Our 2010

January- Fall USA road trip brought us to Florida for the holidays, we start the New Year in a beach house with our first Home Exchange !

February- Still in Florida with family. Disney with grandparents, then back home to snowy Sweden after aValentine's Day 5th Birthday party.

March- At Home in Snowy Sweden , Baby turns 1!

April- Vitsippia, Easter, Walpurg Night....The World Wakes from Winter Slumber

May- Brings Flowers and news baby #3 is on its way!

June- Dalarna for Midsommar with FarFar and Family

July- Swedish Summer at it's BEST! Beaches and Berries.

August- Epic European RoadTrip and multiple home exchanges, our Birthdays at Thermal Pools in Italy!

September- Harvest Time in our Garden and in Skåne, back to School and Work

October- Off to Florida for Mom and the Kids for Halloween with family and friends in USA!

November- Thanksgiving with family and Cousins in Florida!

December- Settle Back to Sweden for the month of Pepparkakor and Glögg, Christmas Merriment,

and Lots of Snow!

Thank you to AllTheForcesThatBe

for a very, very good year.

Yes, we can take it!

And we will BeHereNow.

August and half of September abroad.....

We have driven and home exchanged through Germany, France and Italy for the last month.

This is us today. SwedeDaddy's new nap spot, at the pool of volcanically thermally heated water in the swimming pool in Ischia, Italy.

We are going to go snorkel and swim here, by the grottos and then enjoy the natural hot water pools by the shore.

We chased summer to Italy this year, and are loving every minute....back home next week, though. Did I mention how much we love home exchange?!

Perfect Day at our Favorite Beach in Southern Sweden

I admit I have raised eye brows at the idea of a Swedish beach, thinking it was a bit of an oxymoron. Whenever we went last summer it was windy, sea weedy, or just too cold. No Florida paradise like where I come from at least! But today was the day I realized it is no joke, you can have a sunny, sandy, almost like a Florida beach day in Sweden! But it will be like Florida in March, just nearly 80 f degrees, and the water will still give you goose bumps!

Everyone was out enjoying the good weather, it was a happy kind of crowded, everyone glad to celebrate the sun and share the beach together

Sand Dunes

Some Family

Little Cousins having some fun

Big cousins making the fun

Maybe taking their roles as mummies a bit seriously?

SwedeBaby Love

At Play in the Dunes

Sandcastle building

Now, if that water was a bit warmer than 68 or so, I would be just that much happier... I learned when we had our pool in Florida anything under 80f feels too cool for me, but you take what you can get! That is the temperature of the Gulf at my home in January, and no one but my daughter is swimming in it I assure you! When the outside temperature reaches 80 like it did in Sweden today, it is like it is 100 degrees.... so the water at least qualifies as refreshing if you make an effort to relax and just plunge in it.

I even had the fun surprise of seeing a Florida friend on walk by on the beach! I knew she was in Sweden, but did not expect to run into her at all! She lives in my old town, and will be blogging about her adventures visiting her husband parents in Sweden for the next few weeks, too, on Catching Caterpillars.

Midsommar on an Old Traditional Farm

We gathered for our last Midsommar celebration at a old farm where none of the buildings have been moved from their original site. Dalarna is full of old buildings, old log farm houses, but many of the farms have buildings that have been rearranged or moved.

This family home site was inhabited until the 1970's by a old man who took the position that he was born here and would die here, even when the king came to visit him to ask him to move out so it could be used as a historical site. The old buildings are examples of the construction and lifestyle of people dating back at least top the 1600s. There was a church service and a maypole raising, with our favorite fiddler troupe.

Having fika, or coffee and cakes, is a tradition as Swedish as the maypole itself.

Swedegirl finds friends whereever she goes, they went off to pick flowers for wreathes during the church service

The interior of one of the old houses

The hearth

A birthing stool!

The sleeping arrangment.

Beds of linen covered straw behind curtains in the one main room.

A woven baby bassinet basket

A first! A baby back carrier, old style. I did not know there were european back baby carrier. It has buckle straps, made of leather, and is decorated with leather hearts and stars. An ergo or beco, traditional style.

Sister in law and my SwedeBaby

The bounty of flowers Swedegirl and her new found friend picked

Raising the Maypole

She loves to find a friend wherever she goes. She loves to dance holding hands with the other little girls

I was off line during our big Midsommar Holiday, and have lots to share about it, but I'll start by telling about today... a midsommar post is forth coming!

Sweden: Land of The Vikings

When we arrived in Sweden, we noticed a national love affair with pirates and the jolly rodger flag. Swedish children seem to love pirates, and their tree houses often fly a pirate flag. I think they should turn their eyes homeward to their own mythological heros, and play viking more often.... There are certainly many inspirations to be found in Skåne. We visited the Foteviken Reserve for the viking Market again this year, and found there are plenty of grown ups willing to play viking.

Children Happily playing Vikings. The Skelton in Armour by Longfellow is a good Viking poem, and The Sea Fight of The Jomsvikings a good tale of battle.

At Foteviken, people from all over the world are invited to come camp for two weeks at the viking historical museum grounds as long as they vow to act like authentic vikings, and eat over cooking fires and drink from ceramic wares, sleep in canvas tents on furs, and wear period clothing.

For authentic Viking Literature, you can read The Poetic Eddas in English, the sagas of the Vikings. My girl fell in love with a young Viking warrior she watched in the reenactment battle named Saga. It is a Swedish name, the name for the Norse Goddess of the Runes, writing, poetry, and history. The strong position of women in Scandinavia is guessed to go back to the viking era. Women could own property and go into battle. There are viking era homes to be toured, all the wood in the cabins is axe cut since vikings predated the use of saws

The Viking Fortress at Foteviken

Overlooking the Sea towards Denmark

The Viking Market viewed from the Fortress

Bag Pipes

A little sound of the Vikings

Horns used for Drinking and Blowing as Horns for sale at the Market

Wild Boar Skin, many many animal skins for sale at the Viking Markets

And handmade fabric dyed with plant dyes

Fabric

Patterns for Viking clothing can be found at Wikingerkleidung, use google translate function to translate from German

Hand made leather shoes

Plant Dyes for Sale

Yarn!! Maybe this is the year I will learn to knit.

It takes careful weaving to make these trims. I met a weaver making them on a small loom last year.

I am not sure I could get away wearing this next winter....

Armor for Sale

Viking Carving

Wood carving

Baltic Amber.

Glass beadsViking Family
The Skåne Elag hold viking weapons practice every day of the week in a different location in Skåne

About to begin a Viking war reenactment

Love this helmet, and the red beard with it.

Ready to start a war

Charge!

Battle
The Carnage

Showing off a Skåne Shield

Warriors

The Tents used for Camping
Th Fur, wow.

Working Iron at his campsite on an anvil

Viking Kitchen
Many things cooking over fires
Making Handicrafts in the Tents
The fur covered be in the background
Another Kitchen
Vikings at the Fortress

People love dressing up like folks did back in the day and trying their hands at nearly forgotten crafts. I went to a cracker homesteader craft fair with a civil war reenactment in Florida when I was in the USA this winter. Let me say it is alot more enjoyable to watch Vikings battle it out in Skåne than to see people reenact the civil war. I get too creeped out watching people who wish to dress lik rebel soliders camp out under the Dixie flag. It feels good to know however bloody the history of the vikings, they were battling it out on their own land with their own people. But if not for Leif Erikkson and the Viking sailing expertise, perhaps europeans would not have headed to the Americas. So perhaps it is all a tale of viking bloodshed anyway.

Reenactment, Florida Style from Winter trip Home