Dearfriends,

Another year has passed and Christmas has passed and New Year has passed and only now we find time to write the Christmas letter. We're sorry for the delay! But anyway we still want to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Since December we are back in Denmark (at least most of us - Per is still in Bruxelles). It has been a good experience to live in another country for a year and a half but we're also glad to be back.

So now let's get to the annual report

The children

Thomas (13 years old) is working hard on getting taller than the rest of the family. His main interest is computers and has now got 2 computers in his room - one for Windows and one for Linux. We think that he will become - or maybe he already is - a computer nerd.

Mathias (11 years old) is not the tallest but the sportiest in the family. In Bruxelles he played soccer in a club in a small village. This gave us a very good impression of Belgian life outside the international life of Bruxelles - we went to matches in all the villages south of Bruxelles, we helped to clean the club-house and we participated in get-together-evenings with local specialities like mussels and sour cabbage.

Kirstine (8 years old) is still playing a lot and has a lot of very good friends just around the house. She's always playing with some friends - often until bedtime. When she had her birthday in October she got a plane ticket so that she could go alone to Denmark to visit her friends. She was quite scared of going all alone but the need for her friends was greater than her fear of travelling alone.

Holidays

When we lived in Bruxelles we took advantage of being in the middle of Europe. We visited Holland, Normandy, Venice and east Belgium. Furthermore we had a lot of visits from friends and family. Among others Brazuca, Cecilie and Raquel (sister to Ana Soveral Dias). Gabriel Rugalema came from Paris with his family to visit us for a week end and we had a nice dinner with other good old IAAS-friends that live in Bruxelles now - Laura Gualdi, Caroline Heylen and Susanne and Alexander Döring.

Then we have had some round birthdays to celebrate. Vibeke Højmark and her husband Børge turned 40, Henning Schroll turned 40 and Alexander Döring did the same and Susanne's father turned 70 so we went to some very nice parties in both Denmark and Germany. Brazucas daughter Marina turned 1 years old and Brazuca and Søren organised a party that could almost compete with the 40-years-bithdays. It was very nice and Ana Soveral Dias came from Norway to attend it.

The parents

At the beginning of our stay in Bruxelles it was especially difficult for Susanne to keep herself busy and to get some social contact. Then she started to work voluntarily for Max Havelaar (an organisation that supports farmers in the third world) one day per week and to attend French courses 2-3 times a week and to edit a newspaper for a Danish organisation of non-working Danes in Bruxelles and to engage herself in the parent organisation at the European School. Furthermore Susanne and the boys played badminton in the International Badminton Club in Bruxelles. At the end she managed to have a programme that could fulfil her needs for social contact.

Now, back in Denmark, Susanne is back in her old directorate. She is working in the agriculture department once again giving loans to farmers, organizing a digitalisation of all paperwork and doing some other organisational work.

Per will stay in Bruxelles until the end of May 2004. He has to finish his project (European Action Plan for Organic Food and Farming). He now stays in a small apartment close to his work. He miss the family but fly's to Copenhagen each weekend.

We are happy to be back in Denmark close to our friends and family but there are of course a lot which we miss from Bruxelles. New and old friends. The European school (only the children thought that the days were too long), our supermarket, waffles just to mention some things.

We wish you a happy 2004

Love Susanne and Per