My grandma Elin was asking me if I thought it was hard raising two little kids. I told her that although I love spending time with them they sure keep me busy. She then told me that when she had my uncle Ulf and my dad (mid 40s) they didn't have running water inside the house, so she had to carry the water from a well about a 100 yards away. They used cloth diapers so she had to do laundry every day and boil the diapers. Her story gave me some perspective. Also, she went on to have three more children in four years. pheew...

I asked her how she used to get her kids to sleep. "oh, pretty much like you do, I used to carry them around" she told me. Thought it was cute.

midsummer

Midsummer is one of the biggest holidays in Sweden. Basically, it stems back from before Christianity and it's a celebration for fertility and good harvest. Everybody dances around a maypole (use your imagination to see the symbolism here). We had a full house after the dancing and my mom made a big smörgåsbord which I unfortunately forgot to photograph.

As Jason is busy moving our stuff across the country, on this side of the Atlantic things are going at a much slower pace. Today we met my old friend Joakim for coffee at a local café. Jocke always has a lot of fun things going on. His last adventures include a marathon through the Sahara desert (to raise awareness) and another project in Zimbawe. Other than that, he's finishing up his M.A in library and information science. It was nice seeing him. I feel really bad for Jason who has to do the cross country trekk, but I heard they're planning a pit stop in Las Vegas which should be something to look forward to.

long vacation in sweden

After a nice week with Jason's family in Boston, we headed over to Sweden. The trip went really well, and Liam's first words as we landed in Stockholm were "Where's the snow?"

We're having a great time here. The kids adjusted their schedules in a couple of days and we're now just enjoying ourselves, spending more time outdoors than indoors. We miss Jason and I feel bad that he has to do the move to California all by himself. However, I'm pretty happy that the kids don't have to deal with the moving process. Today, we're going to the shopping center where my father will be signing his new book. Should be fun.

Erik got his first tooth on wednesday
morning philosophy
working on that pincer grip
With a few days to go in this house, I'm finally happy with our desk area. (don't mind the stuff on top of the cabinet and the diaper package on the floor)
We're in the process of wrapping up our lives here in fort lauderdale. Soon, we'll head up to boston and from there we continue to Sweden where we'll spend the better part of the summer. I've been trying to pack up our stuff, but since Jason is in Califonia this week and the kids take turns not sleeping, it's been very challenging. This morning, Liam is sleeping in so I got to spend some one-on-one time with Erik which is nice.

This is the vision that met me this morning when I came back after changing Erik's diaper. The moral of the story: never leave a two year old alone with a box of cereal

dealing with the consequences