Back to running

Sandra is trying to lose the preggo weigtht and get back to running. Can't hide behind "just had a baby" forever. Well today she ran a 10 k and lived. She had not done that distance since Sep 08. Katti and Sandra at the finish!

What happened? well...

I have not blogged for a long time now.. I missed a whole month. Being busy can be one excuse, but being lazy is probably a more honest excuse. Well lots of fun stuff happened during this time so I will update with some photos.

- Matt turned 30 years old. I guess we can call him a grown up now. We celebrated by having dinner with Friends at Friday's and of course they came out singing for him.

- William figured out how to sit by himself, drink from a bottle and go from sitting to 'crawling'.. he is not officially a crawler yet.. more like a squiggly worm who is trying to move forward but mostly pushes himself in backwards instead.. This he finds really frustrating. His parents however loves the new progress since this really makes things a little easier now when he is starting to be able to do stuff on his own. More supervision needed, but you do not always have to constantly carry him around.

- 2 trip to the US.. yep not just one during this month but 2 trips. Sandra and William travelled alone there in end of March, since she had to go to an INS interview. She passed the Citizen test. The second time to Chicago we all travelled together and we went to Chicago to hang out with friends, celebrate Matt and Sara's birthday and for Sandra to get sworn in. It was great seeing our friends again and they really make traveling back and hanging out so much fun and actually easy with William

- Trip to Stockholm. We had a to go to the American Embassy to report William's birth. We visited with our friends when we were up there. We had a mamma date with Caroline and cute little Vera. We also had some coffee with my friend Sara and her 3 week old Elsa. That weekend we had dinner over at Paula and Andres' house. Leila was also there with her son Adrian. It was so good to be together again the three of us, but the group has really increased now with husbands and babies.

- Sandra and William are not dual. Yep, both Americanos and Swedish. The two passports make me feel a little bit like an undercover agent..

- William graduate from baby swim.

- My parents sold their house in Tungelsta (outside Stockholm) and moved to Hockhult in Småland outside Hultsfred. We were up there to stay in my childhood home for one last weekend and then we also helped with some unpacking at the new farm that they bought. We already have our eyes on the small house on the yard that we are going to turn into our summer house this summer.. A lot of work needs to be done to it, but it will also be an awesome project.


William in the stroller while hanging out in Chicago with just mommy for a couple of days. We did a lot of shopping. The trip was really nice and we were worried about traveling without daddy, but we have some amazing friends that made the trip so much easier. We did miss Matt on the trip though...

Our summer house in Småland.. There is a lot of work that is needed for us to be able to live in it, but that is our summer project.

Hanging out with the mama group in Chicago during a really warm and nice day in April.

Niclas and Autum

Birthday party for Sara and Matt.

Happy 30th, kids!!!

I am an American now!

William at 'Daddy Day Care' when they are visiting my office at NTDB in Chicago

Trip to Paradise

My mom and dad took me to Thailand for two weeks vacation. We were there to visit my cousin who studies and my buddy, Lyon. Mom also had one of her childhood friends meeting up with us there. The weather was so wonderful, 30+ C and sunny everyday. A big different from the winter wonderland in Sweden that we left. We went to day trips around the island (Koh Lanta) where we stayed. Went to Phi Phi islands on a day trip and then we spent a few days of shopping in Bangkok. Lots of good Thai food, beach- and pool-time and warm wonderful weather. It was so easy to travel there with a baby, everyone is so kind and babies were welcome everywhere.. ok, the traffic wasn't that safe. No car seats whatsoever.

Babysim

William started babysim last week. It looks like he can swim better than his dad already..

First night in my own room

Today it is William's first night in his room. We had our last visit in the guestroom and turned it into William's room. It is just next to ours which is probably good since we will probably be woken up a couple of times a night. For some reason he has turned into an eating machine.

Surprise birthday party

Today we celebrated my mom, Karin, 70th birthday. We threw her a surprise party and she really had no idea. We had told her that we were coming up the weekend after and that she was going to go over to her sisters for coffe that weekend. It was so great to see the family and both Niclas and Paula with families called in via Skype from far away places. It was fun times in Hultsfred.

Car trip down to the Alps

Last week we took off and went down to visit our friends Tracy and Greg in Grenoble, France. This was our first long car trip through Europe with baby and dog but it really went well. With patients and lots of stops it was no problem. We did stop in Berlin with our friend Katrin for two nights and she gave us a great tour of Berlin. Then we were off to Grenoble but stopped half way in Frankfurt, the dodgy area, in between kebab places and strip clubs. Maybe not the best place but the hotel was fine and they were ok with dogs so it was good enough for sleeping. We got to Grenoble on Wednesday night and stayed there until Monday morning. It was so great to see Tracy and Greg again and their apartment is so cute in the middle of the city. Grenoble is really the 'capital of the alps'. Totally surrounded by mountains. We hung out in the city for 2 days and Tracy and Greg showed us around. Then on Saturday we went up to Alpe d'huez . Matt and I took turn baby sitting and skiing and Tracy also helped out watching the baby for a couple of hours so that we could get some skiing in. This was the first time in the Alps for us and I loved it! It is so beautiful, tall mountains, relaxed skiing, cheap (much cheaper than in the US). We already started planning for a longer trip there next season. On Monday we drove the entire way home, 15 hours, 5 countries. priceless vacation. Thanks Brinkmeyers for a awesome time!

Bye! So long! See you soon :(

We had dinner with Paula, Lyon and Jimmy to say goodbye before they took of to go to Thailand to study for a couple of months. We will miss you and see you in Thailand in a month! It is sad because the majority of my social circle here in Malmö just left with them. It is so nice to have had children around the same time. Here is a photo of William and Lyon.

Stockholm Weekend

This weekend we went up to Stockholm to visit my parents and to also go to Adrian's (Leila's son) 2 year birthday party. Unfortunately the party got cancelled since Adrian got sick and they also had one shitty (can I use the word in a blog?) week with someone break-in . We were pretty jetlagged still but we really just hung out and relaxed with my parents at night. We did go and visit Linda and then my friend Sara who is expecting and getting really close :)... Then we stopped by Paula's. Bea was such a charmer as always and she was so sweet with William. We have also been continuing with some solid food and since potatoes were not a hit we tried carrots and that was apparently yummy. However what goes in must come out... it sure gets messier not when we are trying solid food.

4 months and first food

William turned 4 months and we celebrated that with some potatoes. A suprised but accepting look was given by William and he did get about a spoonful down

US Tour in January

Our first trip of 2010 was back to the US. We got a rental car and toured the Midwest to see family and friends. We went to Indiana to congratulate Niclas, who turned 30 years old. We ended up hanging out watching TV, eating sushi and having a really nice weekend. Uncle Niclas and Aunt Autumn also got to meet William for the first time. After Indiana we headed to Chicago. Sandra spent a couple of days going back to her old work, and we meet up with our friends. It was like we never left Chicago. The weather was typical January weather: freezing and snowy. After that we took off to go to visit our friends Jodie and Josh in Rockford. They broke the news to us that they are expecting and will have a baby in July! We are very excited for them and tried to give them all the advice we could. Then it was off to Iowa, where we met up with more friends and Matt's sister and nephews. It was such a great trip that were over way to fast. We ate too much sushi and miss all of our friends and family already. William seem to have no problems with the traveling. He was mostly happy and adjusted to the time zone directly and pretty much slept the entire plane ride. We need to travel more now when he is so cooperative. I posted some photos in a slideshow.