Sunday, May 31, 2015

Monday, May 25, 2015

Daily Jamie

May 23rd
"Go Måns!!!"
May 25th

Passion

Sweden's second hottest dude. Måns Zelmerlöw, won Eurovision this weekend. Otherwise super manly Vikings in my family were crying actual tears of joy.
In other music news, my little choir had our spring concert yesterday and sang songs about how beautiful Sweden is this time of year in a 800-year-old church in the meadows on the outskirts of Kungsängen. My favorite was this traditional psalm, heard here at our crown princess's wedding in a slightly more professional, yet I daresay no more profound, passionate, version. It was evening, the sun was high in the sky, you could smell the cherry blossoms outside, and it was hard not to cry actual tears of joy.   

Friday, May 22, 2015

Daily Jamie


King Of The Borås Zoo

This morning, when we woke up in Göteborg, we didn't have a single plan. We knew that we wanted to make our way toward Molsta since we're going to be spending Saturday night there watching Eurovision, but we were in no rush to get there. No sooner had we left the Göteborg area than The Swede had googled his way to a perfect plan. He found a hotel package with tickets to the zoo in Borås, about an hour away. We love the zoo!
And it was a great one! And we know from zoos, let me tell you. The very best was the peacock, who was on the loose and acting like he owned the place and getting very friendly while we had our fika. 

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Daily Jamie


Off To Göteborg

We woke up extra early today, hopped in the car, and drove five hours to Göteborg. Jamie's school is closed today and tomorrow for teacher planning and The Swede had to do some work in the Göteborg office, so Jambo and I decided to tag along. We had a really nice car ride down, with basically zero whining from the front or back seat, and we even enjoyed a fika along the highway, something The Swede aka "No Stops" would have never agreed to four years ago. When we arrived we spent a few hours at the office, where Jamie and I played hide and seek and climbed the tree out front and The Swede worked his IT magic. Then we checked into our hotel and split up. The Swede went to a very important football match while I took Jambo to Liseberg. We rode some rides and played and ate ice cream, but headed back earlier than I was expecting. Jamie wanted to spend time in the "hotal". So here we are, enjoying the kids channel and wifi on a pull out bed in a Göteborg hotel room. Pretty awesome, in my opinion.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Daily Jamie

May 15th
May 16th
May 17th

Back In Time

Erin and I planned to get together with the boys on Saturday and we were also going to be spending the weekend at Molsta, which turned out to be perfect since the cabin is actually closer to Erin's than our home is. I googled around a bit to find something we could do where we could meet in the middle and found Torekällberget, an open-air museum less than half an hour away. The place was totally adorable; it reminded me of Hale Farm and Village, which my grandparents took my siblings and me to when we were kids. We pet farm animals and the boys served us pretend strawberry cakes that they baked in little play cabins, we ate lunch, and then, later, ice cream, and jumped from a low loft into piles of hay about a thousand times. This will definitely be happening again.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Daily Jamie

Special thanks to Mama Swede for keeping me in Daily Jamies last week!
May 6th
May 7th
May 8th
May 9th
May 10th

May 11th
May 12th

Swedes Take Manhattan


Dudes! We just got back from New York City! (Am I the only one who, twenty years later, still can’t write or say that phrase without thinking of this?) Sarianne, Magnus, The Swede, and I packed the kids off to their grandparents’ and flew from Stockholm to the Big Apple last Tuesday and just arrived home yesterday.

The purpose of the trip was to celebrate Sarianne’s graduation from college, which happened, what can it be? Two? Three years ago? So needless to say we had been planning and getting excited for this trip for a long, long time. We had some must-dos and must-sees (in addition to a carefully curated shopping list by yours truly) but mostly decided to take the days as they came and not run ourselves ragged trying to do all the stuff we all wanted to. Instead, we ran ourselves ragged walking.



With no agenda, we walked for hours and hours every day. We paused, had some cocktails, some nachos, some beers, some wings, then walked some more. We did some shopping, took lots of pictures, ate more, drank more, walked more. The weather was amazing. I mean, it couldn’t have been better. I never put my jacket on and I never broke a sweat.

The Swede and I had both been to New York before a couple of years ago and I’d been a couple of times before that and seen some Broadway shows and a lot of the sights, and Magnus and Sarianne were so chill about everything that we didn’t do much sightseeing this time. We stayed at a hotel in Midtown on Madison Avenue (can you just imagine how much I thought of Don and Joan and Peggy?!?) and spent a lot of time in that area, but cut across the island to walk the High Line through Chelsea, spent a glorious morning in Central Park, did some walking around the Garment District, West Village and Flatiron District and, of course, Times Square.  
Some of my favorite moments, aside from the leisurely time spent in restaurants and bars, were the swanky Asian dinner we had at Tao, meeting my cousin Kerry and his girlfriend in the West Village for dinner at The Meatball Shop, and an early morning stroll, just The Swede and I, along the shops on Fifth Avenue while we sipped iced coffee and ate cronuts. Oh, and an especially fun last night in town with Sarianne and Magnus where we shared each of our bucket lists.

The Swedish Church, right around the corner from our hotel. I was elated, nobody else cared. 

I guess I’ve forgotten, after every time I’ve been there, how intense New York is. There are so many people and your senses are being constantly assaulted in so many different ways. For that reason, my very favorite parts of the city were the High Line and Central Park where there was peace and plenty of greenery. It made me really appreciate the simple life that we have in Sweden. How blessed we are to be able to make a trip like that and come home to a place like this.