Isak's First Pinewood Derby

Isak participated in his first pinewood derby. It was a good experience for everyone in the family. His car did okay - he was satisfied that he did not lose any heats, but neither did he win any, though one was very close.

 Isak's car has been weighed and entered.

 Ready to go!

Some of the competing cars. 

 The track. Isak is waiting for his car to compete in this heat.

Cousin Karolina, newly arrived from Sweden, is here seen trying her first ever corn dog! 

Isak's car received the "most realistic" award.

June

Two days after I returned from my trip to Sweden, my cousin Karolina arrived. She spent 6 weeks with us. I had summer school in June and we hired Karolina as our summer Au Pair. It worked out very well. Unfortunately I was not so good at remembering to take pictures in June as I normally am, and then I couldn't find my camera battery charger and the excuses go on as to why I have not taken very many pictures. Karolina has some and I'll try and get them from her and upload some.

We did some fun things while Karolina was here though, like: go to the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, the Bass Pro Shop, the Science Museum and we also attended 4 different plays. We saw "Oliver" at the Civic center in Oklahoma City (Isak and Elina loved it!), "Seussical the Musical" in Edmond at UCO (fantastic! I cried at the end), and two small productions at OU "Around the World in 80 days" (Isak really liked this one), and "The Secret Garden" (Elina read the book in anticipation for this one, and loved it). I try to expose the kids to culture, so that they will not be bottom-feeders in their entertainment choices, and live plays are just so great, especially at the Universities, because the price is affordable.

Karolina also took part in our church's Youth Conference which put on a huge performance on July 8th, featuring 900 youth ages 14-19. Karolina sang in the choir and had lots of rehearsals to attend in preparation for this. The performance ended up being very, very good. A synopsis of the first act can be seen HERE, though the choir is pretty much ignored, though it is seen at the 14.05 mark.

 Karolina and I outside the Civic Centre.

Elina and "Oliver." (Sam Brown). She got his autograph, too. 
At first she did not want this picture taken - she was so shy. 
But afterwards she wanted to put it on her wall next to her bed.

The last of Sweden 2011

 Morfar patient - in both definitions of the word.

 Fika!

 Outside church.

Anja and Nike. 

Julia and Nike.

Karolinas Student

In Sweden at graduation from Gymnasium (High School) we wear funny white hats and most people wear white clothes. We hang flowers around the graduates necks with yellow and blue ribbon. My youngest cousin, Karolina, graduated while I was home. It was wonderful to be there for such a family gathering. Compare the 2008 graduation of my SISTER.

 Here she is, having just run out of the school onto the lawn to greet waiting family and friends, in the traditional manner. 

 My aunt Hanna (Karolina's mom) and I.

 My cousins Sofia and Marcus.

 Karolina and Anja.

 My aunt and I.

Here we are: all NINE Ericsson cousins, for the first time in a single photograph. 
We decided to stand according to birth order, oldest to youngest:

Victoria, Malin, Marcus, Sofia, Magnus, Thomas, Linn, Louise & Karolina.

This picture means a lot to me. 

May I add that FOUR of the people in this photograph, according to Swedish trend, have their various shades of BLONDE hair dyed DARK. (nrs 2,4,6,8).  Only in Sweden. 

Liseberg

Mormor treated us to a trip to Liseberg, the mother of all amusement parks. It is not only a lot of fun, it is a very pretty park seated partly on a hill/mountain. It has some serious rides, but we concentrated on kid rides, of course. We went on a Thursday. The weather was beautiful, there were NO lines, we just walked on to every single ride. Absolutely fantastic. Anja, who is often timid about other things, is so fearless when it comes to rides, we had a great time.

 Baby carousel.

 Tea cups.

 Mormor likes the teacups, too!

SO unfair! (Julia was not tall enough to go on that ride). 

But she could drive cars! Yay! 

On this ride my mom and I almost peed our pants laughing. I started spinning my drum and it went insanely fast. I howled with laughter and kept spinning, and then we laughed from embarrassment that it was really a kid ride and the adults were having more fun than the kids, so we laughed until we cried. Luckily there were very few people there. It is my favorite ride now, I think.

 Michael Jackson's hand print.

 The Ferris wheel.

 The Fairytale castle. 

 Bumpercars

 Little boats. Actually, very fast!

 Beautiful Gothenburg, as seen from Ferris wheel.

 Tradition: no Liseberg visit is complete without waffles with whip cream and raspberry preserves.

 These girls demanded to go on the Ferris wheel 3 times until I said, enough! 

 Driving the boat. But mostly she wanted IN the water.

 Anja and mormor.

Waffles!

Sweden continued

It is July blogging slipped through in the very busy month of May and June, so I have lots of catching up to do. I won't get it all, but I will begin by adding a few pictures from our Sweden trip and hopefully add a few more posts until present time, as the week goes on.

We had a fantastic time in Sweden, of course. Wonderful cool May (long sleeve weather, mostly). I know the Swedes didn't like that, but I knew the sweltering heat I was returning to so I enjoyed every second of that jacket weather.

 We celebrated May 17th - Norwegian Independence Day - with Oldemor Inger, my grandma.

Marie, Tove, Victoria, Julia, Julia & Anders

at Leif's birthday party, May 18th 

Cousins Nike, Anja and Julia having a picnic of sorts on the deck.

 I had to include this one. Old ladies doing their errands on bikes - you see them everywhere. Well, everyone does their errands on foot and bike, I guess. But that is something I never see in Oklahoma.

 Anja and Julia on Nike's swingset.

 Grandma Ingunn makes rhubarb pie with and for the grand kids.

Nice camera faces, girls.

 Daniella and I - and Noah hooked up. :)

Saw my old friend Tomasz! We were great buddies in High School, and pen pals for years as we both trotted the surface of the earth in various places, so we were in touch long before facebook, but we had not seen one another for 16 years, since both of us have been living abroad! It still felt like yesterday. 

 Here is Tomasz with his amazing wife Irena and super cute daughter Klara. 

Anja and Julia still remember Klara, thought she was something else!

My friends Carl and Henrik. 

Europe in Spring

Sweden, to be specific. Anja, Julia and I are here now. I know I should love using a Mac, but I am not used to it, so uploading, downloading - really anything beyond surfing requires more patience than I have right now. So I will add some more pictures etc when I get back.

Here's just a few, for now:

Julia doing somersaults in the airport. We spent A LOT of time there.

Delay: 44 hours!!!  It's a personal record.

my niece Nike, my Dad, Julia and me

my Mom, Julia and me

Sweden

confirmation in the Swedish Lutheran State church

The jetlag is brutal coming this way.

Imagine daylight savings times 7.

Takes a week to get over, unless you fast on the trip, which we can't really do with little kids.