Back in Africa, this time in Lusaka, Zambia, overlooking the main railway station.
23
Reply
Tag Archives: Relatives
12
A380
Today we picked up my brother from the airport. We went a bit early so that we could see the plane he came in with landing.
It’s a big bird the Airbus A380, here just before touchdown at Copenhagen airport. It isn’t the first time I’ve seen it, both in Frankfurt and Dubai they are everything other than rare, but here it’s the only one coming in. And this time I knew someone on it.
Enough with the plane nerding now.
Winter is here
Yesterday it started snowing while we were driving to Malmö. As we went back the roads had transformed to a slippery white adventure. Lucky us we had put on the winter tires in the morning. (Na, I had checked the weather report and it said something about snow coming).
I just love snow. It makes life just a little bit better. Especially in November as it is so dark otherwise.
Our daughter and I made a snow-family the first night:
A close up of the snow-lamp in the background:
Today was filled with outdoor activities. First of all had the driveway to be cleared from snow. That took a while, luckily I wasn’t alone on that. Here is the before:
And this was the result:
Our house looks so nice in the snow.
You might notice something different in the picture, last weekend we had great help from a friend of ours and Johannes parents taking down the birch-tree just next to the house.
Here it is after it was cut down:
And here is the house from the field without the tree:
Thank you so much for all the help.
I’ve also been doing things with the play-house, first I made all the corner-boards, but they still have to be painted in this picture:
To paint them I moved them into the shed:
I had great help holding the boards and tools from my son. Now some of them are back up, but as I can’t paint them all at once and now the cold came there are still some waiting to get done.
As the snow stayed I also built a snow-igloo for our daughter this afternoon. It’s kind of hard work playing in the snow. Here she sits inside enjoying the candle I put in as light:
That’s all for now; Enjoy the snow and drive safe.
Happy Easter
Happy Easter to you all!
I know Easter is almost over but this year I’ve been busy not sitting at the computer more than short bits. The weather was some kind of typical April weather with sun, rain, hail and thunder.
My parents were here and my dad made some pictures of the highlights that I like to share:
We burnt the branches and twigs from our property. As the darkness fell the fire was really beautiful, and the full moon made it less dark.
On Easter Sunday our daughter and I prepared the Easter eggs.
Later that day we had the egg-hunt in the garden. To find them there was some climbing involved.
The new wheelbarrow was a great success. Now she can help when we have to move things around the property.
What about this moving business?
As you might have seen, we will be moving to Skåne before the end of July. That is a big change for me. I have all my adult life lived in Stockholm (and Solna, but that was even closer to downtown Stockholm than where we live now). Before that I grew up close to Stockholm, coming here when I was 3½ years old.
Stockholm is my home. I know the city fairly well after 5 years of working as a bus driver. The last couple of years I have been less and less in the downtown area though. I started working in Solna in 2008, making in unnecessary to go into the downtown area to get to work. As Susanna and me hooked up there were even less trips into town, as I didn’t meet with friends in town as much as before. Now that I have a kid it’s only on special occasions that I actually get into the centre, like tomorrow when there is a wedding we will go to. Living in the western suburbs is easy; there are very few everyday things that can’t be done here.
I do have a lot of friends here. I will miss them all. Some of them more than others. I think that will be the biggest change. Up until now the friends that moved away were in some way just leaving my life. If I didn’t make an effort or they didn’t do it either they would just drift away into the one card a year type of friends. I don’t want it to be like that, but somehow when you have a family it’s a lot easier to stay in touch with the people you regularly meet anyway.
Now we will be the ones moving away. It’s a different feeling. For me anyway. For the friends that stay behind probably not. I will try to make an effort to stay in touch. We will have a guestroom so if you pass Höör you can stay the night. (Just let us know a few days ahead so that not all of our friends show up on the 17th October). We will try to meet with as many of you as possible before we leave but everything went kind of fast so there is not that much time and we do need to pack and organise our things too. (This time we’ll try to get rid of some stuff that we definitely won’t need).
There are a few other things I will miss leaving Stockholm.
The water: I think this is Stockholm’s best feature. Just like today when I went on a bike ride with my daughter to Drottningholm to have an ice cream. The water makes it all so much nicer.
Our view: We just have a lovely view where we live. The place we are moving to doesn’t have a view. We don’t know where we will live later; maybe there will be a view there. We just don’t know.
Our apartment: It’s really nice.
My parents: They are still living here. And who knows if we ever will convince them of following our footsteps to the south?
Our church: The church I have been a part of since 1996 or was it 1997? I started doing sound in 1999 and am still doing it. It has been a second home for me and it contains many of my friends and memories.
All the places with memories: There are so many places with memories here. Sure, some of them are bad and I won’t mind not seeing these places as much, but there are so many good memories that are connected to places here. And when I see a Bus nr 4 I just remember how it was driving down Odengatan early in the morning, as most people still slept. Or when I pass Tranebergsbron and I remember the first of November when it became so slippery that people pushed the cars over the top one by one. (Sure some people don’t have that as a good memory I guess). When I jog down Bergslagsvägen I remember the times I drove to my friends at Tempus for some games of just fellowship. Or when I pass Tomteboda I remember the sunrises over Stockholm that were so beautiful after a late night of work or partying.
I will come back to Stockholm every now and then for sure. As long as my parents live here probably often. It will not be the same thing though.
I will get new memories. There will be new things that I love about the place I live. (Just check in the old part of my blog).
Now I have got start sorting out old broken shoes. I shall not move broken shoes!
Finally I’m done with the pictures of 2012
I have finally finished 2012, that is organising the pictures of the year. (This time I did it before I filed my tax-report).
Here is a short preview:
Many pictures of our daughter:
A few from my trips:
A few from our trips:
And some other more random pictures:
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you all!
Here is our Christmas card for you:
I wish you all have a wonderful time with family and friends in great fellowship, good food and much joy!
This year we stayed home for Christmas, having my parents and my brother for Christmas Eve and Christmas day, Susanna’s parents are coming on the 3rd to have a second Christmas with us then.
It is lovely to see how our daughter for the first time really enjoyed the feast. The joy she had opening presents, (she started with the small ornamental ones we had put in the tree) and later playing with her new toys. This really makes giving fun.
Now it is time to rest until it is time for sound on Sunday.
Summer in October
Two weeks ago we went to Germany to celebrate dad’s birthday. We stayed at my uncle’s and we met with most relatives. It was like coming back to the summer we didn’t have here. It was so nice having a few days off. Okay, I can’t have days off like when I was working, but still it was a good break from everyday life.
Travelling with the family is always a great thing. Our daughter is easy to travel with, we always see it when we fly and she behaves in a good way.
Here a few pictures from the trip.
Our daughter at the playground in Arlanda.
Susanna and our daughter in the bus waiting to get to the terminal in Hamburg.
As the trip was short it was intense. First night there was the celebration.
Our daughter was playing with the stones lining the floor.
The second day we spent mostly outside in the sun.
Some trees are just nicer than others.
Our daughter behaving like the star she is.
Temperatures were well above 20° C, barely any wind, just the way you like summer to be. Needless to say, we really enjoyed it. In the evening we had dinner with the relatives again. It was so nice to have two evenings altogether. Even my brother came, as he lives a lot closer now.
The last day we were early with packing up before going home so we had a walk in the neighbourhood. The view with the trees in autumn colours is just so nice. A cat followed us around. Our daughter really likes cats, but hasn’t really understood the fact that screaming with joy running after them isn’t the best way of getting to pet them. She’ll learn that someday. (Maybe when we get ourselves a cat too).
Travelling with our daughter
Wednesday night we got home from our trip to Germany. This was the first time abroad for Ellinor. We flew to Frankfurt, took the train to Stuttgart where my uncle met with us to take us to his place.
One thing I realised travelling with her is that I can relax more than when I’m travelling alone or just with Susanna. I don’t know why that is, probably it’s because I have a different focus now.
Flying with Ellinor is easy. She does not cry much and enjoys playing with simple toys. After a while she wanted to sit on the floor, but that was not possible on the short (2 hour) flights. We found some really good seats (for us) on the plane that goes between Stockholm and Frankfurt, the row in front of the emergency exit has only two seats, so we didn’t bother anybody else there and there is an open space between the seat and window where we could put things that were in the way otherwise.
In Germany we met with all our relatives there. First we stayed in Lorch, a small town about 40 km east of Stuttgart were one of my uncles lives. There we met with the relatives on my father’s side.
A picture of the group in Lorch.
Ellinor had everyone’s attention from the start. She charmed all of us with her best mood and fun sounds. She has started to make more sounds again, some of them sound like mama and papa and lampa (lamp in Swedish).
Ellinor had everyone’s attention.
We had one day with better weather so Susanna, Ellinor and me went on a walk. (I had done this walk already on Sunday). It was really nice to get out into the fresh air, Ellinor really enjoyed it too, but that’s normal if you don’t have to walk by your own.
Klotzenhof, the furthest point of our walk.
Most days we had a busy schedule. We wanted to see as many people as possible. We tried dinner at a restaurant too. Not entirely a success. Ellinor does get tired in the evenings so Susanna, Ellinor and I had to leave before everyone else so that we could get her to bed.
Ellinor is a Schwab. (A person from Schwaben, the region in Germany where my dad comes from. In this region Pretzels are staple food).
After a week in Lorch it was time to get to the next place, this time my aunt with family in Hagenhill, a small village near Ingolstadt. I hadn’t been there for a long time and Susanna hadn’t met them before since they didn’t make it to our wedding.
The drive there was not as relaxing as one could wish for. Ellinor didn’t feel well so we had to make plenty of stops. I think it could be the fact that we took some smaller roads there and that it was lunchtime for her that made her upset. If driving with her is this bad every time it just isn’t fun. (But it wasn’t).
We had a great time there, catching up and getting to know each other. Here the days were a lot less crammed with activities so we got some well needed rest.
Ellinor playing in Hagenhill.
Here our car really did fit in, since this family only has BMWs (when it comes to cars, they have a bus and a tractor too), could be because the husband of my aunt worked there before.
The last day we went to my other aunt that just had returned from India. We had a nice day with her too. We had a walk through the nice old (more than 1000 years) town she lives in. In the evening we looked at pictures from her trip. We didn’t stay up that late this night since the next day would be a long one.
A few houses in Hersbruck.
Ellinor enjoying my aunt’s company.
The journey home started at eight in the morning. We first had to drive back to the airport in Stuttgart where we had rented the car and had the air tickets from. This is under ideal conditions a trip just under three hours. We had ideal conditions and some. Only one shorter traffic jam and a restroom stop (for me) left us time to do some last minute shopping, filling up the car and returning it in good time before twelve. Ellinor slept for most of the trip and when she didn’t she was happy with sitting in the car.
Our flight home went fine, even if the transfer time at Frankfurt was a bit short for my convenience, but hey, we didn’t have to wait at all.
Ellinor and Susanna in the plane.
My parent picked us up and drove us home, I’m so thankful for them.
I’m looking forward the next trip I make with my lovely family, they just make travelling much more fun.