garden days

anya came over to play today!  eijla and her play so well together now,  they took turns pushing each other in the swing

 then the girls got a ride while we went out to the field to steal flowers..

 

then it was more work for pappa,  man, that boy can rota-til!  gonna be nice to have grass instead of stones.  our feet are really going to appreciate it this summer.

despite the cold it is almost impossible to keep warm clothes on our girls!  but they kept themselves warm hopping on the trampoline with our neighbor ebba.  they loved india, but are glad to be back with their friends.

cykels och blommor

the weather is warming up, the flowers are growing and pappa has gone back to work.  in our effort to survive a few hours without pappa snuggles we took a bike ride.  bonita loved it.  ran around like a crazy dog, i think she knows spring is here too.  zoe of course found lots of flowers to pick, so it was a very slow bike ride.

zoe has actually outgrown her bike, so eijla has inherited it, she can barely reach the pedals, but she loves riding it anyway,  mamma just has to push her along most of the time.  zoe is getting really good on her scooter.  cannot believe how fast the girls are growing up.

the tidholms!

our favorite swenglish couple is in sweden!  yeah the tidholms have arrived.  the girls are always very excited to see auntie zita and uncle fredrik.  they invited us out to their summer stuga to join sven, elin, and them for tasty food, great company and well just a grand ol time in general.  we even managed to to get a group shot.  i do not think we have all been in the same place for years.  it was fun.

then we convinced the lovely couple to come home to us where there awaited the world´s biggest crayfish.  a very early, but lovely crayfish party was had by all.  we miss them already,  so sad their visits are always so short, but it must be about our time to go and visit them in new jersey!  thanks for a great couple of days you guys!

then i throw this shot in from the other day with the girls, zoe is showing eijla a game on the ipad, but apparently something had taken her by surprise.  yeah, they are so damn cute.  i just looked and it turns out this is our 500th post!  wow!  who knew i would bore the world so much with our lives!  congrats to us on the big 500!

here come the lambs...

we are readjusting to life back in sweden.  but heading down south to visit farmor and farfar every chance we get.  super excited that he is home from the hospital, and of course the girls thought it was great checking out the first of this year´s lambs.  a cute little fuzzy white guy. 

 ended up having a little mini foto shoot with the girls in the sheep enclosure.  i cannot help it, i think my kids are adorable!

thanks for the sheep visit, lovely company and good food, farmor and farfar. it is always a treat to visit bjärred.

bring on the spring!

it is nice to be home again, despite the cold.  we are spending as much time as possible out in the garden, getting it prepped for when it stops freezing at night, and well, just playing around and having fun.  the girls gravitated back to their play tower right away.  eijla was so cute even though we made her have her winter overall, she insisted on wearing a tutu over it!  what a silly goose!

 zoe playing tit-ut from the tower..

 and while we played, pappa rotertilled up both my garden and the girls soon to be wildflower patch.  what a great guy, think we will keep him.

 then we found a great deal on a riding lawnmower on blocket, and could not pass it up, even though the grass is not even growing yet.  it is still fun to ride.

 and then of course there is much planting of seeds in the greenhouse,  it is not so green now, but it will be.  oh yes it will be, the girls are helping see to that.  bring on the spring!

back in cold, cold sweden

well, well, well, after a long flight, and we accidently leaving thomas´ laptop on the plane, and then having to wait hours for them to bring it down to us in the terminal, we made it back to swedish  soil.  big hugs to farmor who picked us up and then a stop at the hospital to hug farfar, recovering from his surgery, and then it was back to to bjärred for a nap.  but wait what is that?!?!  it is snowing!  oh man.  so much for coming home to the lovely swedish springtime. :)

farmor had an utställning på ottopersgård this weekend and she was even helping kids to make there own.  a pretty cool idea.  we stopped by to show our support.  pretty cool farmor.

zoe even got to try her hand at it.  here she is showing off her new mug, pretty proud.  she is excited for farmor the glaze and burn it. 

then it was back home to röke where the girls got there mormor snuggles on after five months. 

feels good to be home, but missing india already.

our last day in dehli - adventure island!

after the taj it was back to big, crazy, noisy, dirty dehli.  we spent a day shopping like crazy to get as much stuff as we had space in our backpacks for that india had to offer.  i even bought nearly 50 meters of fabric, and for less than 200 sek!    while shopping, thomas got the craving for some beef. so he decided it would be mcdonalds for lunch.  but yeah, there is not beef at the mc donalds in india!  so much for that one, has to wait till we get home!

our last day in india we hopped on the fabulous dehli subway and heading out to what we were assured was a water and amusement park combined, adventure island.  i can assure you all now, adventure island is NOT water park, but we had fun anyway. the girls hanging on the subway...

security in india is fun, especially with the gender segregation.  men walk through a metal detector and woman, well we get felt up by other women.!

the girls had a great time at adventure island.  they went on ride after ride, though i have admit it was definitely the most disappointing of the parks we have been to here in india.  it was still fun for the girls for a couple hours.

we stopped for a snack before hopping back on the subway, and they had happy face fries!  you know they were fun to eat!

ah, yes, our trip has come to an end.  our last meal here in india we will be leaving in the early morning hours tomorrow to fly back home to sweden.  it has been a great trip, with many adventures.  i do believe india has won our hearts and we will be back someday. 

good bye for now india, and thanks for all the wonderful memories!

last but not least, the TAJ!

the entire trip i have been afraid that we would be lazy in the end of the trip and skip the taj mahal.  luckily i was wrong.  we hopped on a plane to delhi...

 after a quick night's sleep in delhi we headed to the train station to try and buy a ticket.  it was a bit hectic, but i shoved my way through and managed to get us some general class tickets.  dirt cheap, but well, in general class there are about 100 people in three square meters.  we walked down the the wagon that we should be on, and it was so full you could not even look in or try and climb the steps, so we snuck in sleeper class. we heard that the conductors will let you upgrade on board.  about an hour before we were to hop off the conductor came by and i told him we wanted to upgrade, he said now that was not possible and we should pay a fine of 1200 rps (150 sek),  our tickets had only costed 80 rps (10 sek), so this is  a pretty steep fine.  i argued and said we should be able to upgrade, and he got annoyed and said he would come back to us.  but he never did and we snuck off the train at our stop, and although we saw him at the station in agra, we just kept on walking, naughty us! yeah for dirt cheap transportation.  thomas and the girls enjoyed their last train ride in india...

 yes, why does one go to agra?  to see the taj mahal of course.  i have been looking forward to it the whole trip.  from the train we took a rickshaw to our hotel, and ate some lunch on the rooftop restaurant,  while i can say the food was not that exciting, the view was not bad at all.

after a good nights sleep, thomas and got up really early to watch the sunrise over the taj mahal from the top of the hotel,  it was pretty smoggy, and not that exciting of a sunset.  but after breakfast we headed to the wonder of the world...

 the girls loved all the flower carvings.  i think they may just have inspected nearly every inch!  it really is a beautiful building.

 after wandering the grounds for a couple of hours, zoe took a break from admiring the architecture and went tadpole fishing in the fountains.  she actually found some.  pretty funny.

yeah it was a fun day out at fabulous sight. glad we did not miss it.