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.

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.

bathroom update

things are moving along. we finally grouted all the walls and floor so we could put the shower in! yipee! now if we can just convince plummer to connect all our piping we can finally be somewhat clean people again. i cannot wait.

6 years and still talking to each other...

yesterday was thomas´ and my 6th wedding anniversary. this charming man not only surprised me with beautiful flowers, but an amazingly delicous shrimp cocktail for a starter, and a lovely dinner, which of course included one of his famous mouth-watering sauces. thanks thomas, i am so grateful that i fooled you into marrying me!

zoe goes sledding

we usually seem to manage to get away every winter before the snow hits, but we didn´t this year. so zoe finally got to use the sled our neighbor dorthea gave us (it was full of mushrooms she picked in the forest, yum) last year. here she is going down the hill with pappa for the first time...
it was quite the day for photographs, even bonita was in the mood for posing, when thomas got a shot. i love having such a huge beatiful forest as a neighbor.

and the obligitory family shot...finally getting my fair share of them.

wearing out one generation at a time...

farfar and thomas mounted our very lovely bathroom radiator today. thomas was so proud. i think the bathroom is really starting to look nice. i cannot wait to see the final result.while farfar and thomas were busy working in the bathroom, farmor and zoe were busy working on their own projects, yep that is right, the amazingly cheap long term investment of play doh. farmor showed zoe some of her special techniques she uses with her ceramic "play doh".
but i think we might have worked farfar too hard. found him sleeping in the shelving shortly after dinner. he is the one always saying that we should "wear out one generation at a time", seems like we are doing a pretty good job of it.

a good investment

when we were in the states last, on our way home from central america. the lovely auntie zita and us made a trip to the local new jersey toys ´r us. what a wonderland, aisles and aisles of amazing things that we just would not buy her. however, as auntie zita can attest, we did buy her many a thing anyway. one of our best buys however was called a mountain of play doh. it was cheap, but bulky, but we guessed it might be a hit. countless hours later of "me leka lera" (translated from swedish to "me play clay"), we are patting ourselves on the back. here zoe is serving up a plate of colorful strawberries, bananas, pears, and balls. bon apetit!

still renovating that bathroom

so even with thomas´ trip to scotland, we are still moving forward with the bathroom. before he left we were able to get all the walling up, which due to swedish wetroom rules is very expensive cement coating styrofoam. well, that is at least how i would describe it. then also according to swedish laws, we had to paint sealer multiple times. basically, we could fill our bathroom up with water and use it as a huge bathtub! when thomas came home from his luxurious trip, the tiling began.zoe was a great help as usually, still amazes us how strong that kid is, she carried a lot of tiles, and they are not small, nor light. zoe is so tough!
i got to help a bit, adding to the room, with a bit of mosiac like tiling.
and then zoe had to check it all out, making sure we knew what we were doing. feels great to finally get it looking like a bathroom again, well, almost.

zoe and maya on a playdate

we had maya over for a few hours yesterday. it was hilarious, the girls got into everything they could. they ran circles and circles.
they screamed, they laughed. there were serious moments and completely ridiculous moments. glad the girls have become such good friends.

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.

time for a new bathroom

so even though when we moved into our house 6 years ago, i said the first room we would renovate would be the bathroom because i hated the pink tiles. well, finally the time has come. lars (farfar) came up for a couple of days to help us tear everything down and put in a new window. i am so excited, though being without a shower for a few weeks is not all that fun.


zoe was such a great help. everything from helping carry out the disgusting old plastic mat on the floor to sweeping up all the crap. so much for our vacation, the next few weeks are devoted to finishing this bathroom before we head off to asia.