Another Blog?

Yes, another blog. The reasons behind it are for another post, but first things first: introductions!

We, Nina and Gys (or Gijs) are a Finnish-Belgian couple, met in 2015 in Brussels, and for now we’re living in Zaventem, a small town near Brussels. Our goal is to move to Finland, Lapland to be more precise, with our family.

And our family counts already quite a few members

• Nina – Born and raised in Turku, Finland. Worked as a translator, coordinator and budget manager, mom, cat and horse aficionado, outdoor lover.
• Gys – Born and raised near Leuven, Belgium. Trained chef, but now working as technical engineer. (Sled)Dog lover, nerd and of course also outdoorsy.
• Aamu – our latest addition to the family. Born end of April 2020, she is our little princess. Right now her biggest addictions are milk, sleep and anything bright coloured!
• Ines and Spooky – our two house cats. Both rescued, they are the true bosses inside the house.
• Nanuuq, Chinook and Ukko – 3 sturdy Inuit Qimmiq, an ancient Canadian sled dog breed. They rule the garden!

Nina and I met in Brussels while she was working for the EU commision – DG Translation. After a short period of traveling back and forth for the both of us, Nina moved in with me in rural Haacht in Belgium. After 2 years we moved to Zaventem, closer to Brussels.

In a previous life I used to spend quite some time in Finland – Lapland, while training sleddogs, so in 2018 we organised a long weekend in Lapland, meeting up with different realtors to check out properties. And we lost our hearts for the first time in Kallo, right on the edge of Kallojärvi, near Kittilä and Kolari.

We try to travel to Lapland as much as possible:

• Christmas is of course spent in Finland with Nina’s family
• End of Summer we try to spend 4-6 weeks in Finland
• A couple of long weekends per year to visit friends and family

Already very early in our relationship it became clear that a future life in Finland would be preferable, due to a lot of reasons: Love for the outdoors, abundance of nature, quality of life, the air, available space, etc…

Already in 2016 I started learning Finnish, and Nina had taken on Dutch and French (she’s a linguistic wonderwoman!).

That’s it for now. Here are some pictures of our little place in Lappi heaven.

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