will change (I hope not though)!! I used to wake up Femke at 10 in the evening for an extra feed before the hopefully long sleep in the night, but with Lente this is not needed at all... During the day she is more awake, but still sleeps 2 to 3 hours in one row.
My stiches were removed last week and I feel great. We have made long walks with Lente in the stroller and we've been to a big mall alltogether for shopping.
Femke is also very sweet to her sister, but for sure she show signs of jealousy and seeks more attention than ever from me and Arthur. My mother has been a great help and played a lot with Femke. Sadly she left this morning.
Femke is still going to the nursery from 8.30 till 3.30 3 days a week to keep her entertained, which gives us quiet time at home. And last Wednesday I started to visit the Play groups again at a friends house.


So far so good.

But now with my mother gone, we all need to find a new routine.
Luckily I don't have to worry about cleaning the house, or doing groceries (thanks to the delivery service of many shops). I just have to bring and take Femke from nursery, make a week schedule for cooking, and with Femke away most part of the day, I will try to nap once a day (which I did not do the last 2 weeks) and do some serious organizing of files and photo's.
Also the occasional social meeting with a friend can be planned.
6 weeks after the birth, so sometime end of June I also want to pick up sports again to get stronger and more fit.

We have very hot months ahead of us, in May already we had a few days of 40+ degrees!!
Next weekend we will start going to the beach again and stay at Stella di Mare Grand hotel.
Another thing we would like to do is go for a 1 hour walk in the evenings, after dinner.

Hello Lente Annabel Janse !

Our baby girl was born on Wednesday, 5 May, at around 3 pm in El Nada Hospital in Cairo.

She weighs 3,8 kilo and measured 51 cm.

Since Friday afternoon we are all home again. Meryem's mother is also here for 2 weeks.

'Lente' means 'Spring' in Dutch...

More photo's and stories soon...

Last preggie picture

I am now 39 weeks and 4 days pregnant and Arthur took yesterday evening the last picture with my big belly.. This afternoon we will go to the hospital for a c-section, my own choice no medical reasons. I am happy I waited this long, normally they plan a c-section 2 weeks before due date!

I had a good night sleep without any pain but with weird dreams, the delivery was postphoned maybe 4 times, very strange...it was one long waiting dream..

At nursery this morning I heard some sad news though, Femke's class teacher had a miscarriage 2 weeks ago while being 6 months pregnant... I think they didn't tell me in order not to upset me, but today I heard the news..Really sad for her, but at least she already has a daughter of 5, I guess that must be some comfort.

More news from the Janse family later today! I am happy it is almost over.

Playgroup at Fagnoon Art centre

Every Wednesday a playgroup meeting with toddlers and their mums, mostly living in our neighbourhood Maadi, is organised. Usually we meet at someone's home, but a few times we try to do something special. Like 2 weeks ago, we went to Fagnoon Art centre. It is about a half hour drive to the country side of Cairo, where a huge play area is built to entertain children with arts and crafts.
Femke's group did 3 activities, sticking, painting and pottery. I thought she would enjoy working with clay, but she was more interested in putting the wet clay in the bucket with water. In the end her mum made some sculpturous thingie, which was identified by friends as a vulcano...
There was also a horse and 2 camels that caught the attention of the little ones. And a cow eating grass was absolutely an attraction, they all wanted to pet the cow and threw grass towards the cow.
We had a very nice morning, with enough shade to not boil up completely and it is worth going back with Arthur one weekend.