Want to move to Sweden?

Monday we woke up with -10 C outside, Tuesday it was only 0 C (32 F) but it started to snow and it did not stop until about lunchtime today...The piles of snow are as high as they were at the end of March, let's see if it stays. Last winter we had snow on the ground for more than 3 month, this really brings back those memories, it almost feels like spring, summer and fall never happened. Here are some pictures from last night.

I will try to find time this weekend to give a more detailed update about birthday party, Halloween and pictures from when Mark and I went skiing last Thursday.

Take care

Unbelivable, but Malin is 7.

We celebrated her this past weekend. Anders, Tina, Emma and Sara were here over the weekend. Unfortunately, my dad had a bad cold so he could not join us. Saturday morning she had art at Solgården with her previous teacher and friends. It is great that we can keep that up.

Sunday morning it was time for strawberry cake in bed. She is an early riser but I think we managed to sing for her before she woke up. She got the whole bed filled with presents, mostly toys this time; Polly pocket, Zuu Zuu pets, Zoobler, Littlest Pets shops and Pixoos. You have to keep up with the latest with kids in this age, and I guess that will continue but the focus with change with age….

She played with her new toys all day. For about an hour we got her out of the house, because it was a pretty nice fall day, a little windy, but the sun was shining and the fall foliage is at its peak. We went out to the woods close to the house to try to find some mushrooms. Not much luck, later we bought some more mushrooms to complete the dinner.

Next Sunday it is time for a birthday party for old and new friends. We decided to have it at home …let’s see if we regret that later.

Fall activities

Tonight’s snack was butter-fried chanterelles and freshly squeezed apple cider.

Friday afternoon we headed out to lovely little cottage by lake “Fiskekraken” together with two other families. This is the second year we have spent a fall weekend together there. Friday evening we ate a nice dinner and sat talking with a glass of wine in front of the fireplace while the kids played. The next morning, the kids did some fishing before we all headed out into the woods to pick mushroom, chanterelles. The kids got really excited when we started to find the mushrooms. If one of them found some, they called the other ones and everybody picked at the same place and we filled the baskets quickly. One of the families have at least seven apple trees in their yard and they had just made 40 liters of apple cider that we got to enjoy some of this weekend. It is a great get away and we are planning on coming back next year.

Back at home we enjoyed the fact that it was only Saturday night and we had another day left of the weekend. This day we filled with regular activities. Jesper played four games of soccer as a goalie and had ice-hockey practice. Malin made pearl bracelets for her friends and had a piano lesson while I ran four loads of laundry….
Now we are ready for another week.

Summer of 2010

It feels like pretty good timing to recap our summer vacation now when we are back in the middle the hectic weekday routines again. All the activities have started up, swimming, dance, soccer, piano and even some ice-hockey. Summer vacation seems a bit distant now.

We started our vacation at Midsummer. Marks parents came and we took off to Gotland, an island on the east coast of Sweden. We were tourists for three intense days. The first day we walked around Visby, with is medieval wall. Of course we had to try the local specialty, saffron ice-cream. We drove around the coast and looked at "the rauks" i.e. rocks formed by the sea. We even tried pottery one day.

Back from Gotland we spent a day in Västerås to check on the house and then headed up to Alfta for the annual beach days and family time at lake Galven. In the middle of July we headed out on our adventure for the summer; we started our drive to Croatia. We rented a house in Rabac on the Istrian peninsula in Croatia with my brother and his family. We had not driven down through Europe like this before, so we were not sure what we were getting ourselves into. Three days of driving, fast speeds and periodically sitting in traffic for hours. One day in order to avoid traffic on the Autobahn we took the back roads through the Alps. We went on winding roads up, up up to 2780 meters. The view on the top was amazing. The kids were thrilled to be above the clouds. The drive down was as exciting as the drive up. Bikers we passed on the way up passed us on the way down.

We spent two weeks in Croatia, trying out various beaches and driving around to different towns and villages on the peninsula. Food, was definitely also in focus these weeks. Mark went down memory lane eating dishes that he remembered from his student days in the former Jugoslavia, and I finally got tot try the different things he has been talking about, like kiselo mljeko, kajmak and burek. One day we went out on a boat with the hostess and her cousin. They took us first to a cave which we swam into, it was pitch black swimming in, but when you turned around and looked towards the outlet, it was luminescent green. Could not capture it on camera and can not do it justice describing it. Cool, is all I can say. The cave was a popular place, so after we had experience that we went to a bay where we were all alone and could dive from the boat and snorkel around. Mark picked up sea urchins which we ate fresh on the boat.

On the drive back to Sweden we stopped in Berlin and walked around the historic streets one afternoon. The next day we had a 15 hour drive back to Västerås. Not bad, now we know that we can drive to Berlin in one day.

We landed at home for a day and then the weekday routines started, WORK, but also mowing and weeding and everything else we had neglected all summer. Malin started at the same school that Jesper goes to, but school did not start until three weeks later. She found new friends right away.

The kids started school Aug 22nd, Malin had her first day in 1st grade, then we took off again. We went to the US for almost two weeks. Sara, my sister went with us. We flew into Raleigh, did some shopping and then headed for the beach, Emerald Isle, to the same beach house we were in last year. Marks parents were there with us as well as Susan and her family. Benjamin remembered us from last year and we met Carter for the first time. It was nice to be at the beach again, warm air (not too hot or humid actually) and warm water (like a giant bath tube). One day we Swedes went into Beauford, an old town not far from Emerald Isle, we went out to Shakelford Island were there are herds of wild horses. A guide took us really close to the horses. On the way back to the boat we collected some nice conch shells but no sand-dollars. Two days short of our stay at the beach hurricane Earl were getting fairly close and it was mandatory evacuation from our area. Back in Raleigh we got a couple of days by the pool instead and we also got a chance to catch up with some friends.

Another weekend has come to an end. We are following the election in Sweden, they are counting the votes right now.

Kram Carina

Record weekend...

9 soccer games, 2 hours ice-hockey pratice.
Do you think Jesper will be tired and sore tomorrow?
Have a great week!

Back from the US

We are back in Sweden and to the daily routines again after two weeks in the US. We went to Emerald Isle on the coast of North Carolina with Marks parents, sister and her family. It was great, however we had to leave the beach two days early because of the hurricane Earl.
I have bad conscious about not blogging this summer so I promise that a summary of our whereabouts this summer will come shortly.

Croatia

We are in Croatia after 3 days of driving. We drove over the Alps, close to the Grossglokner peak, amazing view. The weather and the water is great here in Croatia. We swim for awhile in the ocean and then we go back-up to the house we are renting and play in the pool.

Croatia here we come

We are staying at a hotell in Germany tonight after driving for about 12 hours today. We are on our way to Croatia, where we will stay for a couple of weeks. Hope you all are having a great summer.

Jesper is 9

Jesper has had a great day. We started the day with cake, homemade strawberry cake, as we usually do on birthday mornings.
He also got a few presents, the Wii game Super Mario Kart was a favorite that got tested by almost the whole family today, the same with the yo-yo….old talents came forward. Sara and morfar Sven-Olof (Carinas dad) have joined us this weekend. Last weekend Jesper got an early birthday present, a new bike.

One of the local commercial-chains had invited the Swedish Idol winner Erik Grönwall and another very popular artist Ola Svensson to perform at the store. Since we did not have anything else planned we went there. The kids liked it, they have not really met any of the idols before. The each got a poster that Eric signed for them.

For dinner we made wood-fire-oven baked pizzas, in the oven we build behind our house. Mark designed the oven, and we had it build a couple years ago but it was not until this week that we have had time to fire it up long enough to actually use it for baking. Everybody made their own pizzas and they turned out great. Mark made a favorite that we used to eat at Penn State, a pizza with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and pesto.

We had a nice summer day today so when we had stuffed ourselves with pizzas we all hung out in the sun, sitting in the swing talking and taking turns trying out the yo-yo.

We ended the day as we started it, with strawberry cake.
It is not very often that we have a day with no time to meet, it has been great and very relaxing.
Tomorrow Jesper will play a game of soccer.
Hope you also are having a great weekend.

Solgården

This afternoon our daycare, Solgården, had a family event. Solgården is where both the kids have gone for daycare and where Malin is now for a pre-school year. We are very impressed with Solgården and their personnel. They have incorporated environmental awareness in the lesson plan and were certified as an environmentally responsible daycare by the state. The certification ”certificate” is a green flag that they fly on the daycares flagpole. The personnel held a flag-raising ceremony to celebrate and invited the parents to attend with a picnic and games.

Yesterday, Malins homework was to look up an artist and his era on the net. It was Mondrian and Neoplasticism. They have been working on different time periods with art and once in a while Malin comes home with a sculpture or a picture that she has made typical of that period that they are working on. So now they will focus on Neoplasticism and they wanted us to look at different examples of art in that area.

That was today's adventure

First swim

This past weekend we were up at my dad’s farm in Alfta. We usually spend a couple of weeks there in the summer where the highlight of the stay is when we can go to a lake called Galven to swim. All relatives in the area migrate to that special beach on a nice summer day. We have had nice weather during the week last week and even Saturday was OK, around 20 C, so we gather our swimsuits and headed for Galven. Not really expecting to be able to swim, but just to enjoy the silence. When we got there the kids immediately changed and carefully put their toes in the water. It was not bad. Unfortunately, we did not bring a thermometer so we are not sure what the temperature was but our best guess is maybe 16C. That estimate is based on our observation that it was not cold enough to make your toes curl up, at least not right away. So we all got in, and actually stayed in for a little while. I think this was a record for all of us, for the first dip of the year, May 22nd!!!. I remember one year when I still lived in Sundsvall, maybe 1985 or 86, then it snowed May 21st.

Notice the missing tooth in Malins picture? She lost her first last week. It was a big day.

I guess this makes it official, the Irwins are blogging!!

Take care :-)