the long journey home...

well, it should not have been such a long journey.  there was a bit of a misunderstanding due to how far i was along in my pregnancy.  qatar airlines had informed us that we could fly until week 36, when we called and asked before the trip.  they did not tell us however that we would need a doctors note after week 32.  and we never thought to ask.  so they let us fly out of goa in the middle of night, but when we arrived in qatar, they would not let us on our connecting flight.  Instead after hours of back and forth arguing and heated discussions, they finally fixed visas for all of us to go out of the airport and sent me to a doctor where i had to have an ultrasound to prove i was not about to go into labor (luckily the airline paid for everything but the ultrasound, or it could have been a very expensive layover).   after being awake all night and then fighting with them all day, and then the long wait for the ultrasound, they put us up in a very nice hotel for a few hours before our next flight. i believe that i fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow and did not wake up till they started banging on our door that our ride back to the airport was there.  too bad we were too tired to appreciate the hotel, or the food, or even qatar!  cannot remember that last time i was THAT tired!

 well, once we finally could fly, we came up to a bunch of snow!  talk about weather shock!  the girls loved it though.  glad we manage to stock up on sun and beach before coming home to this cold.

goan adventures with farmor and farfar

while farmor and farfar visit we make sure to do hit all the fun activities nearby, including the anjuna market, where  you can buy almost anything...

 and the local chaudi market, with their yummy and oh so cheap vegies.  zoe loaded up on her beloved snack, peas.

 and a visit to the nature reserve and butterfly park.  see, we did not spend all day, everyday at the beach!  :-)

games and education, on the beach...

life doesn´t stop just cuz you are in paradise.  zoe has been really good about keeping up with her school work while we are here.

 

even thomas has gotten in the mood and is reading.  that only seems to happen in india (when else would one have the time?)

 

and what is an evening on the beach with good food and sand between your toes without a friendly game of uno.  i think zoe and farmor are cheating cuz they keep winning!  zoe and eijla have decided they want to name the baby uno.  not so sure about that one.

love that there is a fireworks celebration nearly everynight. it is fun just to celebrate nothing but the fact that we are alive and life is good.

Off to india!

off on a new adventure.  this time a lazy month in the south of goa!  farmor and farfar hanger med för ett par veckor med!

well behaved children on our long flights!  we were lucky today! 

PARIS!!!!

in celebration of our 10 year anniverseary Thomas booked us a trip to paris, without kids!  that is right our first time traveling without children since zoe came along.  amazingly we had a great time, and luckily discovered that the magic was still there.  but being the most romantic city world did not hurt.

 we ate at these tiny bistros with super yummy food, one of our favorites just happened to have another great chef´s name.  hee hee.

it was a wonderful trip, thanks to the paris pass we did just about everything we could think of.  river tours, double decker bus tour, the chocolate museum, the lovre,  romantic walks,  evening markets, wax museum, the dali museum, the list goes on and on.  it was fun to be a real tourist.  we even left our love lock on the pont des arts. thanks for 10 crazy, happy, insane, loving, full of ups and downs, but would not trade it for the world, years of marriage, my one and only dumbass!

our longest train ride!

oj, are we tired!  we hoped on our train, finding our sleeper section nearly empty.  and enjoyed the wind in our hair as we watched the scenery go by. 

zoe even hopped off the train at a station and bought water all by herself.  she was pretty happy that we let her keep the change as well.

there was plenty of way too sweet tea and coffee for sale, along with popcorn, i think the girls ate three bags.

 but as the ride continued people crowded in and the girls got tired and grumpy.  finally everyone fell asleep to the sound of the tracks and the roar of trains heading in the opposite direction.  knowing we had to get off in the middle of night, i had a hard time sleeping, and by 2 was up in fear we might miss our stop, they do not announce stops on indian trains like they do in sweden, you have try and catch the name of the station as you pull in, and hope there are some signs in english on your side of the train!  finally we reached margao, and hopped off as best we could with all our bags and two sleeping princesses, which was not easy with all the people crowding onto the train.  spent a couple of hours chillin out waiting for the first morning bus, and then finally it was a rickshaw to the beach.  the girls were exhausted, and so were we.  good thing we have nearly three weeks here of chilling out on the beach before heading back to delhi.

a little cuteness in delhi

Yesterday was our last day in delhi.  looking forward to getting to a slightly smaller big city.  we walked around.  checked out random things and stopped for chai and a lassi when the mood took us.  managed to get a cellphone and sim card. but apparently getting a sim card is similar to getting a visa, so it was a hassle to get passport fotos and everything, but in the end somebody finally sold us one. 

 then today it was our first indian train ride.  the girls loved it.  zoe build a fort up on the over bunk, and they crawled up and down and all around.  so tomorrow jaipur awaits!

more than a decade later, india, finally.

nearly 12 years ago when i met thomas, my plan was to head to india on my next trip.  BUT  sometimes love is stronger than the travel bug.  however,  finally he came around and we are off to india!  yippeeeee!   eijla prepared herself well for the trip..

 after a night of flights we are arrived in delhi. the hotel sign was so sweet i could not help but take a pic.  thomas will now be known as sincerely thomas the rest of the trip...

 since we were all exhausted we headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest, then it was off for a bit of exploring.  for some unknown reason the hotel owner gave us a taxi free of charge for the afternoon.  he drove us around to tons of places that we were not interested in, and a very overpriced restaurant, but we got to see a little of delhi.  by the time we got back to the hotel  everyone was wiped.... but tomorrow is another day full of possibilities.

back on swedish soil.

none of us are morning people, but we all managed to make it up and out the door to the airport on time. thanks to tony our wonderful chauffeur. so we flew back to göteborg...

and do not tell tony, but on the way home we stopped by for a visit withe franz and anna and their two adorable little ones.  they had this great outdoor farm/play area nearby.  had a fika, did a bit of playing and enjoying the company...

little inez was just so cute and so little.  not sure i remember that eijla was ever that small.  now she is jsut a bit ball of buse!

they even had some animals there that the girls could pet, including this huge rabbit.

great seeing franz, anna, esikil and meeting inez.  zoe and eijla though inez was just the greatest.

and the two good looking gentlemen of the house...

still a bit of drive ahead of us, we stopped an hour or so from home and bought picnic supplies at ica, and headed to the nearest beach we could find. 

some moments in life are just too perfect for words...

believe it or not. zoe took this picture, she is really turning into a little photographer.  i might have some serious competition soon!

what a great trip.  i tell ya,  traveling with my family is just one of those things i am so grateful for. 

time for moving on...

so we have completely fallen in love with cambodia, and especially siem reap, but the time has come to move on. the people have been great. the food tasty. the markets plentiful. the temples fascinating. the weather good, and the whiskey insanely cheap (less than 2 dollars a bottle!)
eijla was packed and ready to go before the rest of us. wish i only had to pack my toys!
asians like to cram westerners into really crowded buses, especially after promising again and again, no it will not be a mini bus, no i promise it is a big bus, and when you arrive at the border not only is it a mini bus, but one without any storage rack, so zoe and i got to share the seat with about 15 large backpacks, lucky for me zoe is so small, or i might not been able to breathe. eijla sat up front with pappa, but since they promised a big bus, i did not feel bad for them when eijla threw up all over their seats. just felt bad for thomas who got drenched in it.
and so it is back to bangkok. good bye cambodia, we will miss you, but i am pretty confident that we will be back.

and we are off!

farfar drove us to the copenhagen airport now that they have closed svågertorp train station (boo hoo). he called later to let us know they had closed the bridge between sweden and denmark just minutes after he made it back to sweden due to falling ice. we were very happy to hear that he had made it back. zoe was delighted to find colorfully painted elefants on our way to security and begged to be photographed with them. ah, my little photo model!
after security we headed to the little play area for the girls to pass the time before the flight. eijla found a little wagon she pushed herself around in, it was so cute.
zoe insisted on holding eijla while waiting to take off. we had a window seat on the first flight and the girls really enjoyed it.

the second flight we had the forward seats with extra leg room and where they could hang a bassinet for eijla. thomas and i really enjoyed that!
it was a long night but our little troopers were great little travelers!
exhausted but happy to be in bangkok. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

prague

So time to get back on the bandwagon of the blogging world... july and august passed in a blink of an eye, those entries to come so, but thought i would get started with our most recent adventure, Prague. zoe and papa hanging out in front of the astronomical clock, looks like it just happened to be repair time, or there is a really lifelike clock arm.

they say small children are afraid to be too far away from their parents, and will not wandering too far off. "they" have not met zoe, there was a lot of chasing her down streets just trying to keep her in sight. buseflicka.
the market was full of all kind of handicrafts, zoe bought herself this necklace with a giraffe on it, she was so proud of it. there were also all kinds of crazy puppets all over prague, i actually found the majority of them rather scary looking...

our tour guide planning our next outing.
and what trip to prague would be complete without a walk over the charles bridge, and in such great company too!
heading back over the bridge at sunset. zoe found a playground on the other side and had a blast, was a bit hard to pull her away when it was time to go find some dinner.
zoe had to stop in ALL the puppet stores, there was no high speed cruising of this town.
a family portrait inside the castle grounds, just in front of the cathedral. not sure who has a bigger belly, me or zoe.
yeah prague!

zoe really wanted to go for a ride in a horse and buggy, so after hours and hours of convincing us she was a dyktig tjej, we rode in style. zoe loved every minute.
yeah, we were definitely not the only tourists. Prague is much more crowded than it was when we were there before (separately, this was our first time together).
a sausage burger? really? that just cracked me up.
and this was zoe´s favorite ice cream store, she got her daily fix here. chocolate of course.
we had a our last meal here. it was a really cozy little place, with good food too. one of my memories from my last trip to prague was the rarity of restaurants, besides super fancy ones, and now they are everywhere. we had some really lovely food on the trip. yum.
one last family shot all in all a lovely weekend. thomas really did a great job fixing everything for us. we has a fabulous hotel and a really nice relaxing time. though one of the highlights was going to the live ballet of swan lake. even zoe was totally entranced. thanks papa for an unforgettable weekend. we love you.
and then there was the plane ride home, just love her expression. think she was satisfied with the trip.