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???

;)

A reunited Family

A husband, a wife, three children and a dog - the family is complete again!!!
Actually we have been for a week now, but we haven't had any internet connection in our apartment and I haven't been able to tell you...  Now we have borrowed my Mom's wireless modem for a couple of days and are eagerly waiting for our internet to be hooked up.

On Thursday of last week I drove 6.5 hours to the airport in Stockholm to pick up my dear husband and two dogs.

5:30 am sunrise...

It was great seeing them again and the dogs had done really well with the flight over.

We hurried up and loaded the car and drove the 6.5 hours back.  I don't know who was more tired... Danny who had been flying all night or me who had slept 3 hours the night before and driven since 4:30 am!  We did make it home safe and sound to some kiddoes that were bursting with excitement to see their Daddy and dogs again.

... and a dog super-excited to see her "mommy" again after 7 months!!!

We are all doing well and enjoying and adjusting to life here in Sweden.  Skyler and Porter have had a great first week of school - which I will tell you all about later.

My Mom had another blood transfusion on Friday, which stabilized her blood count so she could receive her chemo on Monday.  All went well though she has her bouts of tiredness after her treatments.  Yesterday she went to see the eye doctor who determined that she has cataract (gråstarr) on both eyes - more than likely caused by all the cortisone that she has to take.  She has said that her eyesight has gotten much worse fast and the doctor showed that she only has 10% eyesight out of her right eye and 40% out of her left.  She is not allowed to drive her car anymore.  Other doctors have warned about the side effects of the cortisone and also said that as long as she's under treatment there's not much she can do to her eyes.  This eye doctor, however, feels like my Mom has enough to worry about and shouldn't have to be limited by her eyesight.  He said there is very little risk involved to significantly improve her sight and has agreed to do surgery on her eyes in about a month.  It makes me happy that he is thinking of her quality of life and I'm excited for my Mom to have something good to look forward to.  Until then - I'll be introducing myself as Private Chauffeur Erika!  Once again, this so enforces our choice to move to Sweden.  I don't even want to think about how things would be if we weren't here...

She works hard for the money...

I keep feeling like I haven't exercised the way I planned this summer.  But then again, when I look at our pictures I realize how much physical work we've been doing mostly every day!  I promise you - shoveling gravel and running a wheelbarrow up a hill a few times beats any casual jog around the neighborhood!

I am still looking forward to getting into a routine with my workouts again.  It's been a long time since I really pushed myself - I miss that.

I am glad to announce that we got an apartment on Frösön, the island where I spent most of my years growing up!  I am so excited that it all worked out and that we can get settled before the school starts for the kids.  So today, the kids and I have spent our day painting and fixing up furniture that we've had stored or found at auctions, while my Mom continued working on her house...

Skyler painted her own mirror that she bought at an auction for 30kr ($5).  It took a lot of restraint not to comment on her dripping paint, but she was so happy about doing it herself I had to take a deep breath and bite my tongue... ;)

Olympic Games of Näcksta

What do you do when the kids are bored and fighting every chance they get?  Make them compete against each other!  Well actually, trying to tire them out as much as possible was more the reason behind our Olympic Games of Näcksta that were held yesterday...

We started off the games with a flag-ceremony and the Swedish national anthem.

First out was a thrilling long jump competition...

Maud was my measuring supervisor... 

Followed by a nail-biting 20 meter hurdling race...

 Where Ollie fell, but got right up again!  No child or animal was hurt during this competition... ;)

Javeling was fun, but a bit tricky...

And during the long distance running we lost the youngest competitor to bug watching...

Luckily he returned for the final stage of the Olympics... apple bobbing!

The competitors were then awarded with a golden-Digestive-cracker-medal and a pin...

Made for a pretty awesome day - and a lot more compliant kids...

Need to reflect...

After spending two whole hours trying to get 3 little kids to sleep - or at least just be QUIET - while trying to make important phone calls to possible apartment and house renters, I am finally sitting down on the couch looking over some amazing pictures of them to remind myself why I love them... ;)  The following pictures are from two weeks ago, when our friends Maud and Anders took the kids for the day and visited a Sami village.  They also brought them on the gondola to the top of Åre ski mountain to play in some snow!

I am so grateful to have people around us that give so much of their time and love to us.  It takes a village to raise a child.  And even though I kind of wish there was a whole village here putting my kids to sleep tonight instead of me, I have to take more time out of my day to reflect and appreciate how truly lucky I am!!!