swedenusa

Last week was the annual “nyhemsveckan” just outside where my brother and his family lives. It’s one of Sweden’s largest Christian conferences/camps. They estimate that about 14 000 people come thourghout the week. They come with their caravans (sort of a mobile home but you pull it behind your car), tents and some rent a tiny room that they share with someone else. Lots of great stories of pranks at this place…

The main meeting tent rooms close to 5 000. It’s a fantastic feeling and joy to be there. You will bump into people you haven’t seen for years. The services are great and the music is excellent. Food for the soul! We went to a couple of services at the end of last week and a concert. The pic above shows one of 5 or 6 sections in the tent.

My cousin Rikard came by with his wife Natalie and their soon 3 month old son Ivar. We spend a few precious moments with them. Having lunch, talking and of course having some coffee and a cookie after eating! You can see part of the line to the cafeteria behind Rikard on the picture above to the right.

What is your best camp prank/story? (Notice best…. not worse)

18 1/2 in  6lb  14.6 oz Jaeger James 7:28 PM (MST) born on Midsummers Eve.

We are so happy and excited that you have finally joined us! It’s been 29 years of waiting for the proud grandparents. Mom and Dad (Rach and Craig ) are doing fine considereing 16 hours of labor.

Welcome to the family baby Jaeger!

It’s midsummer weekend and that’s to celebrate in Sweden. Of course it’s the traditional stuff like dancing around the midsummer pole trying to jump and look like frogs while singing about how goofy frogs look. I never really got the logic in that…

While the people did that we were at Andy & Marie’s home and ate. It’s sort of funny. We like to eat the same stuff for all our celebrations all year ’round. Pickled herring, “prinskorv”, boiled potatoes, and meat balls. The only differences are the ham for Christmas and the eggs for Easter.

Midsummer is all about flowers and strawberries. Most girls have a flower wreath around their heads om midsummer eve. The folk lore speaks tells us that you are supposed to pick seven different kinds of flowers and put under your pillow. At night you will dream about the person you will marry.

I think we ate about 1 1/2 gallons of strawberries over two days. A strawberry cake is a must!

We had such a great time spending this holiday with Andy, Marie, Alex & Rebecka!

It’s the World Cup in soccer! Huge! Tonight a big big game for us Swedes. Sceptical? Yes! We are playing England. How in the world are we going to stop Rooney, Owen, and Beckham? The coach for England is actually a Swede so if they win… may I at least think that we also won?

Last week we scored our first goal and won the game. The windows flung open and people were yelling out on the streets. It was awesome. Cars were driving down the streets honking and people shouting until midnight.

Our neighbor has a big Swedish flag on their balcony and they are all wearing swedish soccer jerseys. Just so you know… we don’t have the Swedish flag on display as much as in the states. As I’m writing this… Sam is opening the window to get started for the game. Just so we can joing the neighborhood’s ahhhh, nooooo, and hopefully gooooooaaaaal!

Now lets hope!

So last week my sister arranged for us to go up in a small airplane. My sister just moved to a new better aparment and her next door neighbor happens to be part of the local flying club. For the price of fuel we joined a pilot for a Saturday evening drive in the blue sky.

The plane was very small and it felt like climbing into one of those old small european cars from the 60’s or something. The plane took off from the grassy runway and we were looking out over the town where I went to high school. We saw the hill were Sam and I got engaged. And we saw mom waiving with a white towel down below. The pilot waved back by tipping the wings up and down.

In case you didn’t know… I do get car sick. For a while I was really struggling and looked around to find somewhere to place it in case I needed to. It all settled as we were flying over Gothenburg and the local international airport. It was so cool to hear the communication with the tower at the airport. We even got to see a larger plane land as we flew behind it.

Sam even got to take over and fly for a while. Needless to say… I was really scared and my “car sickness” came back. The whole flight was not as bumpy as I thought it would be considering the size of the aircraft. It was so great… well except for the times I felt sick.

Thank you Johanna for this awesome experience!

It’s warm. I love it. We are having a great start of the summer. I’m looking out seeing a blue sky with no clouds. Temps are in the 80’s. Bad thing is that not many places have AC in Sweden not even stores. Good thing is that we have no humidity. Sure it’s unbareable at work because the airflow is aweful in those apartments. But it’s ok at home and we get out a lot at work. We sleep with our windows open at night, which is fine until about 3 or 4 am when it’s very bright out.

The heat started midweek last week. When we were at my sis and mom’s place we had such a great time out. We sat outside most of the time. Mom bought a grill that Sam helped set up. It’s funny how we are always beginners at BBQ at this time of the year but in just a few months we are pros.

It’s great to just sit outside and eat. Bias loves to play outside and it’s a great time of year for him since he hates getting dressed in jackets and shoes. A sleeveless shirt and a diaper is just perfect! However, after the sun sets it does get a bit chilly in Sweden so it’s always good to bring a sweater or something for the evening hours.

Bias loved to play with Sam and wanted to spend lots of time with him. They kicked some soccer and the new favorite game which involves Sam pretend sleeping and Bias falling down to startle Sam awake.

So, I took a Swedish exam and enrolled in a class. Last Wednesday was my first day. I wasn’t sure what to expect and was a little nervous on my first day. My teacher was nice and introduced me to the class as “Sam from the USA”. The rest of the class then said their names and what country they were from. I don’t remember all of thier names…but 23 of them were from Iraq.

As you can imagine I was a little nervous!!! I sat next to a 22 year old Iraqi named “Morti.” He and I became friends pretty quickly and he assured me that I wasn’t going to be on the evening news. Actually all of them are very cool. We joke around and talk alot about our countries and about Sweden. Morti thinks it is funny to introduce me to his friends as “George Bush’s buddy.”

Today Morti and I hit the beach after Swedish class. Jonkoping has a large beach. It sits on the edge of a freshwater lake called “Vattern”. We swam alot even though the water was FREEZING. Later we played volleyball with all kinds of people…many of them just walked up and joined in. No one really played by the rules and since this is Europe everyone was kicking the ball over the net “Soccer Style”. But everyone had a good time and so did I.

Today my sister’s little son turned 2. We were there this weekend to celebrate and spend precious time with them. Last night at about midnight we put together the gift that my sister was giving him as a birthday present. Well, we were supposed to just put it together and then we decided to wrap it too!

It was far easier and took much less time to unwrap the thing. But we had fun! Except for the part when Sam scratched his hand on the tape dispensor and started bleeding like crazy. Just a battle wound from wrapping a tryce at midnight!

My sister was wise and decided not to have a huge party with a bunch of other kids. A handfull of gifts can be overwhelming to a little guy. It can get very frustrating at that age to have a bunch of other kids pulling and taking your new and old toys. He just don’t know what to do with it all and taking a break on the floor (face down) is sometimes the best cure.

He was just happy to have family over.

We ended the celebration with a Swedish Princess cake. At this point he had just gotten up from his afternoon nap. He was still trying to wake up and would not allow us to sing happy birthday. Just the cake and the candles was plenty and he was happy.

It’s great to be able to be a part of these moments in his life!

June 6th is the National day in Sweden. Formerly known as the Swedish flag’s day. It’s our 4th of July since we didn’t become independent of anything. The celebrations are rather new. It’s the first year that it’s actually considered a holiday.

As a kid I just remember us going out on the school yard by the flagpole and watch the flag being raised that day. Then we went back to the classroom. This week was different.

My brother and his wife brought their kids to Jonkoping for the day. We walked down to the town square and watched some of the events celebrating Sweden.

It was great to have the family for a visit and we had lots of fun at the playground. We had such great weather too!

Still spring here, but summer is coming soon!