Category: general

I know just how blessed I am. It’s not the time away, or the weeks off work, or the downtime reading relaxation. It’s not the wind or the water or the rocks or the little fishing villages with their red houses all in a row. It’s not the things we’ve seen or the things we’ve done. It’s not even the sunshine. Okay. It IS the sunshine, at least part of it is. But mostly it’s these: Photos of Karin, Anders & Simone by John Slaughter; Photos of Martin and John by Anders Ek Cracking Me Up: Where the wild things...

Since I was in college, I’ve always liked canoeing. We went on several canoe trips with all our floormates from Akers Hall, and even after graduation, dispersal and my move to Chicago, we continued to organize weekend-long canoeing trips in Michigan for several years. We’ve only gone a few times since moving to Sweden…the local river is a fairly easy one and we’ve only rediscovered the canoeing bug now that the kids are old enough to paddle as well, and we also have access to the canoes that belong to the local Scout troop, which we’re members of. On Friday,...

Busy every day but in a leisurely way with time to sit in the sunshine and read books and walk along the piers of the little fishing towns. On Thursday, we drove north to Tanumshede to see the bronze age rock etchings that dot the area. Apparently there are more than 10,000 boat drawings alone, scattered around Sweden. They are colored red in order to be seen better by tourists, as in their natural state, they’re scarcely noticeable and many have eroded badly due to pollution and weather. The world heritage site at Tanum included a replica bronze age settlement...

We crammed in a lot of activities during our week up north. Even though I could have easily turned into a slug, something about the early early sunshine got me going much faster than I would normally have liked managed. Simone was up in the early yawning every day, doing pilates on the cliffs and she and Anders took turns biking into town for fresh bread and breakfast rolls. We did most of the things on our list of things to do in the area, though we never did actually make it to Smögen. Uri the Amur Tiger at Nordens...

Family, friends, a midsummer pole dressed with 7 kinds of wildflowers, dancing like tail-less, ear-less frogs (kouack kouack!), toads under ferns, swan babies, 6 kinds of herring, strawberries, singstar silliness, a hotdog-begging kitty, reading on the trampoline or alternately, bouncing on it, downpours with hail, giant fluff-clouds, sunshine! a walk in the woods, hotdogs on the grill, 2 puppies to pat, schnaps songs, packing, games, laughter! Happy midsummer everyone! The kids, with John & Simone’s help, were justifiably proud of their midsummer pole! (photo: John Slaughter) Sillybutts! (photo: John Slaughter) Karin, Liz, Martin & Simone (photo: John Slaughter) The Ek’s...