A long way down the holiday road

Those are the lyrics from the theme song of National Lampoon's vacation. That could also be the theme son for the 8+ hours we drove from Stockholm to Ystad on Tuesday.

Rule # 1 about road trips...don't talk about road trips (elizabeth: that was for you!) .

Rule # 2 about raod trips...19 month old kids aren't meant to be locked into a child seat for 8 hours.

Poor Davis...strapped into his safety seat. Any of you that know Davis know that he is full of energy. Sometimes taking Davis across town can be a challenge. He is never in a bad mood...he just wants to play.

This trip was so long that even William was ready to jump out of the car. Just add in dad's back pain and we were all happy to see the resort - well sort of.

I think we all hoped the mere site of the resort would make us forget the long, uncomfortable and 8 dollar per gallon trip to the south of Sweden. However the weeds growing in the cracks of the sidewalk right in front of reception was not the omen we were hoping for. Neither was a third floor room with no elevator (did I mention that we brought everything in our house on this trip?!).

Maybe customer service would save the day? Nay (Swedish for no) it wouldn't. The thing you have to realize about Swedish customer service is this: there are two kinds - slim and none. Slim is defined by asking your waitress for the check and getting it 45 minutes later. None is self explanatory.

How many resorts in America would build a deck around the pool in the middle of July? And of those, how many would let the workers start SAWING and HAMMERING at 7 AM?

If you are reading this don't dispair about our trip. It has really been pretty nice. We have relaxed, sat in the sun, swam in the sea (I will talk about the Swedes obsession with swimming in artic waters later) and had some pretty good food.

We push off tomorrow for Denmark and will spend two days in Copenhagen. The boys have been troopers and are ready to go. William is DYING to go to Lego Land.

We are on a pilgramige to see a Lego! All praise Marty Moose!

Mother's Day

Vaxholm and Grinda (Archipelago)

A short countryside drive and a 45 minute boat ride and we end up on a quiet little island called Grinda where we ate on an outdoor patio overlooking a meadow and the Baltic Sea. It was what you call a perfect day!

The Field's come to visit

Our first visitors came only days after we moved into our house and we were so excited to host Mimi and Papa and "Olden" Thomas and Tia Milena. Thank you for making the trip to Stockholm. Please feel free to confirm with our visitors that our guest quarters are very accommodating if you are trying to decide whether or not to come!

We loved having family to have champaign toasts with on Mother's Day and were excited to do a bit of sight seeing in Stockholm and the Archipelago. Thank you to my dad who is responsible for most of the photos on these most recent entries.

Sprinkler Fun

While Dwight is in Singapore, I thought I would find time to capture more thoughts on our Swedish adventure. As I mentioned to one of my long lost "so called" friends (who will remain nameless since I might disown her if she does not download skype) that I was so thankful that my job as a mother has not changed...even in the midst of everything else being SO different. I still sleep lighter sometimes holding my breath that a little one is not going to awake; I still fret way too much about how well the boys are eating; I still feel the importance of teaching them what is right and wrong and wish I did not raise my voice as much in doing so; I still love playing games with William (even if he continually makes up new rules as we go); I still can't kiss Davis enough; and I still check on them every night and thank God for our many blessings.

What I really started this blog for was to add photos because these are worth a thousand words...maybe more...

Banana Boys!

Both our boys LOVE bananas. And since I recently heard the old saying should be changed to "a banana a day keeps the doctor away"...we have been all eating lots of the delicious, yellow "sports candy".

These are photos are from our deck off the back of the house which we are on all the time...eating, sunning, drawing chalk designs and gardening (William and I have planted herbs, sunflowers and a Beanstalk for Jack).

End of school year activities

William's school is almost out. We have enjoyed a wide variety of special days. The Spring Concert was performed around a flower decorated flag pole and William sang his song about a handsome prince that lived long, long ago.

Later that week we had International Day and William dressed up like Chipper Jones. He had a "passport" and visited table set up by each country represented in the school. We sampled hagas from Scotland, fresh strawberries from Sweden, jellies from Argentina, and sausages & gummie bears from Germany. In order to get the "sweetie" and the passport stamp, the child had to ask the parent a quiz question about their country. William learned kind of money they use in Ireland, what foods came from Italy, what the most popular girl name in Japan is, the colors of the Mexican flag and the national bird of Norway...the Dipper in case you are wondering!

Our most recent school event was Sports Day. William has found a new favorite hero, Sportacus. Sportacus was invented by a Dutchman and is the hero of a place called Lazy Town. Sportacus enjoys sports candy (fruit) and William has really learned about healthy food. In fact, he got a above average mark on his school report saying he displayed "a strong understanding of the importance and ways to keep healthy."

Check out the DVD series if you have youngsters that are not eating their fruits and veggies! We all enjoy watching the adventures of Sportacus and his nemesis, Robbie Rotten!

http://www.lazytown.com/

Davis is starting to say a few words...all one syllable ending in "uh". Bird is Buh, dog is duh and anytime he wants something...he just says..."uh"! And to all our left-hander readers - Emily, Brandon, Grandpa...we have another southpaw to join you!!!

I feel settled...

People have been asking how I like Sweden and am I "settling in"? I can honestly say that today I felt very settled...and it was nice. Maybe things went smoothly - both Dwight and I love our commutes to school and work. I really like the fact that I pass way more people walking or biking than in cars as I take William to school. Davis is sleeping well again and feels very comfortable with his old crib in his new room. I have lost battle for trying to make William dress
up for school.
We were so spoiled with uniforms at Heritage which is the way to go in my opinion. William gets up and dresses himself in jeans, t-shirt and his Auburn hoodie every day.

I went to the grocery on Saturday so the fridge is stocked. We are officially registered with the Swedish authorities (all except the Audi). And recently, I have had time to read a novel Dwight passed along to me. We have yet another Swedish holiday coming up and plan to BBQ again this weekend. We have thoroughly enjoyed a charcoal grill borrowed from a neighbor and I bet we have cooked out more since moving into the house several weeks ago than we did all of last summer in Atlanta.

I have done more shopping at Ikea than I care to add up but the house is in fairly decent shape except for poor Davis' room which has nothing much but his crib. One thing I have not doen is buy anything to go over the windows in any rooms except the bedrooms where black out shades are necessary. It is now 12:46 AM and sunrise is just around the corner! The views from our large window are just beautiful. Watching the sunset from our family room at close to 10:00 tonight was amazing.

William and I are know focused on decorating the play house in the garden. William decided to turn it into Torquilstone, a castle from his favorite book, Ivanhoe. We just finished reading it again...many thanks to his teacher, Mrs. Hill for giving him such an appropriate gift. We are also reading the second book to in the Chronicles of Narnia series. William's passion for books goes way beyond anything either Dwight or I had a child.

The Curse of the New York Yankees

There is always plenty of good old fashion hatred when it comes to sports teams and how they feel about each other. I could name plenty of examples of teams that don't get along. Here in Europe there are weekly examples of this especially in soccer matches (sorry, I just can't call it football...especially because its not).

But some sports rivalries transcend the field. I would say the Atlanta Braves vs. the New York Yankees are a good example of that. First off, everyone hates the Yankees (or so I thought). They spend more money on their roster than Sweden spends on its military. They are arrogant, they always win, but most important their fans are jerks. And if you are a Yankee fan reading this (or having someone read it to you) you know its true.*

When the Yankees and Braves play there is more on the line than a baseball game. In the back of everyone's mind it's the North vs the South...its rich vs poor and it's the city vs the country.

In 1996 the Atlanta Braves were riding high. We had won the World Series in 1995 and stormed back to the championship again in 1996. (side note - any of my British friends that are reading this I don't want to hear a word about how its not the world Series if the WORLD is not competing. Let me clear something up. If the world CAN'T compete then it IS the World Series. You can go put the best team of all stars together from around the globe and I will bet you 20 to 1 that the Milwaukee Brewers could beat them 45-0 in 5 innings.

At any rate the Braves marched up to Yankee Stadium in 96 and promptly took the first 2 games from the Yankees. The Braves dropped the third game, but then dominated the 4th taking a 6-0 lead. This WAS it...not many teams are going to overcome and 3-1 deficit in the World Series. However, the Braves started to come un-glued in the 6th inning after Right Field umpire Tim Welke couldn't get his fat self out of Jermaine Dye's way and a routine pop fly was dropped. It went downhill from there and the Braves ended up losing in extra innings.

The point to this long story is simple. I hate the New York Yankees.

But that is okay right? There are no New York Yankee fans in Sweden...or are there? If I had a nickel for every Yankee hat I see in Sweden I could retire next week. At first I thought it was a novelty. Being so far from home it is just nice to see something that reminds you of the US. I can tell you that sentiment faded pretty damn quick. I started to seeing more and more Yankee hats...everywhere I went I saw a Swede wearing a Yankee hat. What the @!&#??

Why are Yankee fans following me to Europe? Is there no end to this torture? I see so many Yankee hats here I'm certain that I am going to see a Yankee hat on the subway one day and as the head under the hat slowly turns up to look at me its going to be that of a laughing Derik Jeter. He would say, "you can't escape the Yankee curse! (insert evil laugh).

Anyway the point of this is...I hate the New York Yankees.

I hate the Alabama Crimson Tide too, but so far...no Alabama hats have been spotted.

*(footnote) Larry Schapps is the one exception to the rule about Yankee fans. He is a pretty nice guy. If you are reading this Larry, I meant to say all Yankee fans are jerks except for Larry.*

The Day Davis became Self Aware

there was a line in the movie the Terminator about how the "machines" became self aware. It was meant to describe the moment in time when computers realized they could think and act. Ultimately in the movie they took over...The Matrix had a similar plot (shouts out to Neo!)

Well, today Davis became self-aware. I don't mean he became destructive (any more than he usually is - the kid can wreck a steel marble) or that he tried to take over the world and force all human kind into slavery. I just mean he all of the sudden realized he was here and being here is pretty damn fun.

I think he literally knew 5 new words by the time I finished one work day: Da turned into Daddy. Ma turned into Mommy and Do turned into Doggy (by the way Chapel still doesn't like him).

Every since Davis became self-aware he has been dancing, laughing, talking and basically hamming it up. We may be the first family in history to have two sons pursue a career of stand up comedy.

You can't make this stuff up!

Working with the Swedes

Work to live or live to work? This is the philasophical question that separates (in my mind) the difference between working in the US and working here.

Here is an example. At around 11:30-11:45 here, people start getting up, putting their coats on and heading out the door to lunch. It happens every day just like clock-work. A new employee from Silicon Valley, CA was in the office last week and ask me, "does everyone here take lunch at 11:30?" He went on to comment about the culture in San Francisco...people quite often work right through lunch or eat at their desk.

Another difference is email traffic. Here it shuts down about 3:00 PM on Friday afternoon. When I was in Atlanta it was not at all unusal to have a slower, but steady stream of work emails coming in over the weekend. I have to say...I prefer the Swedish way :-)

At any rate it all comes back to what I mentioned above. Here (and this is a generalization), you work because you want to, but also as a means to an end. In the US and in many other cultures you find yourself living for your job. While it can't be quite frustrating to adjust to a new culture (like this one) I do have a certain admiration for the change of pace.

Oh, and by the way...Swedes are not considered lazy....Norwegians are.

--posted by Dwight

The new house is Bohemian

Is that the right word for eating and sleeping on the floor?

Our new place was ready and we moved in even though our "stuff" has not arrived (it is on its way from Germany where it took a short travel-break). Of course without furniture we have become very bohemian (meaning we are eating and sleeping on the floor).

Elizabeth found us some blow-up beds that we are using for the next few days. She is also going to IKEA today (where else would you go in Sweden?) to pick up some other items that will help us get more comfortable until Tuesday when the boat arrives.

However, even without furniture we are still very happy to be out of the Solna apartment. For sure that was a convenient place to live for work, but managing the kids and the dog on the 5th floor of a small apartment with bad accoustics is no fun.

Elizabeth's parents, brother (Thomas) and sister-in-law Milena are coming next week, so we are all looking forward to that. The new house has plenty of room to say the least. A better way to say would be that we have too much room. So for all you that are thinking about visiting - take a hint and book your tickets!