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I haven't got a scheduled post due out here on Henibean and so I thought that I would sit back and just write....  and  perhaps tell you a little about what's been happening this week at home. 

It's been a week of mixed emotions. 
One of the events of the week was having to say goodbye to my eldest son and daughter in law as they left home on their next adventure... a move to America! My son is half American anyhow (American dad) and so It will be a great time for them to explore his "other" country and heritage and get to know a lot of our family over there a little better. 
It was a sad time saying goodbye to them and we are sure going to miss having them live so close to us (in the apartment at the bottom of the garden!)  I know that there is Face-time and Skype these days (we talked to them 24 hours after they left!) but the saddest part for me was to see Heni hug them goodbye,  and cling on to them with her legendary "headlock" as she loved them and then let them go. 

Communication - Icelandic A to Ö

On a recent trip to Iceland, on our first evening in the country, I had booked a fun, light-hearted crash course on the Icelandic language in the living room of a friendly Icelander– called Asta (via I heart Reykjavik).
We turned up on her doorstep in a taxi and were welcomed in to her home to learn more about the origins of the language,  the construction and pronunciation of the alphabet and its every day uses. Throughout the evening we bombarded Asta with our questions about the vocabulary,  Icelandic culture and traditions and by the end of the night came away feeling like we had a fighting chance of being able to at least pronounce the name of the street we were staying on for our return taxi driver! A very different scenario from trying to pronounce where we wanted to go a few hours earlier! We could even be so bold as to say that we could  pronounce the famous ......

  .....that erupted in 2010!

Sanity Space - Advent Tree - PART 4

Welcome to week four ...the final installment of our Advent Tree bauble hunt! This week we  will build up and finish the last few ornaments for our project. Today I will be sharing with you the remaining 6 scriptures and decorations for your tree that depict the many varied names and roles of Christ. Hopefully that will mean you will still have plenty of time to finish searching (or making) in good enough time to start your advent on December 1st! 
If you have been following this blog series you will know that there are 25 decorations in total ....with the last one getting opened and hung on the tree on Christmas day. Please Feel free to change the scriptures and even change the decorations to something that resonates with you and reminds you of the the real message of Christmas.  If you haven't already seen the previous posts throughout November it may be a good idea to check out WEEK 1, WEEK 2 and WEEK 3 for the rest of the scriptures and decorations after seeing days 20 - 25  in this post. 

Making Memories and Traditions- One off The Bucket List.......The Land of Fire and Ice

  A number of years ago I saw the thought provoking, but fun film called "The Bucket List" ....any of you seen it?  
It's about a Billionaire (Jack Nicholson) and car mechanic (Morgan Freeman) who are complete strangers, until they both end up in the same hospital room suffering terminal cancers. Both men have a desire to complete a list of things they want to see and do before they "kick the bucket" (die) and against their doctor's advice, they leave the hospital and set out on an adventure to tick off some of their bucket list items. It got me thinking about what I would like to do in my life before I kick it too!

Sanity Space - Advent Tree - PART 3

 Welcome to week 3 of the advent tree bauble hunt! If you are new to the  blog then you may want to go check out week one and week two first to see what we are up to!   Then come back and  and join me here for  the next  6 scriptures and ornaments.....

Eating "In" with food intolerances - The Hungry Boy's Birthday Cake

The Hungry Boy turned thirteen yesterday and he wanted to have a celebration cake made out of his favourite flavours....chocolate and mango! Yesterday morning I set a few hours aside, donned my apron and rolled up my sleeves and got stuck into having a go at making a gluten free/dairy free cake good enough to eat for his birthday. Luckily we have introduced eggs  back in to our diets every now and again and so the prospects of it turning out OK (and not falling to pieces) were hanging in my favour.
I decided to use a Mary Berry's chocolate cake recipe and change it around to accommodate our food intolerances. You can find the original recipe here.

These are the cake ingredients that I used below. 

Sanity Space - Advent Tree - PART 2

Welcome to the second week of  Christmas bauble hunting! If you read last weeks post (Part 1)  you will know that  I originally made this little advent tree for my son some years ago.   Last week we went through the first six ornaments and scriptures depicting some of the names and attributes of Christ.  This week we are on to the next 7 .... ...so off we go...

Inalienable rights?

I don't know about you, but I believe that everyone should have the right to be able to breath and pee for free? Lets just say that I feel that that these are two of what should be our inalienable rights. However, unfortunately for a lot of people in our world today this is just not the case. 
I will cover the breathing part of this in a different blog post but today I wanted to talk a little  on the "other".
Above is a photo of one of the many examples of toilets that I come across. This one was taken on our Lake district trip at the beginning of the year.....public toilets with  a physical barrier and a price tag! I get frustrated that I have to pay to get through a barrier when I need to use a PUBLIC convenience... but there are many hidden physical barriers for a lot of people and even bigger prices to pay when it comes down to toileting.

Sanity Space - Advent Tree ...PART 1

Half term is over and I have just returned from a family respite break in Iceland! It is an amazingly diverse country in more ways than one, and while we were there we experienced our first snow of the year. It made me realize that Christmas is fast approaching and is on its merry way! (I will tell you more about our adventures in Iceland in a future post....) So....as it is officially the 1st of November, I thought I would share a project with you that I did for my son a number of years back while he was serving a mission for our Church.
We had not seen him since he left almost two years previous and during the time he was away I would occasionally put together a care package (with various items that I thought he may need or like) and send it to him. On his last Christmas away, I though that I would do something a little bit different.