Tagged: obiterphotos

I can think of much better ways of spending my birthday than 7 hours of nausea and fever in the car, culminating with a bout of stomach flu. Regardless, now we are back and I am oh so glad to be here. Sweden, even with a thick cloud cover and pouring rain, never looked so good as when we crossed the bridge from Denmark and knew we were nearly home. Although maybe it was partly the comparison with eastern Germany where we spent the weekend that helped. We left my brother’s place on Friday and drove to a little town...

It’s a bittersweet feeling for me, this day, the longest of the year. Before I moved to Sweden, I was never as aware of the presence or absence of sunlight as I am now. It’s in the back of my mind all the time these days; the light. Whether it is shining or obscured partially or wholly by clouds. How much of it there is, and the increase and waning of it yearly. Before I moved so far north, I didn’t realize how much I would be affected each year by the two halves of it: the first half which...

Man, we’ve been busy! Too busy to post, obviously. We’ve been shopping, and celebrating Martin’s 10th birthday (by waking him up extra early with a birthday song and presents) and writing Christmas letters and wrapping Christmas gifts and going to Christmas parties and Christmas markets and Christmas tree farms and choir practice (me) and hockey (Anders) and Scouts (Martin) and karate (Karin) and just generally enjoying having my mom here! Martin turns 10 years old! In denial about being old enough to have a 10-year-old Who let that kid have a SAW? Christmas cheer is finally here! Still to come:...

Yesterday was our annual Thanksgiving potluck bash with good friends gathered around the dinner table, where silence reigned for all of 15 seconds during the first bite before everyone starting oohing and ahhing and remarking on how GOOOOOOD the food was. We had so much fun that we actually forgot for the first time in 10 years to take a group photo! *sigh* I enjoyed turkey leftovers for lunch today and baked the first batch of official Christmas cookies: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Squares that may just end up a family favorite. They’re DELICIOUS. They’re also for the AWC cookie exchange...

67 kids, 61 adults and 3 hours of running around a huge indoor playplace. The only bummer was that the big bags of American candy I had brought were completely forgotten and didn’t get put out for the party. So I’ll be bringing candy to AWC events in the future, until it’s all gone. Karin won first prize for best costume with her “Mummy Karate Kid” that she thought up and planned herself. Martin was a “Boy of Summer” and I? Was a Magic 8-Ball! Whenever someone asked me what I was supposed to be, I said (in my very...