Gothenburg by day...

The Hubby and I are on a high speed train to Gothenburg.  If I had a smart phone I could have twittered you about it - or posted pictures straight into my Facebook account.  Instead I am being made fun of by the conductor on the train for having the oldest phone ever!!!  They have a great service here in Sweden where you can get the ticket codes SMS:ed to your cell phone and don't need a ticket.  Of course I used this service, but the conductor said with that old phone I can't even read the codes!

Then she said - and I quote - "Not even the 85 year old ladies that travel by train have such an old phone..."  Hahaha - I was asking her to convince my husband that I need a smart phone, but unfortunately I think that Danny takes pride in the fact that we don't conform to the masses (!!!)

With all that cleared out of the way we are now enjoying a beautiful, scenic ride down to Stockholm and then across the country to Gothenburg where we will pick up our car that we shipped here from the States.  We have about a 9 hour train ride there and about an 11 hour drive back up to our city.  We are hoping to be able to visit the 3 offices needed to retrieve the car before they close today, so we can start our trip back as soon as possible.  Gothenburg is a beautiful city and I would love to visit more when we have more time, but for now we're keeping our fingers crossed that it will only be a day trip...  The plan was to sleep on the train, but since we don't have a car we decided to walk to the train station at 5 am this morning.  With the brisk walk and cool air I am now fully awake...  Here are a couple of pictures from our morning walk in to the city of Östersund.

Have a beautiful day!

Danny's 40th Birthday

We've had a great weekend celebrating my husband's 40th birthday.  FORTY... that is so far away for me, I can't even begin to imagine how he feels... ;) hahaha.

Danny is probably the most difficult person to shop for.  If there's something that he wants or something that he wants to do he gets it or does it, which doesn't make it easy for us when birthdays and holidays come along...  Thankfully the area around here is like made for him with a lot of outdoorsy activities.  I had been looking at zip-lining or zorbing ( rolling down a hill inside of a big bouncy ball!)  But finally decided on giving him a day of downhill mountain biking in our big ski resort Åre.

On Friday afternoon I asked Danny and the kids to get dressed and ready for a surprise adventure.  I drove them to the train station where they got a first note with tickets for a 1 1/2 hour train ride to Åre and a backpack filled with goodies.

My Mom and I jumped in the car and drove up to the ski resort and our friends' cabin where my Mom started preparing a nice dinner while I picked Danny and the kids up at the town plaza.  We ate a lovely dinner on Friday night, enjoyed a cozy evening and continued our adventures on Saturday morning...

After we got geared up at the bike store we took off for the mountain.

Of course I had been so focused on giving Danny a great experience, I wasn't even thinking about myself!  Riding straight down narrow paths full of rocks on steep hills was a bit out of my comfort zone!!!  Once I got a hang of it, however, it was totally AWESOME!  We found one path that became our favorite and Danny said he has never had so much fun on a bike before!
Here's a video from that path that I borrowed from Youtube:



Tired and euphoric we met up with the kids who had a great day with Mormor grilling hotdogs eating Saturday candy and playing around in the quaint village.

Happy 40th Birthday to my Love, my best Friend and my handsome Husband!

... a content man with helmet hair... ;)

I ran... and cried... and ran...

I've had a couple of pretty rough days with my Mom.  Yesterday one of her doctors called to tell her the results from her last body scan.  It showed some additional tumors on the liver and in the stomach cavity as well as a 15 cm tumor on her ovary - about as big as a grape fruit.  Today we met with an Oncologist to get some answers to our questions.  We mainly had one question, which was if they could remove the tumor on the ovary that has been growing quickly, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be an option since there are so many others and it would mean that she would have to put her treatments on hold in order to do so.  The plan is to continue her latest form of chemo that she only has had three treatments of so far and hope that they will make a difference.

Yesterday I ran... I dropped Skyler off at gymnastics and ran for 1 1/2 hour straight on the trails in the woods that surround our city.  I ran... and cried... and ran until I was feeling stronger and appreciating everything beautiful around me.  All of a sudden the ground was all wet and soggy and my pink running shoes were more brown than anything else.  But instead of getting upset about it I truly enjoyed the cold muddy water seeping in through my toes and playing with my senses.  By the time I was done running I had been reminded of how darn amazing life is and how we better enjoy it while we're here!

Today after our (not so uplifting) talk with the Oncologist my Mom reached her hand out to me and said "Take my hand and promise that we're going to give it all and try everything we can".  And this is how we continue... there is no other option!

This picture shows my Mom when we picked her up after one of her chemo treatments.  I'd like to think that seeing her grandchildren in the back seat helps lifting her mood...

I admire the strength and positive spirit of my Mom.  I don't even think the doctors know how to respond to her sometimes.  They probably think she's in denial.  Believe me, she's very aware of what a difficult form of cancer this is to treat.  But I still have to believe that if anybody can beat this, it is my Mother!

WE ARE CONNECTED!!!!!

We have lived in our apartment for 19 days now and have FINALLY received our own internet connection!  We don't have a TV and the kids haven't even asked for it, but Danny and I are the ones that have had a hard time being without internet.  It is crazy how used we are to staying connected with things through the internet.  We hardly watched TV in Virginia either, but always read the news or even watched some shows online.  Even more importantly, this is how we mainly stay in contact with our friends and family on the other side of the Atlantic ocean.  Now we are back - and it feels good!!! :)

Kids' School

Second week of school has begun and so far we are very pleased with the school we chose for the kids.  We bought monthly buss passes first thing and actually only ended up using our car once last week as a family!  The kids love the fact that they can ride the bus to and from school or in to town for practices etc.

Here are some pictures from the first day of school a week ago:

Tired babies that have now been moved to their own beds... ;)

 First bus ride to school! :)

Obligatory photo at the school grounds.  School starts at 8 am.

 Porter in the mud room where outdoor shoes are removed and changes of clothes for any possible weather is hanging(!)  Kids play outside at break times no matter the weather - Mamma and Pappa like! :)

Porter needing some time in Mammas lap while adjusting to the new class...

School being greeted by the Great Lake Monster "Birger"

 ... and uniting in a big circle with the the whole school of 500-something students.

Skyler changing in her mud room

Popo easing his way into the class (... with Mamma sitting safely within reach...)  Second day there were no problems, thank goodness!

Skyler at the school cafeteria where the kids serve themselves a warm meal (this day rice and chicken stew) accompanied with a salad bar, bread and butter and milk or water.  All free of charge, of course... ;)

Kids that stay for after-school hours get a second meal served...

1:15 pm and the school is done for the day!

In a couple of weeks our kids will be given something called "home language tutoring", for a couple of hours a week, with I think 3 other children at the school that have at least one English speaking parent.  Our county of about 125 000 people offer home language tutoring in 35 languages (!)  This is something that every school in Sweden by law has to offer.

Outstanding outdoorsy day!

We've had a beautiful first day of Fall today and it motivated us to spend most of the day outdoors.  We started off by going by the store for our traditional Saturday candy and continued our walk across the bridge to the city of Östersund.

Today was "activities day" at the city plaza where different sports clubs encouraged kids and grownups to try what they have to offer - and of course find new members before practices start for this semester.  The kids had so much fun trying all different kinds of sports...

I think the favorite was punching as many times as possible in 60 seconds! :)

Yesterday I found myself being very Swedish, standing at the bus-stop with my eyes closed, head tilted upward and soaking up the rays of the sun.  I guess us Swedes really make sure we take advantage of the nice days when we have them - maybe because we might not see the sun again for a few weeks...   Walking back towards our island i took a picture of typical Swedes lining up on benches appreciating the sun!

We then passed by Surfbukten - a modernized way of surfing with a pulling system

... and the rune stone - made and raised around year 1050, when our county was Christened.

After a bit of a rest in or apartment we spent the rest of the afternoon hiking up the local ski slope, enjoying the views from up there and picking blueberries and lingonberries in the woods.

Our beautiful city!

Danny taking a peak at the soccer fields below where Porter
will play soccer on Monday.

Skyler and I started filling up our bag of berries pretty fast, while the guys' bag wasn't filling up as fast...  I wonder who put the fewest berries in the bag???

;)