Wednesday, December 31, 2008

family reunion time...

so we all met up at lumbalumba resort just outside of manado, yesterday. we were all pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. the website doesn't even come close to the real thing. check it out for yourself...http://www.lumbalumbadiving.com/ . it was great to see everyone again. anita, thomas, and i immediately took advantage of the diving, and went for an evening dive. it was a great dive right off of the jetty, we were supposed to be looking for mandarinfish, but we were a bit early, and then when one of the guides found the rarely spotted, elusive blue-ringed octopus, we forgot all about the mandarinfish, i was able to get a few nice shots, keep in mind this octopus is about the size of a 5 kronor (or an american 25 cent piece), so it is not big.we were all very excited about the dive and came back to an amazingly tasty buffet dinner. a great way to start off the trip. then today we went diving. took the boat over to bunaken and finally got cilla and anders back in the water after a 7 year dry spell!
then when we got back we all enjoyed a bit of splashing about in their amazing pool. looking forward to the new year's eve festivities.

Monday, December 29, 2008

just me and my mom...

thomas left to pick up his family in kuala lumpur so it is just me and zoe in our island paradise. we have a lovely bungalow, full of geckos. zoe has developed an absolute love of geckos, not only does she make gecko noises, but everytime she sees or hears one, everyone in the near vicinty must drop whatever they are doing and appreciate the gecko with her. it is actually quite amusing, though frustrating at times.
she met a new friend here at lorenzo's, his name is c.j. and he is quite the character. it is full board here, and so everyone staying here eats dinner together, family style. anyway, the day they arrived, c.j. and his parents came into dinner and c.j. said in a loud voice while waving his hand at everyone sitting at the table, "hi! my name is c.j., and this is my mom, so and so, and this is my dad, so and so!" and then he beamed proudly, it was adorable. he is an extremely vocal child for three and a half, and zoe has had a great time chasing after him.

she really seems to be enjoying it here, everyone knows her of course. there are also four small puppies, which she absolutely adores. they live in one of the palapas about 150 meters from the restaurant, and this morning she carried them all to breakfast one after another. it was very cute. but since they never really had been away from their palapa before i think i might have been a bit of a shock for them. then all day long she has just moved them from one location to another. apparently she is becoming a professional puppy transporter. tomorrow we leave to meet up with the rest of thorens. should be alot of fun.

Friday, December 26, 2008

happy birthday to me!

it is my birthday!  happy birthday to me!  as a treat thomas and i went diving this morning.  i cannot say the divemaster was any good, but the dives were very nice, especially the second one.  it is great to see so much healthy coral. here are a few pics i took on the dives today.


Wednesday, December 24, 2008

all the way to sulawesi...

finally we made it to the beach!  okay, so it is not the white sand beach one pictures in the tropics,  as the island is surrounded by mangroves. but it is a beach all the same.  we flew from k.l. to manado, in northern sulawesi early yesterday morning.  then took a boat over to bunaken, a little island.  before heading off on the boat we stopped from some local cuisine.  thomas and i had gado gado, my all time favorite indonesian dish.  it has sticky rice and veggies and tofu all topped with a peanut sauce.  cannot go wrong with that.  
 zoe had noodles again, oh how she loves her noodles.   she had been such a great kid that when she begged for ice cream after lunch, we treated her.  she then proceeded to delightfully consume and decorate her face with the ice cream on the way to the island.  upon arrival, however there was some confusion.  we had booked at lorenzo's bungalows online nearly a month ago, but when we arrived, apparently the guy we had been emailing had not told the owner, so there was no bungalow.  however there was a room, with a bed in it. the owner apologized profusely, and said we could move into a bungalow after one night.  the room did not even have a fan, but there was a really nice french couple who lent us one, as i do not think zoe would have survived that night without one, it was hot.  then, to top off our bad luck, the bed broke when we were trying to go to sleep.  so end the end it was a mattress on the floor.  zoe woke us up at 0500 vomiting.  and since the room did not have a bathroom that meant running outside.  due to the repeated vomit thomas and zoe took about 4 showers this morning, though you could hardly call them showers, as it is just a bucket and scoop.  thomas was a super daddy.  she seems to be doing better, don't know if she maybe got some sea water in her mouth yesterday or if it is just the heat.  now we have moved into our bungalow, and it is so much nicer, we are all relieved and enjoying our tropical paradise.  we even had some great christmas snorkeling today. merry christmas!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

all the long way to k.l.

after a long overnight bus ride we made it to kuala lumpur.  luckily the seats laid way back so we actually got some sleep, but not as much as we would have liked.  the bus was supposed to arrive in k.l. at 0600, but it arrived at 0330 instead.  usually one is very happy when a bus arrives early, however this time we were not so much, as we had hoped to get a night's sleep on the bus. so then we had to find a place to crash for a couple of hours.  zoe and i sat with the bags while thomas had to run around and try and find a free room.  
 he found one, and we all crashed out until about 9.  within a few hours we were situated at the hotel that we had booked from thailand, with a private bathroom and a nice big bed.  then it was time for lunch and shopping.  zoe really got into her noodles, such a character.  we headed over the computer mall and got our mac fixed as it had crashed a few hours before leaving home.  the second hard disk to go bad in one and a half years.  what do they mean macs are more reliable?  luckily it was not that difficult or expensive to replace the harddrive.  we cruised around the shopping area while the technician did his stuff.  sadly low yat shopping mall was not as cheap as it was when we were here nearly 4 years ago.  
 we did find some things were.  after way too many hours wandering around in the crowds, we headed back and picked up our computer and headed to our wonderful clean bed for a good night's sleep
 the next day we hit chinatown, lots of people and lots of knock-offs.   was hot hot hot!   made us long for the beach.  we stopped on some hotel steps and enjoyed some fresh fruit.  zoe thought that mango on a stick was great fun
later on we headed back to low yat, and decided to buy another laptop.  cannot trust that the mac won't break down again, makes it hard to build websites traveling without a computer.  so now, as if traveling with two full scuba kits and two underwater cameras and housings was not enough, we now have two laptops too.  talk about traveling with a load.  

Friday, December 19, 2008

eimi's got a new pair of eyes...

after years of complaining of my eyes getting worse, and scaring anyone who rides in a car with me cause i cannot read the signs, i finally got new glasses!  they were pretty cheap here in thailand so we splurged and even got the kind that work as sunglasses too.  thomas picked out the frames.  how hip am i?

Thursday, December 18, 2008

catching up with old friends

today we took the boat over to tonsai to see daum. but the boat only went to railay, so we had to bit of jungle trekking to get to daum's beach. zoe was great about hanging onto pappa when he needed his hands to climb. these beaches are a mecca for rock climbers, so zoe thought she would try a bit of climbing with pappa's help. and then it was just the short walk over the sandy beach to daum, our dear friend, and his diveschool. very impressive, he has come a long way since we worked with him. he is a divemaster, owns his own shop, and is getting married to the lovely laht in the very near future. we are so proud of him and so very happy for him. we are going to try and go back and see him towards the end of the trip.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

almost like coming home again to find a skyskraper instead of your house

last night we hit the krabi night market for dinner. oh how we have missed thai food, i believe in all our years of traveling we have never encountered better food than the tasty dishes they make here in the land of smiles. here is a few shots from our evening at the market. i really like that she calls her stand "big mama pancake". zoe had a tasty nutella/banana pancake from her.

then today we rented a moterbike and drove into ao nang the town thomas and i lived in 2000-2002. it has changed so much, you can hardly recognize it. there is a mcdonalds and a buger king and it about three to four times the size it was when we lived there. though we did run into a few people that we knew way back when. we were looking for our old friend daum, but he was still on tonsai, another beach so we decided to take the boat over there tomorrow, and have a nice day at the beach today. zoe practiced swimming between momma and pappa, and buried pappa under the sand. after a few hours relaxing at the beach we headed over to the monkey temple so zoe could see the monkeys. we were not there 10 seconds when one jumped up and stole thomas' coke. we really did not expect them to take a coke can, we knew they have been known to grab stuff. but this was a bit of shock, and then we watch as the monkey then proceeded to try and drink the whole coke. so much for trying to maintain the balance of nature. zoe did really enjoy seeing the monkeys though.

back in the land of smiles

so after our insanely annoying change of plans and failed attempt to leave sweden, we have finally succeeded. yes, they let us on the plane! yeah! we flew into phuket instead of bangkok, but that worked out fine, we are a little sad to have missed bkk, but will hit it on the way back instead. we are currently in krabi, that is the town next to the beach ao nang, where we worked and lived 2000-2001. it is crazy being back, everything of course is built up in vast amounts. tomorrow we are heading to tonsai beach to see and our dearest and oldest thai friend daum, who has started up his own dive school finally. yipee daum, way to go! we are at an internet cafe, and our food just arrived so this is a short one. sadly our computer crashed the day we left so we have not been able to upload pics or write proper entries, we are going to try and get it fixed asap, and that will help us be better at keeping this up to date. in the meantime, we are doing well, and hoping all our friends and family back home ( wherever that may be) are as well.

Monday, December 15, 2008

arrival in thailand

we made it to phuket. not our favorite place in sweden. but it was nice to have a nice long nap in a big bed after that long flight. we are heading down to krabi as soon as possible (tomorrow morning). but in the meantime, we enjoyed a thai massage and some nice cold drinks, as it is really hot here compared to sweden. going to take a bit of time to acclimatize.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

last family gathering in sweden

well, we have left tyringe, and hopefully are not coming back till the end of march. we headed down to farfar and farmors house as they live much closer to the airport. anders, cilla, emma, and moa came over for dinner. it was fun having the family together, and we were able to discuss the upcoming trip. the girls were really silly, a little bit of hear no evil, see no evil posing...
and a cute one of the cousins together
and i just thought this one of little moa was just too cute not to post. it was a great last evening in sweden. looking forward to seeing them all again in a few weeks in sulawesi.

neighbor's snowy photoshoot



we are leaving tyringe today, but before heading out of town, we had a bit of a snowy day photoshoot with the neighbors. linus was in a bit of a silly mood so it was basically impossible to get any normal shots of him, but at least his unique character really comes out in the shots that i did manage to get. here a a few shots i thought turned out well. the lighting was a bit difficult for me to work with, but i think i managed to get a somewhat good balance of light and color, though some of the exposures were a bit off.

Friday, December 12, 2008

snow and saying bye to maya

a bit of snow on the ground, so pappa and zoe hit the hills. that is right, sledding season is here. this really the first year that zoe has been sledding as we are usually away in the coldest months. she seems to be enjoying it, but she is a bit of a chicken. though she suddenly becomes very brave when sledding with our neighbor, ida.

also managed to get this shot of her today which i thought was quite cute.

then maya and monica came over for one last ficka before we head to thailand. we are really going to miss them.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

zoe's first lucia

today was zoe's preschool's lucia. it is a fairly big thing here in sweden. the lucias get to walk around in white gowns with candles singing. and they are followed by kids dressed up as gingerbread cookies and little elves. due to the average age of zoe's preschool being 2 years old, it obviously was not as sophisticated as the usual lucia train. however, the kids did help sing a bit, and it was really adorable. farfar and mormor were also able to come, so after the "lucia train" zoe showed them all her artwork and her very own book that she has at daycare. this was her last day of preschool. i think they are really going to miss zoe and she is really going to miss them.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

here comes the gingerbread kid


it all started out innocent enough. zoe was very excited to make some pepparkakor or gingerbread cookies as we english speakers call them. she got her cookie cutters out and ready, and even put on her little gingerbread baker apron. not to mention, we invited mormor over to join in the fun.



zoe was a really good baker, picked up on it right away, think it might have to do with all those hours of playing with her play-doh. mormor helped her to refine her rolling expertise, and all seemed as if it was going well, but girls will be girls...
thats right, they got into a flour fight. silly kids, i think zoe might have won, mormor claimed she was covered head to toe. zoe of course played all innocent...
who could have done it? i sure don´t know and neither did zoe. these things just happen you know. is that thomas trying to roll zoe´s hand into the cookies? what kind of pappa is that?
no, silly momma, we are just making handprints for christmas tree decorations. see?
the cookies mostly turned out, though we burned a few being so caught up in the cookie rolling and cutting process, we forgot to watch the oven. talk about short attention spans, these cookies only need about 5 minutes to bake, but we just could not remain vigilant. go figure.

Friday, December 5, 2008

disappointedly stationary

as i am sure most of you of heard in the news, protesters have occupied bangkok airport for a week in hopes of ousting their prime minister. as it would happened, we were scheduled to land at that same airport this morning. but i am writing this still in sweden, so things did not go as we had hoped. it has been a bit of back and forth frustrating experience. when we heard about the occupation, we callled our airline, and they assured us, that we could rebook to another airport, or another date, or be refunded, but it was early, and the airport could be working again by the time we flew, so just wait and see what happens.

three days before we were to fly there were still no signs of the airport being opened so we called the airline again, they said they could not do anything directly, but to call the people we booked the ticket through and they could rebook us to a different airport or date. we called the online travel agency we booked through. they said there was nothing they could do until the day before we should fly, so wait until then. the next day we got sick of waiting, as we have other planes to catch in asia after landing in bangkok, and did not want to miss those flights. so we called the airline again, luckily we had gotten the numbers needed from the travel agency, so they could help us directly this time. they told us that all the flights to bangkok were full up to and including the 20th of december (we fly from malaysia to indonesia on the 23rd, so this was beginning to look real bad). little bit frustrating after having been told earlier to wait, and now it seemed to late. thomas found a flight on their website going to phuket on the 14th, but the agent said that she could not book us, because they did not sell that flight. after thomas insisting they sold the flight because he could book it on their website, she finally looked at it herself, and said, oh yes, i guess you are right, should i book you on that one then? yes, please! in the meantime she had offered to fly us to goa or the maldives instead, neither option would have really helped us catch our flight from kuala lumpur on the 23rd.

so there we were, readjusting to the fact that we were not leaving for 10 more days. that meant grocery shopping, as we had been emptying our fridge in preparation for our trip. also changing some plans and whatnot.

HOWEVER, the next day we recieved a call from the travel agency. we were flying on the 4th, but into the military airport 200 kms from bangkok. i was quite happy to be going to thailand afterall. thomas asked if we couldn´t keep the 14th, as we had already made plans and it would be a bit stressful, as we would have to leave that same day and stay over at his folks house in order to get to the airport early enough in the morning to make the flight. she said we had no choice, and that it was 100% confirmed, and we were going. we both asked her repeatedly if she had confirmed this with our airline as they had just rebooked us the day before. she assured us repeatedly that she had. okay, so we had about 6 hours to get ready, change all the plans again, finish packing and head south. farfar was very nice and came and picked us up.

so the next morning we all woke up super early and headed for the airport, once again super kind farfar drove us. we headed to the check-in counter. check our bags, ready to go, just waiting for our boarding passes, when the agent runs into a glitch. hmmm. there we stand for 30 minutes while he tries to figure out what it might be. finally he sends us over to a specialist, as he needs to check in the rest of the customers standing in line, as the plane is going to leave soon. this does not look good. looks like we might miss our flight. luckily the agent did not send our bags yet.

off to the specialist. she is confused. we are booked on a flight that has no clearance. the travel agent has book us on a flight that has not been cleared for passengers. the lady reassures us that you ARE NOT allowed to book passengers on a flight with this status, and the travel agent has made a big mistake, and that in their system we are still booked for the 14th of december. argh! so we are not flying today then? no, no way, sorry. okay, so all the stuff we did in a huge amount of stress to get ready to go was for nothing? yeah, i am afraid so. crap. so between paying for the bridge between sweden and denmark, the parking, and the gas, the trip to the airport cost us (and farfar) nearly 150 USD. not to mention we had avstalled our car, which means we cannot drive it. obviously we were pretty mad at the travel agency. anyway, we drove back to thomas´ folks and had a nice relaxing day with them. except of course for the hour i spent waiting on the phone to talk to someone from the travel agency, who just said they did not do anything wrong and the airline had issued the ticket, and there was nothing to discuss. those of you who know me, know i was not happy about this. however our only option at this stage is to make a formal written complaint. so that is the plan. in the meantime, travelpartner.se deserves to have some mud thrown in its face.

farmor and farfar were great hosts and helped us to stay cool and not get too upset. thomas made an amazingly delicious appetizer plate.
and then farfar blended up some yummy martinis. zoe was super funny, she really wanted to have a strange glass like we had so farfar put some water in a small glass kinda shaped like ours with an olive on a stick, and zoe was content. she is big fan of "skål!", that is cheers in swedish, so she was toasting and drinking her olive soaked water with gusto. so now it´s 14th instead, hopefully.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

toothfairy


i am so glad that zoe loves to brush her teeth. although it is not always this easy, but usually it is, thank goodness. she was very proud of this picture, and i of course thought it was adorable, so i had to post it. brush, my beauty, brush!

Monday, December 1, 2008

leftovers

yes, that is not an illusion, that is eimi´s child chowing down on a HUGE turkey drumstick. thomas was really looking forward to some thanksgiving leftover turkey. sadly he did not get much of the drumstick as amazing this little turkey of mine chewed it down.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

another bathroom update

so we finally convinced a plumber to come out and connect some of our piping. sadly he only had time to do the shower (we only got him here out of pity, and fear of what might be happening to our hygiene). so after 4+ long weeks, we finally have a functioning shower again. we are so happy, and so clean! here is a shot of zoe enjoying her first bath in our new shower cabinet. we ordered it with deep sides so she could still bath, as she is not that fond of showering and she is loving it.

Friday, November 28, 2008

american thanksgiving comes to tyringe

sweden celebrates alot of holidays, many that we do not really recognize in the states. however, we just didn´t think there were enough so, we decided it was time to bring an american thanksgiving home. mormor invited us, farmor, and farfar over for a big thanksgiving spread.

here thomas is carving zoe´s turkey. we discovered that zoe loves turkey.

as you can see there was no lack of food, we had it all, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing (three different kinds to suit all us picky eaters!), sweet potatoes, corn, fresh made rolls, salad, and even home made cranberry sauce. yum.

after dinner, we decided to add to the feastivities even more and decorate the christmas tree, as we are not going to be here for christmas, and we thought zoe would enjoy it, and enjoy it she did. she put nearly all of the ornaments on herself, and there were alot.

she was so good, you would have thought she was a professional tree decorated, she even got the angel to stick right on top on her first try.

and here we are for the family shot, all very full in our tummies, and ready for christmas.

it was a great thanksgiving, delicious food, delightful entertainment (zoe), and warm company. thanks for a wonderful evening mormor.