New in the family

As a consequence of our unexpected shopping trip (see here), we are now the proud owners of a 2014 Nissan Versa. I think it is cute. Andreas would prefer to think of it as practical ;) Yes, all five of us can actually fit in it at the same time... Bring on the conflicting soccer games! ;)

Wishing you all a happy Friday! xox

34 years

No, I am definitely not writing about my age ;)

It has been 34 years since we last saw my cousins from Germany. I have a vague recollection of 2 boys: one was my age and the other a little older. They were mysterious, spoke German so quickly and came from a far away country that we had never visited. My sister and I were the confused looking Canadians. But we were family.. we knew that.

Thanks to Facebook, we came back in contact with each other and, 34 years later, they came back to visit us. The 2 brothers, a few years after we last saw each other, ended up being three :) Plus, we have the added bonus of a lovely, brave girlfriend that came along for the trip ;) They are still kind of mysterious... and still speak German quickly ;) Despite my living in Scandinavia, I am ashamed to say that I have still not visited Germany (layovers in Frankfurt and Berlin do not count) ;)

Funny thing is, despite the time and the distance, it feels like we have known and loved them for always.... Welcome back!

Showing their Duisburg pride :)

Unexpected shopping

Yesterday was a kind of Murphy's Law day: Andreas had to go to work for a few hours so he left with our "back up" car. The plan was that I would, while he was gone, get ready and head out to Ikea when Andreas got home. About 20 minutes after he left, Alexander answered the phone for me. It was Andreas, insisting to talk to me... Oh oh... that didn't sound like good news! I took the phone, only to find out that our old car had died on the highway in a dramatic "all lights flickering on the dashboard, with loss of breaks and steering kind of way". Luckily, Andreas managed to get off the highway and onto the service road. Frantically calling roadside assistance, I had a bad feeling that we would end up buying more than a small carpet and set of dishes from Ikea ;)

Anyway, 3 hours later, we had almost $400 in our pockets from the scrap yard and a signed contract for a new (well... new to us) car. I will show the pictures when we get it next week....

Welcome back to the post-holiday reality ;) xox

Our final few minutes with the car...

This experience was total boy cool ;)

Bye bye, Mazda!

RIP to our old cat

When we got home yesterday, I had to bring our old cat, Sarah, to the vet. She was not so well before we left and took a turn for the worse while I was in Copenhagen. My poor sister took care of her while we were away but I did not want her to have to deal with anything more than that. So, yesterday evening, after seeing her, I told the boys to say good bye and I had her put down. She was almost 18 years old...

Last evening

Tomorrow, we head back to Montreal. We spent the last evening with my sister in law and her family... It was a lovely ending to a great trip <3

See you on the other side of the Atlantic ;)

Postcard from Gullholmen

Today, we took the boys to Gullholmen, which is an island in the Swedish Western Archipelago (see here- sorry! It is only in Swedish but Google translate works well.) Admittedly, I knew that it would not be the boys' first choice of destinations but Andreas and I really wanted to go. Having said that, when we walked over to the ocean side of the island, there was TONS of wind and rocks to climb over so the fun started...... and so did my concern over having to visit the local emergency ward ;)

So here is the usual Swedish photo spam... hope you enjoy... we did :)

xox