We built the French style terrace of my dreams!

Bonjour everyone. Welcome back to this new video. And I am excited for two reasons. We are finally tackling a project that I have been wanting to do forever. And the second reason I'm excited is because I have some wonderful news on something that is coming later this year. So, first the project that we're doing is the terrace behind our house. It was a wooden terrace and the wood was very, very damaged and rotten. It was getting really unsafe to sit on this terrace and I never liked the quite heavy structure, the wooden structure. So, we needed to start with figuring out why there was this crazy elevated part of the terrace. There was this one square that was much higher than the rest of it. We always kept tripping over it. So Olaf started with removing that to see what was underneath. Now we know that this used to be an outhouse, a toilet. So we were thinking maybe it has a huge hole underneath. We really had no clue what we were going to find. So when Olaf had removed everything, there was no huge hole underneath. And there was no apparent reason why the previous owners had left this part of the terrace higher than the rest of it. So we were breaking the entire terrace down to begin with. Then we had a whole bunch of building materials delivered. And I have felt a little bad about this because this part of the house, the front of the house, has been a building site since we moved in. It's always been the place where we make our concrete. So, has never looked nice. And I finally removed all of the last bags of sand and concrete maybe two summers ago. And so, I said to Olaf, "Yeah, we'll do it now, but I want the bags gone when the project is finished." So, the house looks nice. And then, I haven't filmed this. Olaf built a little wall using the stones that we've gotten from all of the building projects that we've done in this house. We call it the stone graveyard. It is on a little piece of land that is opposite our home. So he went to find some beautiful stones and built basically the walls around it. And then we'll fill it in with gravel and then put a concrete slab on top. That's me. already gone out. So it turn It's always fun to edit a video and then see a couple of minutes and it looks easy and fun, but it was a hell of a job. It's taken us days and just making the concrete which Olaf did with the help of Julian. We couldn't have done this without him. I think they spent 7 hours nonstop, no pause getting all the concrete in. And then I called a friend of the village and asked him if he could please come with his tractor and pick up the leftover bags. They were so heavy. There was no way we could have moved them away from the front of the house. So, thank you so much, Vanson, for helping us out. It's made such a big difference. And we have our beautiful terrace. I will show you the result in a little bit because we've added something really nice as well. The past six years, we have just been building, building, building nonstop. So this year, our intention is to slow down and just take more rest and spend more time as a family. This summer, exactly 20 years ago, I traveled to Tuskanyany in Italy for a two-week jazz improvisation course. It was a group of about 25 people, I guess, all ages and backgrounds. Some people were professional musicians. Most of us were amateurs. There were families with their kids, retired couples, singles in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. We were just one big, happy bunch of musicians gathering together in this old farmhouse on a hill in Tuscanyany to share our love for music. And one of those musicians was Olaf. I was one of the singers and he was one of the two pianists. And we both really have wonderful memories of these two weeks. Not just because we met the love of our life, but also because we fell in love with Italy, the food, the culture. Honestly, if our idea hadn't been to buy a holiday home at first, and so it needed to be close to the Netherlands, I think we could have very well ended up living in Italy instead of France. So this year to celebrate our 20th anniversary and also to celebrate our love and the beautiful life that we have built together, we are taking a family trip with our sons to Tuscanyany this fall. And I have such exciting news because I have selected a couple of gorgeous Italian country homes that I will be filming for this channel. So, yes, it's a Italian home tour series that's coming up at the end of this year. I honestly have always loved Italy and when Olaf and I went back to Italy the year after we met, I took a few Italian classes because I wanted to learn a little Italian. I always love to be able to interact with locals and I believe that learning the language of the place that you're going to is such a game changer for how you will experience your holiday. And so to prepare for this trip in fall, I have picked up learning Italian again and of course I turned to Skillshare. You've heard me talk about Skillshare before on this channel and they are the sponsor of today's video again for which I am very very grateful. Skillshare is the largest online learning community for creatives and they offer thousands of classes on such a large number of topics. Anything ranging from graphic design, photography, crafts, interior design, gardening, but also personal development and business classes. Whenever I want to learn a new skill, I turn to Skillshare and I always find classes that meet my needs and the level of skill that I'm at and that I'm looking for. So, I found these classes by Marco Lutzi to learn Italian. Now, I'm a French teacher, so I have the advantage of picking up on the language quite quickly, but to be honest, I always feel very, very challenged. I have this fear of failing. I quit learning Italian 19 years ago because of that and I really wanted to pick it back up. I love these classes because Marco keeps them very practical. He only shares the necessary details on the grammar so the classes just feel very doable and I am happy to say I am making progress. I've said this before, I'll say it again. I think continuing to learn new things is such a wonderful way to keep growing as a person and I feel you're never too old to learn something new. So if you feel like challenging yourself to grow this summer and want to learn a new skill, you can now do so for free as the first 500 people to use my link in the description box will receive a one month free trial of Skillshare. Do let me know in a comment what skill you would love to learn this summer. We have as each year a crazy abundance of stinging nettles in our garden. I know a lot of people consider this a weed. Maybe it technically is. I think nothing technically to me is a weed to be very honest. I love stinging noodles. I love cooking with them particularly. I also know that they are indicators of a particularly rich soil. So, they are everywhere in our garden and apparently they show you that that part of your garden is a good place to grow tomatoes and potatoes. We haven't tested that yet, but they are also really good food for butterflies, for caterpillars that turn into butterflies and for insects and just there are so many good things about this plant. I always leave them everywhere in my garden because I like to harvest it for cooking. I only pick the top leaves of each stem and then I usually just give a little shake so that any bugs that might be in there will fall out. Then I wash them thoroughly and if I am not cooking a soup with them, for example, say I want to use it in an omelette or any other dish, I will cook them for about 2 minutes and that takes away the stinging effect and then you can just use them as you wish. I think they taste like spinach and broccoli. So I will use this often as a replacement for spinach. So today I am making my stinking nettle soup which is super easy but really really good. I just chop an onion. I peel and chop about two or three potatoes. I simply cook the onion in a little olive oil and butter for a couple of minutes. Then I add my potatoes. I cook those for maybe two or three minutes. Then I add some broth, maybe about a liter or something, chicken or vegetable broth, and then I add my stinging nettles. I cover this. I leave this to cook for maybe 15 minutes until the potatoes are soft. And then I blend it. And I add a bit of full fat milk. You can add cream. This helps. Apparently, a little bit of fat is going to help your body absorb or take in the nutrients is what somebody once told me. I do it because I really love the creaminess that it gives to the soup. So, if you've never tried this before, I can highly recommend trying this. Just don't pick them by the side of the road where they could have been contaminated with, you know, just gasoline from cars or dogs peeing on them. just here in my garden. It's perfectly safe and I cook with these all the time. [Applause] Good morning. [Applause] So, I'm just finishing cooking lunch here. It will just be for Olaf and me and our youngest son. Our oldest is with a friend today. And Olaf is doing some final finishes around the window here. I will need to do some painting on our terrace to completely finish everything. I need to paint where the old poles were for the old pergola that was here. And I need to paint around the windows. But all of these things are going to be for another video. For now, I am just so happy that we have this nice place for us to sit. I feel so much better already. It makes such a big difference. I've always hated the wooden structure that was here, and I feel so content that we have this beautiful terrace now that we can enjoy as a family. It's okay. So, as always, thank you so much for watching, for being here, and I will see you next week.