My brother and his family get here in about 2 hours, for a week-long stay, and I am ready! Well, the house is ready. The yard is ready (apart from planting cucumbers and tomatoes and a little bit of weeding needed under the trellis, which I can’t do because of my stupid knees. Anders took a garage-load of stuff to the dump this morning, and I’ve been cleaning and organizing since I got up. It’s a very warm and humid day, and I just had to wet my hair down because it was being crazy. It’s too short to do anything with, so I am still basically combing it back and fastening a couple of clips in to to hold it in place.
We had a bit of a worry because when John got to the ferry terminal at 12:30 they discovered their boat was cancelled. There had been some sort of accident when they were loading a train onto the boat (!) and the boat was not allowed to leave the harbor. John had to go to another ferry line and buy another ticket (for a very high price) and then wait in line to see if they would even be able to board. Luckily they made it on, and it’s actually a shorter trip, which is nice for us because it means they will get here around 6:30 pm instead of 10 at night! But it’s a bummer for John because he’s been driving since 4 am and was planning on sleeping for the entire 6-hour ferry ride. After he called, he was planning to try and nap for the now 2-hour ferry, but then they have about 2.5 hours to drive from Denmark instead.
We hadn’t planned on them being here so early so didn’t have dinner in mind, but I think we’ll just order pizzas, and then let the kids run off some energy from sitting in a car so long. Their poor dog Lola was apparently terrified of the boat hold and Simone had to wrestle her out of the car.
It’s full on summer right now, in the late spring, and Sweden is at its best. The lilacs are in bloom all over the place, spirea as well, and the rapeseed is glowing neon yellow in all the fields around us. It’s light until 9:30 pm and we’re having spectacular sunsets since there are not very many clouds. It’s been quite chilly this past week, but the temps jumped today and are expected to stay high and dry all week. Yay!
We are planning to go to a fun pinball arcade tomorrow afternoon for a few hours, and on Monday we have a packed day. The kids are coming in the morning, with Theo and we have to leave at 11:30 to get up to Skäralid to the Moose Park for a tour (and hopefully the chance to feed a baby moose!). It’s the same place the kids and Anders took me a few years ago, and it was super fun. They have a little petting zoo there as well. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, we’re going to Malmö in the evening for mini-golf. It’s the last AIC meeting before summer and there are 31 people signed up so it should be quite fun. It’s quite close to the beach, so the kids can go for a dip afterwards. Karin said Essie might be able to join us, which is great. I felt kind of bad signing up so many people, but what the hell, with everything I do for the club, hogging the sign up sheet for one activity shouldn’t matter that much.
Anders is planning to take them Kayaking/canoeing and mountain biking as well (they are bringing all their bikes plus a SUP board), so I’ll actually have a couple of quiet days while they’re out having fun (I’m not going because, see above, knees), which is just fine. It will be full on crazy with 3 kids and 4 adults and a dog in the house when it’s usually just the 2 of us. 😀
Sammy is 14, Jakob is 12, and Kaya is 5. Jakob has promised to help me with both the Lego peacock and the jigsaw puzzle which is taking me forever. Martin started the peacock but didn’t get very far, and I looked at it again, and gave up. It’s not actually Lego, it’s those teeny tiny brick knock-offs, and they are so small they just flip out of my fingers. Plus the instructions are super confusing…even Martin was aggravated trying to figure it out.
Two other things we have to do while they are here are net the cherry tree, and get John’s box of stuff down from the attic (the stuff that came in the crate several years ago).
Hopefully I will remember to take lots of photos while they are here and not just live in the moment, which is my usual modus operandi.
Mood: anticipatory
Music: Air—Cherry Blossom Girl