We were only in Ireland for a week, but we did a LOT of things and saw a lot, and ate a lot, and I took a bajillion photos. If you are going to turn 60, Ireland’s a fun place to do it in. It’s as green as promised, and the people are lovely. We stayed in AirBnBs, all of which but one had a million stairs, which was a bummer, since I am still in a knee brace, but I managed. We flew to Dublin on Wednesday, August 7 and stayed right down in the city center near to...
Last week was really busy, so I’m kind of looking forward to this coming week, which isn’t busy at all (at the moment). Anders leaves for a week in Italy tomorrow morning, which also means I’ll be alone every evening entertaining myself with my book, iPad, TV, crossword puzzles, and a new jigsaw puzzle. Last Thursday I organized another pottery painting evening for the AIC, but it turned out to be just Lisel, Kirstin, and I, with Lisel’s 2 daughters, Martin and Theo, and Martin’s friend Thea. I painted the outside of a bowl (cereal-bowl sized) with a bird and...
The saga continues. If you have never heard the story of the frog lamp, stop what you are doing and read this first: The story of the frog lamp HIlarious, no? Definitely yes! Cut to pre-holidays 2023. The frog lamp, technically Sammy’s, has not been seen in some years. John and Simone moved to a new house 7 years ago to accommodate their growing family and at some point the frog lamp was relegated to the attic. I do not understand how anyone could bear to hide away the awesomeness that is the frog lamp, but apparently not everyone has...
We drove down to Germany on December 10, staying in a little unmanned hotel outside of Hamburg. It was a long drive and good to break it up, especially since we drove down in a rain and windstorm that lasted 4 days. We had a wonderful week in Hopferau, at my brother John’s house, warmly welcomed by the entire family. The week included Jakob’s 10th birthday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day (with Karin!), a walk into Füssen to see the town and the church and castle, a walk around Schwansee, and exploring the village on the sunny day before we left....
On Thursday, we had our Halloween fika in the afternoon. I had a crazy day as I had a birthday lunch to attend, then a dentist appointment, then had to get back for the fika. The team had decided on a fairly easy costume idea: we went as Marcom afternoon tea in honor of Helen who organized the fika and who has been our party planner, when she’s not been doing her regular assistant to the Vice President of Marketing job. She’s English, you see. One of my teammates brought fiberduk and we cut it into 2-meter lengths to be...
It’s already nearing the end of August, and I feel like it was JUST April a minute ago. I know that years speed up as you get older, and I know I’ve kvetched about the phenomenon before, like pretty much everyone else, but how is it nearly autumn again already?? Eeeesh. Anders weeded the vegetable garden yesterday and uprooted all the kohlrabi except two, which had been thoroughly holed by worms and slugs, and then he uprooted all the snap peas as well, half of which never came up at all, and half of which yielded a couple of handfuls...
Thursday was my birthday and I took both it and Friday off from work, which was really nice. Vacation feels very long ago, despite my semi-long weekend of travel to see Becky and London and now this long weekend to celebrate my birthday. The kids and I went out to dinner on Wednesday night, in Malmö, though we weren’t super impressed with our meal, unfortunately. It was still nice to hang out with the kids, and going to Dolce Sicilia afterwards for gelato made up for it. On Thursday morning, I got up early, and Karin got up with me...
Our ferry didn’t leave Mariehamn until 2:30 pm so we had all morning to enjoy the town, after eating breakfast, checking out and packing the car. We walked back up the shopping street (where everything was open!) and over to the Maritime Quarter again, where we toured the little museum, visited some shops and the Beacon. It was sunny and hot and beautiful along the water. We came back down and did some shopping in town as well. I found a Moomin charm for my country charm bracelet (had already bought a little silver reindeer horn to symbolize being in...
We got up quite early and left Loimaa to drive to Åbo (Turku) on the coast of Finland, where we caught the Viking Line ferry to Åland. The ferry ride is 5+ hours, so we had breakfast on the boat. We sat inside for a bit, then went out on the Vista Sundeck on the back of the boat, which was lovely. Sitting in the sun and the wind watching the islands slide by. The boat was HUGE and the archipelago was extensive, lots and lots of rocky islands covered in, you guessed it: pines and birch trees. We got...
We had 3 pretty solid days of straight driving south through Finland, and unfortunately, we never made it to the Moomin Museum, which was on our list of must-stops, due to several factors including the rain and over-optimistic time planning. Ah well! A reason to go back and see more! The 3 days we spent driving were very rainy, which was okay, since we weren’t stopping much, but a little hard on Anders who drove the entire trip. And plus the scenery was pretty much exactly the same: pines and birches for miles. We saw another reindeer on the road...