Big jump...

20 July - 10 August

Well, as you might have noticed, we've haven't been updating the vacation blog for a couple days but here's a bunch of photos.

Nephew Mats, Mikaela, Ida and my sister Yvonne stayed until Sunday 22 July and all of us were sad to see them go. At least they could have left Ida behind... And the image of Mats pretending to be a troll at Rottneros will never go away...
He is sooo cute...
Well, one set of visitors left and since we had 24 hrs before the next set of relatives were going to arrive, Patrice invited the neighbours Lisa and Karin for a "Lord of the Ring DVD Marathon"-sleepover. I spent most of Sunday cleaning the house up, for the occasional "swim-and-fish-at-Pankland" break...

Monday 23 July, Kathy's sister Janet with her family arrived, by train from Stockholm. The trip went fine and they were happy to meet the rest of their Swedish relatives. For the next week we did what we always do on our vacation out on the countryside - swim and fish! No, it wasn't all that bad - we also took the boat and the canoes out (just once and it was rainy - sorry about that...) and we played lots of kubb. We also drove along the river Klarälven and Genne went down to the shore to feel how cold the water was. We also went bowling, at our nice little bowling alley. The kids had a great time seeing their cousins. We also got to see when Skye started walking, we were counting every single step in the beginning. But when she could take 50+ steps we stopped counting...

Patrice also went to Circus camp. They got to try different things, like the Diablo, spinning plates etc. At the end they did a performance for all the parents and relatives.


Genne and Grace playing hospital. Genne is the doctor...

Andy, Patrice and Genne in the canoe, in the rain...

Janet and Skye in the boat

Skye in the backpack carrier. Great view from up there...

We went fishing from the wooden bridge and Grace picked some flowers.

The water is cold in Klarälven...

Come on Andy, pull!!!

Patrice (in blue) does some of the things she learned at Circus Camp.

The human Pyramid

Trip to Rottneros

19 July
Turn out to be a nice day so we packed the cars with picnic stuff and started to drive towards Sunne.

The coffee shop was closed but we managed to buy an icecream.

Mikaela and Ida at the steamboat dock in Sunne. The church of Sunne in the background.

Ahhh, food at last!!! Rottneros Park

Take it easy Mats, it's not a race!

Anders and Ida

There are quite a few things for kids to climb around in... and adults.

Grace riding a wooden horse.

Indoor pool

18 July
Since we've got our car back we could go to the indoor pool. The weather was so of rainy and cold so it was perfect to visit the warm pools. Otherwise we were playing with Ida.

Windy day

17 July
Lots of wind and a few hours without rain - we headed down to the beach to go swiming. Since it was windy we also brought the windsurfer.

Grace and Ida
Anders off windsurfing

Mats and the kids in the water

The kids with aunt Vonna.

Anders: -I lost my shorts in the water...

Wow, visitors!!!

16 July
We cleaned a bit more, but it was also going to be the warmest day (so far) this summer. So we couldn't just stay indoor all day. We decided to bake a cake and then head over to the "flag pole" in the lake, by boat - Nathan wanted to fish. After that we went swimming by the beach for awhile, before the big crowd was going to arrive.

Mats, Mikaela, Ida and Yvonne arrived just in time for dinner.

The kids were happy to see Ida again.

Of course Nathan wanted to fly some model airplane. Sure, and Mats wanted try as well. Then Mats was going to throw for Nathan - it ended up in the side of the barn...

A weekend is too short...

15 July
Well, Sunday already and Kathy had to catch the train home. We did some cleaning and played some kubb. We tried to figure out what we needed for the following weeks - nephew Mats with girlfriend Mikaela and their daughter Ida plus my sister Yvonne was going to visit from Monday. They will stay the week out. On Wednesday, Kathy's sister Janet will arrive to Sweden. They will hang out in Stockholm for a few days. The following Monday, Janet with family is taking the train from Stockholm to Torsby, for a visit out on the countryside.
At 2.30 pm our neighbour picked up Kathy, to drive her to the trainstation. We cleaned some more after she left, I mowed the lawn. Then we had to go to the lake for a swim!

Hey, who's that woman...

14 July
Kathy brought some nice weather with her so we packed some sandwiches and took the canoes out on the lake.

Hey, look at this - a photo of dad...

Kathy and Nathan trying to catch up...

Grace with her mouth full of cookies.

-What's that yellow thing in the sky?

The happy family

Waiting for the car and Kathy

13 July
Well, we were waiting for two things today - to get the car back and for Kathy to arrive with train, for a weekend visit. Kathy came with the train...

The weather was nice so we took the canoe out. Patrice friend Lisa met up by the beach and they took the canoe out for a spinn.

Our boat. Great to fish from, a pain to row (it's so heavy)!

Nathan caught two pikes, here's the big on the hook.

Nathan pulled the big pike out of the water, the small one we let back in the lake. Patrice and Lisa caught a small bass with their hands, by the docks...

Took the boat out...

12 July
Nathan wanted to use the boat, he wanted to go fishing. The weather looked good so we decided to take the boat out for a spin (no motor, just rowing). By the time we got down to the beach some black clouds where overhead and within 20 minutes it started to rain. At least Nathan got to fish for about 19 minutes...

The kids played outside, Nathan and Patrice on their BMX. Parice had a nasty fall and got a cut just under her knee, looked bad and it hurt too. She was OK though after I made oatmeal-chocolate balls (..with a spoonful of suger makes the medicine go down... Grace favorite movie right now Mary Poppins or as she calls it "Mary Poppinson).

Not much action

11 July
Been pretty quiet today. Rained a bit, but I managed to mowe some of the lawn before the first shower. Still no news about the car but got a lift by our friend Jan from the local soccer team (that Nathan used to play for) to town to by more groceries (mainly yoghurt, Grace eats three bowls of plain yoghurt every day). In the afternoon, Jan also towed our boat from one part of the lake to our "shore" by the beach. That way we ca get to it a bit easier (otherwise we usually drive to that other shore). Of course we had to jump in, got to swim everyday...

Hey, is that run,yellow thing in the sky the sun?

10 July
-Hey, is that the sun? Pack the swm stuff and let's head over to the beach. And it's blowing, let's bring the windsurfer.

Patrice: -Surf or canoe?

-Hey Nathan, I think you need to be in the water...
Grace: -Daaad, can you get rid of this slug?
Here's a question for you - one of this items doesn't belong in the summer, which one? Yes it's the thing in the middle, a thing called "sparkstötting" (could be translated to "kick-it-ma-thingy"), used in the winter, to get across ice covered surfaces.

Can we stack one more canoe?

9 July
No change in weather - cold and rainy. It was so cold in the house that I decided to heat up the dutch oven in the kids bedroom.
The kids: -Dad, can we bring out the marshmallows? For breakfast...

It was still raining but not very much so we decided to take the canoes over to the lake, just to get out of the house. We stacked the canoes on top of eachother and rolled them over to the lake.

Fishing by the flag post in the lake. Grace caught her first fish!!!
Patrice: -Hey don't leave me out here, come back.








Well, as you might see in this photo, Nathan and Grace are wet. Patrice was also wet but she'd already changed in to dry clothes. Patrice and Grace jumped in the lake right before we took the canoes back to the house, to swim with their clothes on. Nathan on the other hand, FELL in by accident and what made it worst - there were some girls by the beach that saw him fall in...

We made a cake. Doesn't look all that tasty but it sure was!!!

Since it's been so rainy we don't get the chance to fly as much a we want. Good thing we can fly digitally. The best thing is that if you crash, you just press the reset button...

I know it's hard to believe but it rained today...

8 July
Yes, another day with rain. We're getting quite used to it by now but it's getting a bit to the kids, especially since we still don't have a car. We're hoping by the beginning of next week we will get it back, so we can get out of the house and go to the indoor pool or something. Nathan would like to go bowling. Anyway, some photos from a rainy day...
-All activities at the swings were today canceled due to rain.

Water CAN be pretty too...

I cut some more wood for the girls to paint on. They both like to paint, Patrice especially. She'll paint and draw all the time.

Gone fishing

7 July
Well, another cloudy and rainy day. We didn't do much today, clean a bit more, played with the cats, spent some time outside when it wasn't raining. Nathan and I took the canoe to the lake, Nathan wanted to go fishing. Patrice and Grace was busy painting on pieces of wood that I cut out for them. Late at night we toosed the sail plane across the farmers field, to get some more practise before the big launch.

Nathan fishing from the canoe. The lake was calm and it was two other canoes out on the waters. Nathan caught a small pike when we cross the lake at the deepest part.

It's not a trick photo. Quite far out on the lake is this flag and the sign for "Bumpy road" and it's justified - the flag post stands on a rock that is just under the water. Be pretty bumpy to hit that rock at full speed with a boat...

Friday is cleaning

6 July
After running in and out of the house, in order to stay dry of all the rain, it's time to clean the house.
What's this? A game of "Musical Chairs" gone wrong? No, it's the Freemans cleaning the wooden chairs in the kitchen. The chairs are scrubbed with a special type of soap (all natural, no chemicals) and the soap protects the wood afterwards.

After all that cleaning we needed a friendly game of "Kubb", an ancient Swedish (Nordic) game that is a lot of fun to play. One danger though - when Grace throws the sticks they can land anywhere...

-Is it Catwoman? Superwoman? -No it's the Hawaiian Flower woman from Myra...

Rain, sun, rain, sun...rain?

5 July
Yes, it's one of those days, when you look out the window one minute and the sun is shining from a clear blue sky and wham! you've got tons of black clouds over you and rain starts pouring down. We were in and out of the house with 5 minutes intervals.

Yeah, Grace wants to be a rock star so she practise on her guitar routines. But I'm wondering about her rock star influences (sp?) - the song she's doing her singback to in this photo is Kenny Loggins "Footloose". Does that say anything? Is it a good song or just indicates that her parents grew up during the 80's?

We got a small tree house that we build years ago, when the kids were smaller. The kids like to play in it every ones in awhile. During one of the five minute rain breaks the kids wanted to have a picnic in the tree house. Sure, why not.
Grace: -Dad, could you get some more yoghurt for me?

Even though it was rainy it wasn't cold. Nathan and I decided to got swimming and it was beautiful by the lake. The water was semi-nice though, abit on the cold side. We got in though...
Nathan checking the water temperature...

Nathan bicycled over on his BMX. Oh yes, if you decide to come for a visit, be carful when you drive on our driveway - there are major BMX jumps all over the place!!!

You can't miss bingo while you're at Myra. The bingo takes place by the soccer fields, just 700 m away from our house. We brought sandwiches, snacks (fruit and veggies), juice and of course - coffee!!!
We all took turns playing.

Grace: -Isn't it over yet? I'm bored. But hey, I can run around the soccer field, singing "Footloose"...

Rain, rain, rain

4th of July
Well, 4th of July turned out to be a rainy day, so we just stayed indoors and relaxed. I guess the highlight of the day was when we got a ride to our little town (about 10 kms away, I guess 253 F and 28 cents away - man, I love metric!!!). We still haven't got our car back, no one really knows what's wrong with it. It's great to have nice neighbours that helps us out. It's been sort of nice though, to not have a car. We've been taking it really easy. I'm mean, I can't go to the hardware store to by tools and paint for repainting the house, no extra gas for the lawn mower etc etc. We wish though that we could drive to the local indoor pool, especially on a rainy day like this.

As you can see, the cats got into a relaxing state also, mainly because they're so tired after chasing every single insect (mainly flies) in the house. It's great though (that the cats chase flies), we have no bugs in the house anymore...

The kids wanted me to put this photo on the blog. This is not a trick photo, it is a "real" carrot.

I guess I could write a whole bunch jokes about a carrot like this but I'm not gonna go there.

Gameboy vs Model airplanes

3 July
The kids don't play that much TV or computer games but once in a while the old Gameboys can be a fun distraction. Nathan hasn't been feeling well the last couple of weeks and it was worse today, so he thought it was nice just to take it easy for a while, playing Gameboy. I don't know why Grace decided to join him, under the blanket but I guess she had her reasons.


Nathan has been working (ehrmmm, DAD and Nathan...) on a model airplane (sail plane) during spring and we're just about to do the final assembly. Meanwhile, Nathan gets to practice on my old sail plane. Right now we're just getting the feel of the radio control.


Grace: -Now it's MY turn to fly, gimme that plane. Can I throw it against the side of the barn...?

Cold but sunny!

1 July
The weather is sort of sunny but it's cold, not really any summer temperatures. That didn't stop us though. We packed our swim stuff in the canoe and took it over to the lake.


Grace: -Don't know why they say that canoeing can be so hard to do. This was sooo easy!

Vacation 2007

Vacation 2007
Well, it was almost a year ago that we went to the States and we still have strong memories from that trip. This year America will come to us instead - Kathy's sister Janet with family will visit us starting from mid July.

Well, vacation for the FFF's started with the Midsummer weekend (23-24 June). By a mistake, Anders and Kathy had the same week off, which opened up for endless possibilities. We've tossed around the idea of visiting a "wild west" theme park and we mentioned it to a friend and she wanted to come along with her two kids. So we decided to drive to "High Chapparral" and since it's a couple of hours away driving we planned to camp somewhere along the way.

24 June

Kathy happy by the tent, close to the shore of Vättern.

The kids got into their bathing suits and ...started playing in the sand!

25 June
Got up early next day and drove to the theme park. The weather wasn't all that great but no rain so far.


The happy bunch at High Chapparral


The fastest gun in the theme park...


The stunt show area


There was a steamtrain track thru the park.


Hey, don't I know some of the passangers...?


We need some gold to pay for dinner...


How about some dice game before we go to sleep?

27-28 June
After the visit to the theme park, we just had enough time to repack and stuff our car for the trip to our countryhouse. The car was packed with kids, clothing, sleeping bags, life vests, cats, model airplane stuff - it was filled to the last centimeter. We took off and made good time, just stopped at the Golden Seagull for some fastfood and was soon back on the road. Well, what happens - the car dies and is completely dead. Great!!!


Nice place for a broken car - sunshine, nice view etc


Stuffed car?


Rescued!!! And after nine hours we home!

28-29 June
We were happy to be at the countryside, even though we have no idea what's the problem with the car. Our neighbour drives us to the store to get grocery and we have plenty of stuff to do around the house. The grass was knee high so we got started with mowing the lawn. The kids had other plans though - they jumped in the grass and looked more like green monsters after rolling around. But it itched...


Nathan gets in, Grace waiting for her turn.

We all need some energy and how about melting marshmallows over a grill and place it between two chocolate crackers. Hmm sounds like a great idea...


Nathan, wake up, you dropped yours...


Looks kinda weird, is it really considered as food...?