More Snow!!

It's just so crazy, it keeps falling. I am secretly very pleased about this. Everyone here is sick of it, but I am just getting my fill. I was not ready for it to get slushy and melt away just yet, so I welcome this fresh fluff. Today was the perfect snow day with sunshine on a fresh layer of a light fluffy snow that was still was clinging to the trees. So pretty! As long you do not have to drive anywhere, this is fun!

So deep in the yard! Up to her thighs.

The car we seldom use is buried deep

Playing in the woods

The Neighborhood road is a Snowy Canopy

This is the corner where the snow has been pushed so high by the snow shovel that the bank is almost as high as the street sign!

The house in snow

The snow is piled up higher than the back porch

It has buried the porch swing and garden

Soul Sisters

I got to attend my soul sister in birth the eve of my departure from Florida to Sweden. It was one sweet birth, the love so BIG. She now has three little ones, three little birds.

A gorgeous momma

Supported by many loving hands

A beautiful family

When she had a party before the baby was born, she had this song sung to her by those who love her, on her request. It was her message to YOU, you, you!! So rise up and smile at the rising sun. Our community warmly welcomes the newest baby boy to the tribe.

SNOW!!!! There is a lot of SNOW!!!!

The view of the back yard

That's the garden and the porch swing under there....

BIG snow balls!

Sledding in the front yard

We went into town, here is the church as seen from the parking lot of the store. Notice the plowed snow ban taller than the car behind it.

Going into the store, shopping to refill and stock up, as we hear there is a big snow storm on it's way now!

Stopped at the park for some sledding

The girls in their sleds!

Down the snowy slide!

Swedebaby loves the sled! She said "Oh, wow!" after her first ride!

When we got home from this short outing, there were 3 more inches on the ground, and more to come. Glad we got some sun this year, cause this is fun, but I am sure the feeling wears off!

Can We Take It (Home) ?

Okay, this time even we have to admit it was perhaps too much luggage. Two bags per person, plus a carry on, plus a personal item, plus a baby bag, plus a stroller, plus a car seat, plus food for immediate consumption on the plane = with in airline regulation, but A LOT TO CARRY. This is us departing Florida with JUST the carry ons.

US arriving in Copenhagen with everything. Lets see, thats two rolling carts, a stroller loaded up, and rolling bag stacked up. How many trips down the elevator to the train will this take? Then, how will we get it on the train? Then off and across the open snowy platform up another elevator in the freezing snow, and to the parking lot to meet our ride? And will it fit in the van?

Yes it did.

Home Sweet Home, just 24 hours after leaving Florida.

There has been snow on the ground since two weeks before Christmas.

Nice to be back at our cozy cottage in the woods.

Now to see what was in all those suitcases 3 months, a 5th Birthday, and a big Christmas later after leaving Sweden November 20th. I am thinking they are full of mostly kid stuff. I know there is not much in the food, health and beauty, or adult clothing categories, save our new shoes and snow suits. Not even a single jar of peanut butter or a bag of chocolate chips made the cut. But lots of English language books, toys, games, DVDs did. Now to find a place to put it all. Perhaps the American penchant for excess may have infected us a wee bit on this trip. Can we take? Yes we can. Will we next time? In the stuff category no, in the glory of living department, yes. We will take a little more free space next trip, travel a little lighter. But I am still excited to see what all this stuff is. Off to unpack! What an amazing trip it was.

Ten Years Ago

I was in Sarasota working in my last clinical rotation in midwife school

And I met this Swede....

Who would sometimes wear purple pants...

While walking on Siesta beach looking at stars. A retired school teacher had set up a telescope in the parking lot and showed us the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter. The Swede claims I was glowing, so he asked me "So, what do you do when not looking at stars? " I answered as we walked to his car. He ended up giving me a ride in his red convertable to my yoga class. He joined me, where it was then announced that 'Today we are doing something different, this will be a partners yoga class...." And so I found myself in some interesting positions with a man I picked up on the beach just an hour or two before..... and thus starts the story that takes too long to tell just now, that is the beginning of the even longer story of our life together.

Three Years later, we married on the anniversary of the Day we met.

With the love and support of our great families and friends

And we had the honey-iest of moons in Tahiti

Happy Ten Years!

Happy Seven Years of Marriage!

Happy 120 Months!

Happy 3650 Days!

So much love.

To many more adventures and even honey-ier moons and a SwedeLife.

SwedeLife USA, Continued

So here I am writing from Florida...There is more fresh snow at home I hear, and today we were swimming in the hot tub, sweating in the sun wearing shorts, finding horseshoe crabs in the mangroves, and tossing fossilized shells into the bay at the reflection of the sun. We had dinner with my cousin and her baby, my parents, my grandma. So many people to love around us all the time.

We have been in the USA since November 20th, and now it's January 28th. The baby has progressed so much, today she even took a few steps. She will walk before we return. We did an amazing one month road trip, one month of family Christmas/holidays and beach time, and we are half way through one month in town at my parents and are seeing old friends, taking care of business, and hanging out.

I am sitting at the computer in a daze looking on line trying to do some shopping, trying to remember back to my life in Sweden, imagining myself standing in my own kitchen, and wondering what material goods I can bring back that I will miss once I return to Sweden. What comforts can I gather here to make returning easier? It's like packing a time capsule for myself. Chocolate chips, baby clothes, refreshed English language media for SwedeGirl in the form of books and DVDs...what else...craft and art supplies for her, vitamins and supplements and herbs for me, shoes for everyone. Glasses and contacts for SwedeDaddy. And while I am here I still have to do taxes, see the accountant, get the American insurance and will in order. And plan a trip to Disney World. We go next Monday I think. This weekend is a fundraiser for Haiti an old client is organizing; I am hoping to see the last of friends I have not seen yet there. We have been busy making the circuit visiting old friends and family. We have had so many amazing moments. Blogtastic good times, and deep love and sweetness. Now, a good friend who her first baby around the same time SwedeGirl was born (I was her midwife) is due any day, and I am on call to go to the birth. I am preparing taxes, wills, Disney, and for a birth. And for my girl to turn 5, we will celebrate with all her friends at a big party. And I need ot sort through the mountain of things we have acquired here, and jam them into the suitcases. Then return to my home in Sweden.

I have two weeks left. Never has a two week vacation seemed liked a short time, until now.

USA TOP 5:

1) Parties and Holidays with loved ones
2) Swimming in January
3) Breakfast restaurant
4) So many bagels I take them for granted
5) The best Chocolate Ice Cream ever, Dove Unconditional Chocolate
6) The choice of 100s of naughty breakfast cereals. Yes, I have eaten both Golden Grahams and Panda Puffs.
7) Home Exchange
8)The many many things for sale all the time in the USA
Yep, that’s more than 5.

5 Things that strike me as weird about my home now:
1)The many things for sale all the time in the USA. The commercialism is so pervasive.
2)How much pressure there is on parents to do more, have more, buy more, be more, and do do do
3)The poverty of time, people never get breaks or vacations
4)That people are listening to Glen Beck, and liking Sarah Palin for real here. That the think the only way Europeans have healthcare is to pay 50% or more of their income to taxes. Politics are so crazy here.
5)That the road is a solid wall of businesses, and things for sale. The commercialism, I mentioned it before but it is so chi sucking I must mention it again.
6) That Americans look so unhealthy. I am no small woman, but in Indianapolis, I was the smallest woman on a carousel. Everyone was shaped like kind of an amorphous blob. There is a special shape of the Midwestern blob person. Nothing quite like it in Europe.

That's not much of a top 5, but that’s how I am in the home stretch here, a bit discombobulated and anxious, nervous, and glad all at once the end of the journey is in sight.

What is store for when we return? What exciting things next? In case anyone is listening, I just want you to know, I can take it.

The good, all of it, I can take it.

I am just not sure it will fit in my suitcase.

Whites and Blue of Winter,

in my two Homes

In Sweden, we had one big snow last year. I hear there has been snow on the ground since before Christmas and people have shoveled snow more times than they can count this month.

Our house and road in last years snow

The white here in my former home in Florida is a bit different. Temperatures have dipped into record lows of the 20's F, and people here are complaining it is really cold.

Not me.

Thanks to Home Exchange . com, we are staying on the beach, and a lovely couple who own the beach rental we have been at for the last two weeks will stay at our house when we go up north next June to celebrate Midsommar.

We may have our fair share of the white stuff here, but there is also plenty of color to liven things up as well.

And my husband is having some time to practice his parenting skills, thanks to the nine months of father leave /Papaledig he has in Sweden.

Thanks, Sweden. We love you.

But Florida, you will always have January.