Glad Midsommar

We were invited to a traditional Swedish midsummer celebration yesterday!  Our friends, Mikael and Cecilia, brought all of the traditional celebration food - including herring, new potatoes, aquavit, beer, meatballs, and a fabulous strawberry cake.  Yum!  Cecilia brought flowers to make our flower crowns and we listened to music and watched people raise the maypole.  It was so fun to take part in the festivities!

Dancing and singing around the maypole!

Sophia and I with our flower crowns on :-)  Can you tell I made my own??? :-)  Apparently, I used too much greenery...but not bad for a 1st attempt!  Ben also had a crown, but we couldn't capture him on camera.

Leksand

Last weekend, we headed off to Leksand to visit friends and see the Dalarna region of Sweden in the summer.  We had a really great weekend!  Thank you to Fredrik, Maria, Love and Axel for hosting us :-)

On Saturday morning, we braved the rain and took a walk to see their neighborhood.  The kids are enjoying the rain puddles while checking out the chickens.

Sizing up the cows!

Snails!  Lots and lots of snails!

In the afternoon, we checked out the town of Leksand.  Beautiful views of Lake Siljan.

On Sunday, the weather was better, so we went down to the shore of Lake Siljan in front of their home.

These beautiful purple (and pink) flowers are all over!

Traditional Swedish cabin/home built on stilts.

Lots of "Swedishness" in one picture.  Swedish flag, last year's maypole and an old car painted in Swedish design.

Dancing and singing "The Little Frogs" around the Maypole (or Midsummer Pole).  We were actually one week too early (Midsummer is July 24/25), but the town we were visiting decorates this pole each weekend for tourists.

Gotland

We recently took a trip to Gotland, a large island off the east coast of Sweden.  We saw a lot of really beautiful sites and had a great time.  The weather wasn't too bad, but definitely wasn't as warm as we were hoping (we had visions of laying on the beach)...but it was Memorial Day weekend - and even though we were thousands of miles from Minnesota, I still shouldn't  have expected perfect weather, right?  (For those of you not from MN or WI, it is not Memorial Day weekend without a good dose of rain!)

We took a huge ferry to Gotland.  I read that 500 cars fit on this bad boy.  I don't think I've ever been on a boat this large!

This is how we drove onto the boat.

We took off on a road-trip the first morning and headed north.  There are a lot of Rauk formations around this island - Rauk are stacks of limestone that have been created by years of erosion (I think??).  Anyway, there were lots of them and we checked out quite a few.

A recommended side-trip from the woman at the tourist office was a little bit of a bust.  While the scenery was nice, it wasn't extra-nice compared to everything else we saw and it was along a dirt road filled with potholes!  Oy...

We took a car ferry to another island, Färo.  Färo is teeny-tiny, so we covered most of it in a couple of hours.

We headed to a beautiful sandy beach.  We pretended that it was a nice, sunny day and played around for a while! :-)

(I'm not sure why Aaron had that look on his face :-)  )

Sophia fell in love with this jean jacket after seeing me wear one and wore it non-stop...even if it is a tiny short!

Sheep!  What would a Staloch trip be without a bunch of pictures of animals?

More Rauk formations.  Even though Färo is very small, the landscape changes dramatically.  Remember the sandy beach?  Just a short distance to the other side of the island and this is what the shoreline looks like.  So fun to see such different beauty in such a small space.

On day 2, we headed to the southern-most tip of the island and experienced more beautiful coastline.

They could throw rocks into the water for hours.

We went for a small hike.

On our last day, we toured around Visby.  Some of these pictures are actually from other mornings before we headed out of town for the day.

Visby is a very well preserved old town and very beautiful.  It is a walled city and considered a UNESCO World Heritage site - I can see why!

Track & Field Day!

The kids recently had a Track & Field day at school.  The fun afternoon was capped off with a hotdog roast and a trophy!


All of the kids made flags to represent their team - Sophia was on the blue team...

...and Ben was on the yellow team.

Sophia had fun cheering on her teammates.

And doing the obstacle course herself!

Ben dominated at the egg and spoon race.

Gröna Lund

We spent a Sunday afternoon in May at the local amusement park going on rides.  We were there just a couple of hours, but hit quite a few rides!  It wasn't a very nice day, so we didn't have to worry about lines.

Sophia and I started out on the swings.  The swings actually go out over the water and give great views of the city and Djurgarden, the island where Gröna Lund is located.

Ben and Aaron then took a ride on the flying elephants!

 Ben and Sophia went on the kid-size ferris wheel a couple of times - the only ride that Ben could go on without an adult :-)

Carousel ride on the pigs.

 And a roller coaster train.

The cars!

Teacups.  Glad Aaron did this one - I wouldn't have been able to handle the spinning.  Notice that Woody even made the trip!

And back to the carousel.  But this time, we rode the elephant.

 
Fun times!