Sweden

Vi are finally in Sweden after leaving England Friday evening. Everything went really smooth and we were lucky with our hotel choices. The trip couldn´t have been better and I am glad that our kids are such good little travelers.
I also LOVED our decision to take the ferry from Kiel to Göteborg. It made everything so much easier and S. was the happiest little kid when she got to meet, play and dance with Nicke Nyfiken. Time on the ship just flew by and once we arrived in Sweden we had only 3 more hours in the car to get to grandpas, aka mormors, house. If we ever take the car back to Sweden again, traveling by ferry is going to be a given, even if it is a bit more expensive.

We are also glad the weather is so much better than in England so that we finally get our portion of sunshine. The plan is to be prevalently in the summerhouse so you wont hear much from us during our stay there as we don´t have internet.

Before I say good bye for today, here are new S. comments that we found quite amusing:

S. and M are taking a bath and S. looks at his body hair and says: Wow, Daddy, you have nearly as much hair as teddy, except he does have hair "under" his feet as well. What a compliment. ;)

And also this:
S. is talking quite a lot about the fact that dinosaurs have gone extinct but nowadays she is also including her farmor, who died in 2004, into that group. So now it is the dinosaurs AND farmor who have gone extinct.

Vaccation

The date for our trip has finally arrived. Only a couple more hours and we will be on the road. We are taking the car back to Sweden, which means that we won´t reach our destination before Tuesday (if I manage to keep track of all the bookings for the 2348907 million ferries we have to take).
The packing is all done and it amazes me every time how much more stuff you need once kids come into the picture. It looks more like we are moving then anything else.

All right, time to get the final preparations done. Wish us nice weather. It is raining cats and dogs over here...

Kisses

Sleepy sunday

I had sleep in morning today, while M. was put on kids duty. At 10 o´clock he woke me up with a hot cup of Nespresso coffee and steamed milk. A perfect way to start the morning if you ask me.
Now, after going through a large pile of pancakes with syrup, we are on our way to go to Lichfield. I don´t know much about the city but we heard it is worth a visit. Will let you know if it is true.

Yesterday we went to Nottingham, which I love. It´s perfect for shopping and we discovered this store with super bargains on sports and outdoor equipment the first time we where there. I think by now, we are one of their best customers as it is impossible for us to leave the store without buying something. This time we found new "running" shoes for S. for 7 pounds, crocs for Mattias for 8 pounds and nice hiking socks for a tenner.*

At LUSH you could get your face painted and S. walked around as a little cat for the rest of the day. While the lady was doing S. face a guy came in and ask if she could turn him into Tom Cruise. Guess I would have stayed a bit longer had she said yes. ;)

We ate Lunch/dinner at Wakamama and S. loved the chopping sticks so much that she decided to ask whether she could take some home. She took a handful and bravely went over to the lady that served us and said in german: "WOMAN, can I take them home?"
It cracks me up every time she says woman (Frau), not only because it is a funny way to address a person but also because she can´t pronounce it correctly and says "Sau" instead, meaning sow. Luckily, the waitress did not get a word. ;)

After Nottingham City we went to IKEA so that M. could get some swedish food. He is happy like a child every time he gets to buy Swedish buns, sausages, beer and candy. :)
Before we went inside we had S. play at the playground for a bit, where she had an encounter with a chubby girl. She looked at the girl and then shouted quite amazed: "Mommy, the girl must have eaten LOTS of candy. She is chubby". Luckily, she said it in german this time as well...

Oh, and if you wondered why I did not buy anything in Nottingham then let me tell you that I had already done my part of shopping in Ashbourne in the morning. They have a HUGE sale at Saks and I bought clothes (Odd Molly!!!) for 1/3 of the regular price. Guess if I was happy.

That is it for now. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn´t start raining, the sky does not look very promising...

Get your aprons on

It was my neighbors birthday yesterday and he had wished for some of my home made buns as a present. AS it was still rainy (surprise!) I thought it would be a nice stay in activity and decided to do the baking together with S.
We put I. down to sleep, got our aprons on, put flour on the table and just started to get "dirty" when I. woke up again. After several unsuccessful attempts to get her back into sleeping mode, we finally took her with us into the kitchen. BIG mistake!!! She was screaming bloody murder, which stressed me a bit as I realized that I would be running out of time if we did not get the buns baked very soon. That resulted in that I was rolling the dough, while I was singing and piling up toys in front of her to calm her down. Luckily it worked for a bit and I managed to get my first tray put in the oven. But, oh no, when I turned around I see S. with the "dough flattening thing" rolling over the dough that I had just filled with poppy seeds. All the filling ran out on the table...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I tried to rescue the remainder when I hear "pffffffttttttt" from I. Shitty diaper alarm. I take her to the bathroom, change diaper and come back into a kitchen covered with kitchen paper. S. thought it looked nice. By then I was really close to a meltdown and my idea to make it a nice little S. and mommy baking thing did not seem that appealing any more. Anyhow, we made it through the end, all of us are still alive and the buns turned out ok even though they don´t look like they are supposed to. Given that the English don´t know that it doesn´t really matter. Let´s just archive it under mission accomplished. :)

The party in the evening was lovely and we got to meet a couple of really nice new people.

Chickenrun

Just got home from the playground and wanted to see how our little garden is doing, when I found a broken egg, chicken shit and a lot of feathers in our outside area. Next I see a chicken staring at me. It almost feels like farmville has become reality.

Lost Animal. Mayday, mayday! After giving it a bit of thought I realize that it must be the neighbors hen Phoebe (or Daisy or Carry...it changes name every week), which they got quite recently and after sending an alarm text message to them L. promises to send someone to come and catch it. I am too much of a chicken myself to do that and I never really liked to be picked on. L. tells me they had a fox in the garden this morning which led the chicken to take a hike. Understandable and it also explains all the feathers.

Concerning my "garden", things are really improving. We have heaps of squash (that more or less grow over everything else) and I am now trying to find good receipes to turn them into something eatable. Other than that it is carrots and salad that grow as they are supposed to I am looking forward to harvest everything very soon!!! My very first homegrown vegetables, yummy.