December 2

Christmas calendars are up and waiting.

Tough guys

New bike to me and my old to Axel. Hence a fun and strenous trip into a muddy forrest. It was fun.

Something happened

It's been way too long since last update and since then all pictures from the last 2 months have disappeared. Weird. Google really wants me to use google+ when uploading from Picasa to the blog. But I don't need google+ so what to do?

Erik and David went diving near Copenhagen. It was David's 18th year birthday gift for Erik. It looked like they had a lot of fun and I was just a little bit envious :-)

Tom tits

Our Stockholm card was a 72 hour pass. So when we noticed we had 30 minutes on the card while passing through Södertälje we zoomed in to Tom Tits experiment and had 2 hours of fun before heading back to Hörby.

Rökstenan

A rock! The largest runic stone in Sweden. Definitely worth the drive.

Vårdcentral

What a way to end the vacation. Rita got a high fever during the night. The local tourist office was on the phone for more than an hour in to got us a doctors appointment. Excellent service.

The Mattis forest

Rita slightly under the weather but a crime rider nonetheless. A visit to Hagaparken brought us to the ruins of the palace that never was build since Gustav III was assasinated in a theater. The ruin was in a small forrest and before anyone had said jack rabbit Rita had climped the walls. Needless to say we saw the signs afterwards. I wonder what's to become of the photographer.

Left hand side

Axel's got sick - hopefully just a summer cold. We broke up in teams. In the morning Rita, Erik and I went to the 155 m tall Kaknäs tower and got a spectacular view of Stockholm. Afternoon and evening Ellen spent with the two on Junibakken and Skansen. And pour Axel was brought to the city in hopes he had energy for more. It ended as a turn around. But we found out that the trains in Stockholm did not convert in 1967 and drive on the left hand side.

Waiting

Rita had never witnessed a change of guard. The Swedish royal guard makes quite a show of it. Marching band, pike hats and all but no horses eventhough the unit was from the cavalry. The day turned out to be fully packed. The investment in the Stockholm card paid off when we packed in a canal tour round Djurgården in the evening.

More rocks

Enroute to Stockholm we stopped at Norrköping to the joy of the kids. The area is reknowned for its petroglyphs. The field at Himmelstalund has 1660 carvings of ships, hunters, wild boar, foot prints and what not. Amazing in amount and detail and nearly 3000 years old although Rita insisted that we don't know if a spaceship just dumped them there in the middle of the night sometime.

As good as it gets

The hot potatoe is on the stove top. Yummy!

24:00 DIE!

Axel's German alarm clock went for some reason off at midnight. According to Axel it was a spooky display to look at bright early on his birthday. I believe he had a fine day. We could not find prebaked cake for the layer cake so Rita and I made it from scratch. Humbly we must admit it probably was the best layer cake we've ever made. (Oh btw die=Dienstag=Tuesday).

Vacation equals hard work

Farmor has had cut down a bunch if trees on the Swedish lot. Someone got the job of chopping it all up. 2 cubic meters are stacked so far but there is lots to go.

600.000 and us

Visits Ales Stena every year. I don't believe I've ever seen such a large stone ship. It never cedes to amaze me how clever people of earlier times has been to identify the world corners. In this case how the sun at solstice moves over two certain stones. However, the paragliders flying over our heads seemed to catch a lot more attention than the ring of stones.

Morning visitor

It was a cosy quiet visit by Mr. Hedgehog until Luna noticed him on the patio. She went completely ballistic. Turned around herself a 1000 times and was very frustrated we didn't let her out. I wonder why.

Ifö

The kids rolled their eyes at driving 1 hour for some rocks - again! Our destination was Ivö where they for more than 100 years quarried for caolin used for ceramics and origin in name for the toilet factory. The quarry was long abondoned but we found it and the rocks were remarkable in color. It brought memories of certain rolling hills in Death Valley.

Sun at last

The weather has been ok but never more than an hour of sun. But today it was plenty enough to swim, sail, relax and ICECREAM.

Fail

I suppose I will not be awarded the scout medal of piling firewood.

Yummy

It's almost a tradition to bake danishes in the summerhouse. At least that's what Rita said. With a steady and experienced hand she rolled these up. Boy they were good!

Smores

The Swedes just are more American than the Americans. Bigger is better. Ellen had come up on fist size marshmallows. That is adult size fists. They were enourmous. So big you had to be a child to enjoy them.

Mini golf

Cecilia, David and Axel may look professional but not like the couple on the neighbouring lane with custom made golf clubs and expert balls. I never realised mini golf was a professional sport.

Blåbärsylt

6 jars homemade blueberry jelly a memory to enjoy when winter comes.

Harry Potter of Sweden

Rita, Ida and Axel enjoying themselves.

Kräftor kalas

A Swanish tradition or may be just the Q adaption of the Swedish tradition of a crawfish party.

roma family on vacation

Beware

Heavy but happy

Rita is back home again. It weighs 51 pounds was her words of welcome. Sounds like she's had a fantastic trip.

Party hardy

Despite me buying tickets for yesterday and Axel being turned down at the cinema to day when he showed up with 4 of his friends I believe it was an ok birthday party. Half pounders can remedy everything.

Getting closer

The floor is finally in and the walls painted. Monday everything will be coming up.

A gift

At long last the floor was laid down but the painter was so fast to cover it that I didn't get to see it. Now it's a present I CAN'T WAIT TO UNWRAP.

The joy of a new kitchen

Now it is in. Then it just has to come up.

Waiting

Slow progress. Ceiling's up. Concrete on the floor. But it is too slow to dry. Too much rain. Too much cold. Can't wait for it to be done.

Waiting

It is been looking like this for 2 weeks now - our kitchen. Tomorrow the carpenter comes to set up the ceiling. Then I hope to see some progress. The problem is that it's been so cold the concrete and plaster on the walls cannot seem to dry properly.

Video of Ritas Day

The film Institute has made a film of Ritas day on the jury. I can't figure howitt post in the blog. But it can be found here: http://vimeo.com/44059758

Intermittent

The installment of our kitchen just got a week delayed. Fortunately, our house is large enough to set up a temporary kitchen in the entrance hall. And the stress is nothing compared to last time we had a kitchen made up. This time we have a laundry room and no kids in diapers.

Rita on the jury

Rita was on the Danish jury for the first Young Audience Award given by the European Film Academy. Rita was elected to be one of the presenters of the Danish winner doing it live from Copenhagen. She did great. Presenting it clearly. In English.

Constitution day

Axel playing solo from the top of Ølstykke church in celebration of constitution day.

More of the party

It turned out Ellen got a picture of the desert.

And then, it cannot remain a secret anylonger, the party turned out pretty wild somewhere between the main course and desert. It had something to do with the song, that we sang for Erik. It was fin and hilarious.

Birthday dinner

Erik and I had had fun planning the dinner for his birthday. We were 24 in total. It was just about what could sit in the living room.

The menu was as as follows:

Green asparagues wrapped in smoked ham accompanied by freshly baked cornbread.
Veal tenderloin with saltbaked potatoes and a green salad with rucula, cooked wheat and grilled pebers
Small chocolate tarts, lemon mousse and raspberry sauce.

I had intended getting pictures of each dish, but got so busy arranging the food I only made the first one.

Happy 18

It used to be much easier getting Erik up with a birthday song. Tillykke!

Sjællands mesterskab

Rita has switched from rollerskating to gymnastics. She is very serious about it. Last weekend we had the enjoyment of watching her very first performance at the local championship.

Splittet

From the filmfestival for 8 graders. Axel class had made a film about 2 boys friendship and how it may be perceived. The filmfestival is a project all over Denmark where selected 8 graders get the chance to make a short movie in collaboration with a professional filmmaker. The project entails making the script, casting, filming, catering and what not. Axel was a supporting actor together with his very good friend Mohammad. The class took the price for best manuscript.

The movie is now on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9dSbQSJO0

11

We had a really fun birthday party. Rita said it's the best ever! We took all the girls from her class to a local public pool for 3 hours and had a lot of fun.

We had a cake woman. It was very tasty.

Fastelavn II

Rita was belly dancer. We got her out fit at the bazaar in Aarhus when it was a bit warmer. So it ended up being a belly dancer in long underwear. 

Fastelavn

This year we had both David and Felicia with us for the festivities in the neighborhood. Quite unusual both of them beat both the bottom of the barrel and the final plank thus becoming both queen and king. Rita was responsible for the action shots and got this one of Ellen. 

Green eggs and ham

It is not. But we went for a one day trip to Germany. Nothing was really planned and then we came upon this place in Harmsdorf: Braaschs schinkenräucherei. A small old cottage that has been changed into a ham smokery. It was original a home - the apartment is still in the house - but since it didn't have any chimney, Herr Braasch found it better suited for hams. When we were there 1000 hams were hanging from the ceiling. They make about 4000 a year. The production period is November to March. The rest of the year it is too warm.

Winter vacation in Sweden

Our winter vacation is almost at an end. 7 days in the house in Hørby. We enjoyed lots and perhaps too much good food. And we were so fortunate to have snow. Erik spent a long time trying to get the arm to stick on the snow men. Patience had its way and he succeded in the end.

Ready for superbowl

Thanks, Uncle Paul.