{"id":8818,"date":"2023-12-19T11:47:51","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T10:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/?p=8818"},"modified":"2023-12-19T11:48:46","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T10:48:46","slug":"ek-family-christmas-letter-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/ek-family-christmas-letter-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"EK FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>2023 had Anders traveling pretty much constantly. He went to Iceland and up to Ume\u00e5 in January for work, and then down to Canazei for a week of skiing, getting to see Karin while there, and then on to Kumla, as well as multiple trips to Tingsryd, Landskrona, Kivik, Tomelilla, and even the UK and Denmark later in the summer. He\u2019s really enjoying his role as a Field Service Engineer, still at Tetra Pak.<\/p>\n<p>Liz did some traveling on her own, heading to the USA for 4 weeks in mid-March. She started with a week of vacation, then worked from her mom\u2019s house for 2 weeks, then roadtripped together with Sarah and her mom up to Boston, where she worked in the US office for a week. It was a great trip, with lots of antique shopping and time spent with Sarah\u2019s family as well as finally getting to see her mom\u2019s new place, and Sarah\u2019s! She celebrated her 19-year anniversary at Axis in October.<\/p>\n<p>While she was gone, Anders renovated the kitchen, which turned out beautifully, and we are all very pleased with it. At the same time, Martin moved out! He found an 11-month apartment in Malm\u00f6 and decided to go for it. His crate of stuff from the US arrived at the beginning of the year, so he had everything he needed to furnish his own (small) place. Martin is now apartment-hunting again as he has to be out in February 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Karin came home from her ski season in mid-April, and almost immediately started a job at&#8230;Axis! She worked for the Corporate Events team, on the same floor as Liz, which was really nice. She decided to continue living at home in order to try and save money, but spent most of her time out with friends and her girlfriend Olivia, so she was never at home much, anyway. \ud83d\ude00 Karin turned 24 in July, which is crazy to contemplate for her parents.<\/p>\n<p>The summer was also the scene of Liz and Anders\u2019 epic Tesla trip where they drove from the very southern tip of Sweden up to the very top, all the way to Treriksroset which is where the borders of Finland, Sweden, and Norway meet. They spent nearly 3 weeks driving, first north through Sweden, stopping at lots of great attractions and staying at both the TreeHotel and the Ice Hotel along the way. They drove back down through Finland and spent a few days on the island of \u00c5land before taking the ferry back over to Stockholm and continuing home to Flyinge. <\/p>\n<p>In August, Liz was able to pop over to London to spend a short weekend visit with her best and longest friend Becky who was there with her husband\u2019s family. A perfect pre-birthday present! The weekend of her actual birthday, she and Martin spent the day in Odense, visiting Hans Christian Andersen\u2019s birthplace and museum, and managing to get picked up by Anders, who was on his way home from working in Denmark!<\/p>\n<p>Liz is still on the board of the AIC and enjoys lots of events and activities with them. Anders decided it was time to change gears and he is selling his motorcycle, as he added a new member to the family in late September: a little red MGB convertible! The only thing wrong with it is that Liz can\u2019t drive it (it\u2019s a stickshift).<\/p>\n<p>Martin has been working at TUGG restaurant all this year, but has recently given his notice, and is now seriously job-hunting. His last day won\u2019t be until the end of January 2024 so he has a grace period to find something new. We\u2019ve also enjoyed getting to know his new boyfriend Theo over the course of the year. By the time you read this, Martin will have turned 26. <\/p>\n<p>Karin decided to do another season with LionAlpin, but this time she\u2019s taken a step up and will be a ski guide manager, responsible for a group of 6 guides. She left at the end of November and will be spending the ski season in St. Anton, Austria. Another Christmas away, BUT we now have plans to travel down to spend Christmas in Germany with Liz\u2019s brother John and family and we will at least be able to see her for Christmas day. And the icing on the cake is that Liz\u2019s mom and her niece Danely (Sarah\u2019s daughter) will be arriving mid-December to spend the holidays with us both here in Sweden and in Germany! Yay! A great end to a pretty darn good year.<\/p>\n<p>Keep up with all the Ek Family happenings, apart from this online journal:<br \/>\nFacebook: www.facebook.com\/lizardek<br \/>\nInstagram: www.instagram.com\/lizardek<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/xmaspics_2023.jpg\" alt=\"Ek Family 2023\" width=\"612\" height=\"877\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8819\" srcset=\"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/xmaspics_2023.jpg 612w, http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/xmaspics_2023-209x300.jpg 209w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Mood: festive<br \/>\nMusic: Modern English\u2014I Melt With You<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2023 had Anders traveling pretty much constantly. He went to Iceland and up to Ume\u00e5 in January for work, and then down to Canazei for a week of skiing, getting to see Karin while there, and then on to Kumla, as well as multiple trips to Tingsryd, Landskrona, Kivik, Tomelilla, and even the UK and Denmark later in the summer. He\u2019s really enjoying his role as a Field Service Engineer, still at Tetra Pak. Liz did some traveling on her own, heading to the USA for 4 weeks in mid-March. She started with a week of vacation, then worked from&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-8818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-holidaze"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8821,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8818\/revisions\/8821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}