happy birthday farfar!

yesterday was farfar´s birthday so we headed down to bjärred today for a family dinner to celebrate.  on the way there zoe was discussing the ocean, and for some reason did not believe that farmor and farfar lived so near the sea, so we had to stop and enjoy a gorgeous sunset before heading to celebrate farfar with anders, cilla, emma, moa, and farmor.

it was a great dinner and great company, zoe and moa really had a lot of fun together, with eijla chasing close behind them.  thought this was a cute pic of the girls.

Happy birthday farfar!

so it was time to head south again, this time to celebrate farfars birthday.  eijla was a of a wild buse with moa..

 but luckily after awhile they found their groove and had a great time...

 and not sure if it was farfar snuggles or farfar wrestling. but zoe gave farfar lots of lovin'.  delicious food and great company.  happy birthday farfar. thanks for sharing with us.  the girls are lucky to have the world's greatest farfar.

time for our annual camping trip.

well, since thomas always knows i am running way behind schedule, and that we will never, ever get out the door in time, we decided to not stress. and take it as it comes.  so we ended up camping our first night in farmor and farfar's yard!

but it was still a great start for the trip.  we had to pick up some extra camping stuff at farmor and farfar anyway.  but who can stop in bjärred on a summery afternoon and not go down and get a a mjölkglass?  it had been a couple of years since the last time we did, so it was a must.

then, after the ice cream, we walked down to the little park by the water. the girls had a go at the slide.  zoe takes such great care of little eijla.  we are pretty proud of how great they are together.

even bonita got to give the park toys a go.  though not too sure how excited she really was about it!

then down to the beach to play in the wet and slime.  yeah!

on the walk back to the car, i believe zoe hopped off of every stone, there must have been more than 30!  she is like a little bunny rabbit.

then of course no visit to bjärred is complete without stopping and saying hi to the sheep. 

so then it was a night of luxury camping in farfars and farmors back yard! with lots of snuggles.  camping snuggles somehow seem so much more snuggly than regular snuggles!

världen's bästa farfar...

fyller år!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FARFAR!
WE LOVE YOU!

another day of work out in röke

nothing like starting the day off with a happy baby! eijla is loving her high chair. i think she hopes that it will soon involve proper food. but after breakfast it was time to work.
zoe gave pappa some pointers on how to spray paint the garage, especially since he had to do everything higher than 106 cm!
but that did not keep her from working hard on the floor of the porch. she is a painting queen.
and what did farfar do? good question. no really, after a hard day of work, he got to squeeze in some eijla snuggles. the house is now officially a bit more green!

Thanksgivinge came early to Tyringe

we managed to celebrate american thanksgiving for the second year in a row here in tyringe. mormor cooked all day, we had all the fixins, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and even cranberry sauce.
but since mormor was going back to states we had to have it a couple of weeks early. not a problem, as swedes don´t know the difference. the pilgrims and the native americans never came here! zoe was in a great mood and managed to entertain all the grandparents. i think they were all splitting a gut by then end of the evening.
farmor and farfar stayed over so they could play the next day. farmor and zoe got very serious with the play doh, there was a lot of stuff to make!
meanwhile, farfar and pappa put a big hole in the wall! no, seriously they took out an old window and replaced it with a new one, and it is amazing the difference it has made in the heating of our basement. it actually stays room temperature down there now!
and well, this picture is here because they are just so darn cute! happy thanksgiving to everyone!

zoe 1st bicycle!

last year when we were in central america, we stayed at a place where there was a little girl with a pink bike. zoe loved that bike, she would sit on it and wiggle about and giggle with glee, despite the fact that her feet did not come close to touching the pedals. so farfar promised to buy her a bike when we got back to sweden, she was just so cute, he could not resist. but last year she inherited a tricycle from our neighbors, so farfar didn´t get his chance. when we came home this year, she immediately noticed whenever anyone went by with a bicycle. especially when it was a smaller child, oh how she wanted one. soon she was insisting on calling up farfar and asking him to buy a bike. "farfar handla cyckel till mig" och "jag vill här en lila cyckel". so sure enough zoe had a great surprise from farfar and farmor, she woke up sunday morning to find a beautiful purprle (okay and pink) bicycle waiting for her. oh was she excited. here is a shot of her on her first ever bicycle ride. it only took her about 10 minutes before she started getting a hang of the forward pedaling. zoe, farmor, and i went all the way down to the playground and back. though there were a lot of pauses, as zoe had to get off her bike and check things out, which usually meant smelling the flowers. it was pretty darn cute.

pappa and farfar off to scotland november 9-13

My dad retired after 43 years at vägverket (he was a road engineer). We had been talking about going to Scotland for a while and now we finally did. After 6 months of hard work for me and 43 years of work (almost the same) for dad we took off. Our first flight from Gothenburg to Glasgow was delayed for 6 hours so we had time to play some cards and have a few beers (or dad did, I was going to drive when we landed). After a long wait we arrived in Glasgow at midnight. Got our car and drove to a hotel. Short planning for the next day and then it was time to sleep.

We had 3 relaxing, whiskey soaking, great days. We managed to find one of Scotland’s best pubs with its own beer distillery (both anita and eimi had a nice laugh that evening when we called after a visit). Of course we had to try all the different kinds of beer they made (luckily only 4). We went to the oldest, smallest and biggest distilleries + a few more.

And I think there was a back thought to have only 1 driver… me. After a smell I had to give them all to that old man.


Well it’s not the last time for me in Scotland. It was super nice.

farfar´s or zoe´s godis?

in sweden candy or treats are called godis (pronounced very much like goodies). it is a bit of a swedish tradition for children to have godis on saturdays. we do not really abide by this tradition, as we do not often have godis at all. however, thomas is a bit of sweet tooth sometimes, and has taught zoe that if she goes shopping with farfar, she should look at him real sweetly and ask ever so nicely for godis, or "gueeeys" as zoe calls them. so when farfar and farmor come up for a visit, there often is a bag of godis in the house for the day. the question is who is it that eats them up?


last night it was farfar who seemed to think the godis were his, but zoe, that sneaky little girl that she is always wins in the end, and it was her adorable chocolate mouth and small hand deep down in the bag that gave her away. the godis gris (candy pig translated from swedish) is none other than our very own zoe sassafras!