Here in Sweden

For those of you who are wondering why I have not blogged since I moved to Sweden, you should know that we still don't have internet access at home. It is a long story, which I will not go into now. Today, I will just tell you about one thing.

Fika
For those of you who have never been to Sweden, Fika is basically a coffee break. They can have it at any time of the day, and it usually includes something to eat as well as the coffee. The Swedes like their coffee STRONG. It is so thick that you can almost slice it. They also like their sweets. My kind of people. ;) From my experience, Fika is a very social time. They have Fika after church at most church services, and we have been invited to have Fika at friends' homes a few times as well.
I would like to go into more detail, but my time is up for now.
As soon as we get internet at home, I will try to post many updates about life in Sweden
Hej då for now!

Daddy's Little Helper

Warning...... parenting story ahead. This is not for those of you hate hearing stories about other people's kids.

Well, last weekend, T was out in his shop, and AJ was out there "hanging" with Daddy. He saw the lawn mower (AJ, that is), and walked up to it. He then patted it and signed "please." AJ repeated this until T got the lawn mower out (a push mower, not a riding one) and started it up. AJ then held on to the lower bar while T pushed up above. The two of them mowed much of the back yard and half of the front. I was so surprised that he kept going. T said that every time he would stop, AJ would vigorously sign "please." So off they went again. Moments like these are priceless. They make all the hard parts of parenting worthwhile.

Road Trip

Are you insane? Some people will probably wonder that when they read that I ventured out on a two-week road trip in August with my kids (and no hubby). Many people along the way called me brave, and maybe I was, but I think I just did what I needed to do to see my friends and family.

Wisconsin
My first portion of the trip took me to Wisconsin to see my sister and her family. She was expecting number 7 at the time, and I knew that if I wanted to see her, I had better make the effort. It is much easier to travel with 2 kids than 7. :) With our move coming up, I don't know when my kids will get to see their cousins next. I therefore made the insanely long drive up to her house to visit. At this point, I must pause to thank my mom for her help in this portion of the trip as she caravanned up there with me. She helped at rest stops and restaurants. I could not have done it without her.
We had a wonderful time with my sister. We went to the zoo, visited the children's museum, and ventured out to the beach. It was great for the kids after having been cooped up in the car for two days.

Hanging out with cousins

Sliding at the children's museum

John David at the children's museum

Patrick weighing some meat

Colleen helping feed the fake horse a plastic apple

Riding the dragon outside

Playing at my sister's house

AJ with his cousin, Shannon.

AJ didn't want to put his knees down when crawling in the grass.

A goat at the petting zoo.

A pony at the petting zoo.

On the train at the zoo.

AJ at the beach

Kristen at the beach

Kristen

AJ with my sister, Jill

AJ enjoying a water toy

Peoria, Illinois
Our second stop landed us in Peoria, my old stomping grounds before I was married. We stayed with some dear friends, Worms and Cheryl, and we visited my boss and some of my old coworkers. They are all such wonderful people. It made me realize how much I enjoyed living there.

On the way from Peoria to the next town, Centralia, I stopped at the church where I wed my amazing husband. My great-grandfather pastored it many years ago, and he and his wife are buried in the old church cemetary.

Centralia, Illinois
Our third and final stop took us to Centralia to visit with more precious friends. My old neighbor, Peggy, put us up for a few days as we visited those we could. It is amazing how many sweet people we have been blessed to know over the years. A few special moments from that trip were visiting the ladies I used to quilt with and spending time with my best friend from that era in my life, Julie. We were pregnant together, and our oldest kids are only two weeks apart in age.

I showed Kristen how to use an old water pump.

Kristen and Micah hanging out.

Watching an episode of "Little Einsteins"

Edith holding AJ

The kids hanging out in the basement where I used to go quilt

Sitting by a tractor next to the field.

Julie and AJ

By the time our visit was over, I was ready to just go home and stay there for a while. I wasn't sure if it would take one or two days to get home, but as we got closer, I realized that I did not want to spend another day, or partial day, on the road. It was a long day of driving, but we made it home. The kids were happy to roam around the house and play with their "forgotten" toys. I was happy to be sleeping in my own bed.

(Moving) Around the World in How Many Days?

Well, sorry for the lack of posts recently. Those who are actually reading this will know that I have not been good about posting this whole year.

Sweden
The last news I had for you included a trip to Sweden. Well, since then, we have visited Sweden twice. The first trip was about 10 days, and the second one was almost two weeks.

Why, oh, why would you make that trip with two very young children twice? Well, it wasn't to see the sights (which is good since we didn't get to do much of that). For those of you who don't know, we are moving to Sweden sometime in December or January. T's job is taking us there, and we even have a house that we are closing on in January (that was the purpose of trip #2). This has been in the works/up in the air for a while, and we are finally moving forward with it. It is an exciting/scary time for us, but I think it will be great for the kids to experience a different culture and learn a new language.

Back to the adventures in Sweden... Our first trip took us to three separate parts of Sweden. The first few days of our trip we spent in Trosa. We have some friends there who hosted us for the few days it took to adjust to the time difference (a lot harder with two kids who keep waking each other up when Mommy and Daddy are trying to get to sleep). They took us to church and fishing (I caught a good-sized walleye). They also took us to furniture stores (since we will have to purchase some furniture when we move). It was great to fellowship with them.

A view from the boat when we went fishing

Timo pulling the boat closer so people could get on board

Timo's dad and Kristen driving the boat


AJ and Daddy fishing


AJ in the backpack

Åke holding up the fish that Timo's dad caught

Bringing my fish in

Here I am with the fish I caught.

Kristen at the park in Trosa. She still has chocolate on her face from the ice cream we ate on our way there.

AJ and I at the park

Timo and the fish he caught the next day. I stayed back with the kids while he went fishing again.

Timo and his fish.

The second portion of the trip took us to Stockholm. The first day, we visited the Vasa Museum, an interesting place built around a ship that sunk on its maiden voyage and spent about 300 years underwater before being recovered. The rest of the time in Stockholm was spent just exploring the streets of the downtown area. The time frame for doing that was cut short due to little ones needing to nap. I am looking forward to visiting the city again once we move and have more time. Timothy spent almost the whole time we were there in meetings.

Our room at the Grand Hotel, Stockholm

Another view of our room. I would say that for the money, you don't get a lot more than at other hotels.

Our bathroom in the Grand Hotel.

Our view from our hotel room in Stockholm.

Brock and the kids. Brock helped carry them around for me, since we lost our stroller in the Copenhagen airport.

A model of the original Vasa, complete with sails.

A model of the ship as it capsized.

Kristen looking up with a wooden lady at the Vasa Museum

This is what they used to recover the cannons after the ship had sunk.

A lion's head at a cannon port on the original ship.

What the inside of the Vasa would have looked like when at sea.

One of the original cannons in a reconstructed version of the side of the ship.

A view from above of the original Vasa ship

Brock with the kids in Stockholm

Timo and the kids on Gamla Stan in Stockholm

The final portion took us to a town further south where T will be working. We explored the downtown area a little, met with a realtor, and ventured into some of the neighborhoods to see where we might like to look for housing on our next trip.

A view of the river from our hotel room in Norrköping.

Another view from our hotel room in Norrköping

Overall, it was a busy trip, but the nice thing is that there are a ton of ice cream places open during the summer and Swedish ice cream is gooooood -- especially their soft serve. There is even a restaurant only open during the summer where all they serve is ice cream. They have various creative concoctions on the menu, and it was difficult deciding what to try. It's a good thing we did a lot of walking, too. Otherwise, I probably would have gained 10 lbs.

Our second trip was just full of house-hunting. There is not a lot of exciting news except that we signed a contract the morning we left to go back up to Stockholm. It is a new house, and we even got to pick out some of the colors and the backsplash in the kitchen.