Happy New Year, dear ones!! I hope your year is off to a wonderful start. 🙂
I am tucked up on the couch at my brother’s apartment in Amsterdam sipping coffee and looking out at birds soaring over the gabled rooftops. It’s my last day in Amsterdam and soon I’ll have to finish packing. I already hugged my brother good-bye, Mums and I yoohooing to him from the window as he peddled his bicycle to work like a native Dutchman. It’s been a beautiful trip and I’m so very, very grateful.
New Year’s Eve was extra special for my family this year because my brother Ryan chose it as the night to propose to his wonderful girlfriend, Melissa.
He hired a gorgeous, old, wooden canal boat (see below) and proposed to her on the canal where you can see seven bridges all lit up beautifully. Even the swans obliged by swimming past at the appropriate moment, making it even more romantic.
After the proposal (she said YES!) my family and some close friends joined them on board and continued on a wonderful nighttime cruise, stopping at various fantastic restaurants along the way where our captain went ashore and brought out piping hot dishes. It was fabulously fun!
The happy couple was positively BEAMING!! 🙂
After dinner, two desserts, champagne and coffee, we headed over to a friends’ house for a fabulous New Year’s Party with splendid expats from all over the world. A few minutes before midnight we clambered up several flights of precariously steep stairs to the rooftop terrace to cheer wildly at the fantastic fireworks display going on all around us.
Melissa had warned us it would be like a war zone and she wasn’t kidding! It was INCREDIBLE! Fireworks went off all over the city, above us, beside us, in every direction, popping like mad. We couldn’t stop laughing in sheer amazement at the beauty and cacophony. I took a video for you that gives an idea of what it was like:
It was a wonderful night spent with dear people I love to bits.
Now, I must pack. 🙂
Happy New Year, dear ones!!!
Lovely New Years Eve you had with your family!!! Congratulations on Ryan & Melissa’s engagement!
What a fun New Year’s Krista! And congrats to your brother & his bride-to-be…love that proposal, so romantic! Sounds like you had a truly wonderful trip & wishing you all the best for 2011 🙂 I know many more great adventures await you!! xo
I love the photo of the two of them, they are just beaming with joy.
fabulous display of fireworks…my kiddoes would have loved that, hardly knowing where to look first…Ryan and Melissa are beaming!! You are adding sisters to your family, eh?
What a ROMANTIC engagement! Happy for Ry! Looking forward to meeting his beautiful lady! Venezuela does New Years like that. We had Mom & Dad with us too that night when we were in Caracas and laughed in amazement at the LOUD, wild firey madness- (a real carackus it was!=D) Our cities really need to pull up their socks, hey?!
What fun! And congrats to Ryan!
How wonderful! Congratulations to your brother. What an incredible way to start the New Year…Happy 2011 to you all!
ok amsterdam it is for christmas 2011! i’m booking my flight! (you lucky dog what a christmas 2010 you’ve had!!)
get home safe and quick. congrats to your brother and new sis-in-law!
OMG I have goosebumps!!!!! Congrats to the gorgeous couple! How exciting! And what awesome pics.
Gorgeous! It looks like you had a lot of fun.
happy New Year!
Cheers,
Rosa
It really does sound like a beautiful New Year Krista!!!!!It was very special for your brother to get engaged while the family was there. It looks like 2011 will be a very good year!!
That is sooo romantic! Wow! My parents were married on New Year’s Eve and I always thought that was romantic. Congratulations to them! Your holiday seems so fabulous and special and I am so happy for you! I wish you the best of all things, a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011! And wouldn’t it be great fun to meet? xo
Oh my gosh what a fabulous new year! Congrats to the happy couple. All of those fireworks and fun and good food…you must have been in heaven. Have a safe trip home and happy new year my love!
Looks like you had a marvelous time!
Happy New Year to you!
Happy New Year Krista. Lovely story 🙂
Congratulations to the new addition to your family! SO wonderful you could be there (thanks to big brother… and, did you have an idea ahead of time???)!
What a gorgeous evening.
In the former yugoslavia, stay inside. People open their windows and shoot their guns and rifles wildly and everywhere. People always get killed. The fireworks restrictions are so tight here – even in the frozen north – we would never experience such splendor on NYE!
🙂
valerie
What a fabulous New Years Eve you had there girl! Amsterdam is somewhere I would like to go one day. Lucky you!
Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR
jen @ http://www.passion4food.ca
Their beaming smiles rival any fireworks! 🙂 Congrats to the happy couple and here’s to a fabulous 2011 for you. Such a pleasure to have crossed paths with you, Krista 🙂 x
Happy New Year! I hope I get to visit Amsterdam this year, I’ve always wanted to go.