I finally did it, updated the homepage with pictures of 2014:
Here are a few previews:
Our house in the Winter
Victoria falls
To see them all check out the homepage: wolfmaier.se/2014-in-pictures
2014 in pictures
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Tag Archives: 2014
5 Years
Five years ago she said YES. The best person in my life stood beside me at the altar and said yes. It was wonderful then. It is wonderful now! It has been wonderful between then and now.
Imagine that this great woman found me! And what a journey we are on. Life with her is a ride better than any you could find.
Susanna you are the best thing that has happened to me. You are the Milky Way on the clear winter sky. The soft breeze at the beach. I love to hear your voice. I just long to see you every time I’m away from you.
We have already been through many things. Made some big changes together, enjoyed life, worked our way through difficulties and had two great kids. I’m looking forward to all the things that are to come.
Today we are celebrating our wooden wedding. The traditional gift would have been silverware. I doubt that we need more silverware. Life is a dream with you. Sometimes I wonder when I will wake up. Then I realise that this is all very real. I just hope I cherish it as much as I should.
Advent Calendar
Summer is a short thing,
even if it’s eight weeks long.
Somehow this summer has passed really fast. Sure summer isn’t really over yet but as I this week started work after the vacation/parental leave it somehow feels like it. It has been an exciting summer. So many things have happened. Still it also has been a slow summer, not doing even one overnight trip, only staying at home. (Except for the few nights when we were at the hospital for Gabriel’s birth in the beginning).
Ah, there you have the name of our son too: Gabriel. We had a hard time to decide, so it ended with us drawing sticks. We had two names, equally nice, but both of us had a different one as favourite. But if we get another son some day we have a name for him.
Most of the summer has been about taking care of our kids and getting food on the table. A few other things have been made though.
I fixed the lawn-tractor. It wasn’t that hard and now cutting the grass isn’t hard labour but fun labour. I think I’m becoming more of a mechanic as I live here, I kind of like fixings things.
I built some mosquito-nets for our bedroom and work-room and with the help of dad the guest room too. (My parents wanted to sleep there and it was warm so a mosquito-net was not a luxury). The one for the work-room I like the most, as it is a door.
We have made it to the beach twice. Once as a family and once with my parents but without Susanna and our son as a day on the beach isn’t the best thing for a new-born. We did go for a swim in our local lake a few times too, it’s just a five minutes’ walk so it really isn’t a big deal.
Our garden isn’t really giving that much produce, we haven’t really taken care of it as we should. But still; we have potatoes; we will have carrots and some beans. Three of our apple-trees have apples, so we will have apples too, (actually I baked an apple-cake with apples from one of the trees yesterday that we had at work today). Our blackberry-bush is having plenty of berries and they ripen over a long time, it now has given us a few portions with ice-cream and a pie, but there is much more on the bush. The only downside with the blackberries is that they have so many thorns and that makes picking them a bit painful. (We haven’t taken care of it the right way this spring).
We have spent some time with family and relatives. My parents have visited twice, Susanna’s a few more times, and we visited Susanna’s parents too (Susanna and the kids stayed over there one night even). We had a few friends visiting, been to the zoo in Höör with friends and have visited friends for a few hours, so it has been things going on even if we had to time it with our sons feeding, leaving us less punctual than usual.
Now I’m back at work. This first week has been calm, as most people still are on vacation. It is fun though; I’m working on a project where I will simulate railway traffic and I really enjoy that.
Now it’s weekend!
2014 – A year to remember?
2013 was an amazing year. As it started I didn’t know what it would hold for us. I had a few expectations, but they are dwarfed by what actually happened.
(See my post from the 10th of January last year: http://blog.wolfmaier.se/wolfie217/2013/01/10/new-year-what-will-you-bring/)
Here are the points that I thought of as certain last year:
“
- I will go back to work. (Just the date is not decided yet).
- Our daughter will turn two. (She actually turns 16 months today).
- We will travel to Skåne a few times, the first trip to see my cousin in law become a priest in the Church of Sweden.
- Our daughter will learn so many more things.
“
Little did I know then that some of the things on the list would be bigger, more altering than I thought.
We had already been thinking of making the move when I wrote this, but nothing was planned. So now to what actually happened:
- I did go back to work, just not the work I used to go to. I’m doing so many new things. I’m having great new colleagues. It’s in a new town.
- Our daughter turned two and is easier and easier to understand. She even talks in two languages some times.
- We travelled to Skåne many times. Now we travel to Stockholm. First we travelled to look for houses, then to get the key to our apartment. After that the direction changed and we travel to Stockholm to visit family and friends.
- Our daughter is still learning so many things.
But the biggest things that happen were not thought of:
We made the move, leaving our home in Stockholm for a new one in Skåne, first in Höör, then in our house in Gamla Bo.
- I got a new job. A great job at Ramböll in Malmö.
- We bought a house on the country side.
- We are expecting a little Poff to join us in 2014. Poff being the working name of our next kid.
This leads me up to the headline question: 2014 – A year to remember?
It definitely will be. We will have our second kid; that is really big. We have been looking forward to have at least one more kid, but as things dragged along it wasn’t easy for me at least. I wanted the kids to be closer in age. One just has no say in how fast things go. Now there won’t be too long between them, just a little less than three years and that is fine, it was just longer than I hoped for.
I don’t know how our daughter will react to Poff arriving but I think she will become a great big sister. She already talks about the little little baby living in mom.
I do know that Poff will be born into a nice home.
By the way, Poff comes from the fact that at some point a friend of ours called Susanna and me Piff and Puff, as the chipmunks in Donald duck. Our daughter had the working name of Paff before she was borne.
Now we just have to get the home in order. We have had my parents here for Christmas and New Year and they have helped us a great deal, making our home liveable. There are still plenty of things to be done until some real ordinary life will show up, many boxes to be unpacked, lamps fixed (they have to stay at the apartment until it is clean; we keep it until the last of January). Curtains and pictures on the walls might take a longer time.
Owning a house is much more an ongoing project than renting a place. The list of what is to do will grow faster than we can check things off.
Back to the question, now a few points to remember from 2014 that we already know:
- A trip to Zambia.
- Poff being born.
- The first summer in our house.
There will probably be a few more things. It won’t be an ordinary year. It will just not be the life changer that 2013 has been.
(And we do have a guest room).