Driving to PA.

On June 5th, we packed ourselves in the car and left for Hershey, Pennsylvania. (Yes, the place where they make the chocolate.) We had decided to make the long drive so that we could meet my sister, Beverly, and her family. Even though it was a long drive, we really enjoyed ourselves! :)


Enjoying some books along the way.



Kisses for "Papoo."

Kisses for Mamaw.

Pre-dinner entertainment at Friendly's.

Leia LOVED her mac&cheese dinner (and corn, too of course).

Leia thoroughly enjoying her balloon!

AC.

Ugh.. I want air conditioning!!!
It is waaaay toooo hot. :/

It is 30ºC (85ºF) in the shade during the day, and easily well over 32-33ºC (90ºF) in the sun. We use fans, but they can only do so much. And then none of our windows downstairs open. :( They are painted shut so it is like living in a sauna or a greenhouse. Very difficult to breath. We would love to get a couple of those portable air conditioners, but I can imagine the electricity to run them isn't very friendly, especially with electric costs in Sweden.. :/

Last summer, the government building that Fredrik works in installed AC. *jealous* So he gets to have it at work at least. And today he is working indoors at least all morning. His boss called him on Friday and asked him if he knew how to do something and Fredrik did actually know how to do it, and his boss was pretty excited and pleased. ;)

So we are hoping that it rains soon, and that the temperatures drop down back to normal!

Amherst Marching Comets

While in the US, my mom found a couple of old pictures from my high school days. :) I loved seeing these, I hadn't seen them since they were taken! I love looking at them and seeing soooo many friends. :)
Can you find me??



1996-1997

1997-1998

Too much.

I decided now tonight that it is just too much to write about. Fredrik and I are trying to deal with everything as best as we can. We have great support from Leia's BVC nurse and we are getting lots of help from her. It is just way too much to write about, I'm sorry. Things go up and down so quickly. And even things that should work end up not working as they should, like the sleeping medicine that we got from the doctor on Friday.

So, I'm just going to leave it at this, I'm sorry!
If you really want updates or are more curious about details, then please get in touch with me (or Fredrik) and we'll be happy to share!

I'll try to use this as a place to think about the positives during the days, instead of the negatives - to help keep a more positive outlook.

But do keep Leia and us in your thoughts. She is having a really rough time right now, and no one has been able to figure out what is going on. We've met with a doctor and we hope to meet with a child psychologist. So we hope that we can get some things resolved some time in the near future. If not, at least lessen the stress.

Thanks for being understanding and patient.

When I get the camera, I'll have lots of pictures to upload from our trip! I'm anxious to share them! :)

Quick update.

Things have been pretty crazy since Wednesday night. I really need to do a longer update, but Leia is asleep in our bed and I wanna go sit outside for a few minutes and get some much needed sun since I haven't been outside in a week besides to and from the car.

We're all alive.. I think. But barely.
I'll give a better update later, I promise.

Ugh..

On the dot.. 22.00 she woke up.
I decided that I didn't have the energy to keep her asleep like I did last night. So we've been in the living room, she's been "playing," watching her new favorite Sesame Street sing-along DVD and sitting in my lap and I've been trying to not passout, keeping "busy" and looking at stupid stuff on the Internet. Another sleepless night for me.

I have a horrible headache, my eyes are burning and stinging, sick to my stomach, I'm dizzy and I'm constantly thirsty. Not sure what thirst has to do with being tired. Ugh.. not fun to shower, though. My eyes burn and sting so much that I can't open them for a very long time afterwards. :/

9 nights of no sleep, and counting..

Toooo tired.

Ugh.. I was going to write something tonight, but I am just too tired. I'll have to try to catch up tomorrow.

Leia woke up.. between 11 and 12 last night, and I was up with her all night, so I am completely dead. I didn't get to fall asleep before she woke up. Not sure the last time I had a full nights sleep. But I would say about a week ago.

So I am hoping that I am tired enough now to go to bed and fall asleep, and that jet lag won't win over and keep me awake until Leia wakes up. I am a walking zombie and am almost nonfunctional.

Good night.

Some good news, though. Farfar received the bags today from the taxi driver and will be sending them tomorrow. Yay!

Allergies??

I had a cold for about 3-4 weeks before we left for the US. I wasn't sick at all while we were there, it just disappeared. Then after we had our nap at Farmor and Farfar's house, I woke up with a stuffed up nose and a sore throat! And now I am sick again! It has to be alleriges, no??

But Leia now has a runny nose and and is sneezing like crazy too.. so I'm not sure what is going on. It is really annoying though. :/

I am impatiently waiting to get my bag back. :/ And quickly go through it to make sure everything is there. :/ :) Of course it will be, but I just want my stuff back. Difficult to live without my wallet (IDs), cell phone and all that.... :/ Really stupid of us to have forgotten it in the taxi.

Leia slept all night on Sunday night! But Fredrik and I had trouble sleeping. :( But last night, Leia didn't sleep much at all. It was a really, really rought night. Fredrik and I weren't very happy with Leia, to say the least. :/ It is difficult to be patient when you are only getting 3-4 hours tops of sleep a night, and inconsecutively. So Fredrik and I are completely dead tired and moving around like zombies. :/

Leia screamed when I left her at daycare today, but when I picked her up, they said she did fine. So I was very pleased about that. :) Before I left her this morning, I told them that she isn't allowed to nap during the day.. I didn't have to explain why. :)

Her baths the last 2 nights were better than they were in the US, but she still screamed and fought it. Tonight, though, she didn't. She actually sat down in the water and played and laughed, but she did complain when she got water in her face, but the unhappiness easily passed.

She didn't let me put her in bed tonight, so I held her and rocked her. She passed out right away and didn't flinch when I layed her in bed. That was nice. (Last night it took 1½ hours to get her to fall asleep.)

We're trying our best to get things done around the house, while walking around like zombies and keeping Leia happy. :) Today I took a short nap while Leia was at daycare and ironed the living room curtains. This evening Fredrik moved lamps around inbetween rooms, since we have switched furniture around.

We were a little sceptical at first about our decision to switch furniture, after we moved the dining table, but now we really like it and we don't think we are going to move it back. Right now we are trying to decide and figure out what wall stuff to keep and move. I really want another wine holder from EM, though. :/ I doubt they sell them anymore, since they don't have them on their website (haven't had them in years I don't think). Fredrik got me one for my birthday about.. 3-4 years ago.. :/ :) I'd even take a used one if I could find one.

Fredrik was back at work today and he was with the new guy I suppose for most of the day. Not too bad I don't think, for him to be back, just tired. :)

Now I am going to water the outdoor plants and then move them back outdoors, since we moved them indoors before we left, so they wouldn't get toooo much sun, not knowning how well the neighbor was going to get to water them.

Let's hope that Leia sleeps well tonight, and then hope tha we can sleep well tonight too. Jet lag is not a fun thing, my friends!

Some success!

Fredrik stayed up with Leia for about 4-5 hours last night, and then he got me up at 8, and I took over while Fredrik slept for 5 hours. Around 10.00, Leia crawled in my lap and ended up falling asleep and we both slept for about 3 hours or so. :) She was not happy when I woke her and made her stay awake. :/ But I had to.

We spent the rest of the day then mopping and moving furniture. The dining room is now the living room and the living room is now the dining room - for the most part at least. :) We are leaving everything on the walls for a week, to make sure we wanna keep everything this way - before we move wall fixtures and the ceiling lamps.

But Leia has eaten pretty well today. We didn't try anything we were unsure of. She ate lots of Cheerios, a little bit of pasta, some bread and some yoghurt. We were very pleased with how she ate today. And she pooped twice! So she has been going to the bathroom much better already, since we have been home. (Because I know everyone is SO interested in Leia's bowel movements.) ;)

I think we did pretty well today getting things done with how tired we are. :) We hope to get more done tomorrow.

Leia didn't want to get in her bed tonight, so I held her and she went to sleep in my arms without any troubles. She fell asleep and even started snoring.. :D So I easily put her in her bed (at her normal bedtime, 19.00) and she has been sleeping in there ever since - knock on wood. The first time in a long time that she has gone to bed at her right sleeping time.

So we are very pleased how things went tonight with putting her to bed and we see this as a good start. :) Hopefully things won't backtrack too much from here. :)

We definitely stayed up way too late tonight, but it was nice having Leia in bed, and having things a little more back to normal. Of course she will wake up 10 minutes after we get in bed, but that is life, eh? ;)

Anxiously awaiting to get my camera back so that I can share pictures!

There's no place like home.

The flights went okay I think. Leia didn't sleep Thursday night, so we were all exceptionally tired for the entire trip. :( Leia ended up sleeping about 1½ hours in the Newark airport. Which gave Fredrik and I a chance to sit down and rest and relax for a bit. When she woke up though, she was very, very angry and screamed quite a lot. :/

On Wednesday.. or was it Thursday maybe.. we found out from Farmor that no one ever showed up to fix our fireplace.... So we are just a "little" angry about that. No call, no messages, no e-mail -- so we aren't very happy. I wanted Fredrik to call the guy tonight, but he is going to call on Monday I suppose.

Leia complained a little on the long flight. But it was a tired-crying. And even though it was probably only 5 minutes, to us and everyone else on the plane, it probably felt like it was 30 minutes. You know? But after that she slept 3½-4 hours, and the flight was only 7½ hours long. So she slept most of the flight. So she did pretty well I think on both trips, considering the length of the flight(s) and her age. This flight, the most fun toy was the seatbelt.

We had ordered a taxi so it was waiting for us after we got our luggage. But of course, we had so much stuff - I guess it was bound to happen - we forgot 2 small bags and Fredrik's jacket in the taxi. *sigh* One was Leia's red bag, with her books and a couple of toys. The other bag was my purse. *SIGH* With our 5 passports, my wallet, my cell phone, and camera..... So no pictures for awhile longer! He sent us a message when he found everything in the taxi, but we were all asleep (we slept for 5 hours before making our way home to Åmål). So Farfar is going to help us out and pick everything up at the company's taxi station and then we will hopefully get everything back soon enough.

Very annoying, but at least the taxi driver was good about getting in contact with us when he found everything. And at least we didn't lose them somewhere else (where we might not have gotten them returned).

Leia (and the rest of us) were very happy to get home. (After our very short 4½ hour drive home - much faster with no traffic!) Leia didn't want to go to bed tonight. Well, she fell asleep, but she didn't want to sleep in her bed. So we are in for a horrible time I think, getting her back to sleeping how she used to. She hasn't sleep well in almost 2 weeks. And we are afraid that our good, sleeping baby is completely gone.

Tomorrow we are going to mop the living room, since it is empty......
And then transplant the dining room furniture in the living room. Also need to mow and pick weeds. And of course unpack!

It will be a looong 2 days and many more long days to come as we get back to our routine -- also seeing as Leia now screams bloody murder now when she has a bath, something she has also been doing for the last 2 weeks.

We had a fantastic time with Mormor and Morfar, and we are thankful they let us come stay with them and we had so much fun visiting with everyone. But we are glad we are home.

Last day.

Our 3 weeks have gone by sooo quickly, but the 3 of us have enjoyed our stay. We hope that Mormor and Morfar have enjoyed having us, and I'm sure they have. :)

On Sunday, my sister, Melissa, and her boyfriend, Dustin, came for a visit. They brought with them Amanda, my niece, and her 2 daughters, Hailey and Savannah. We had a very nice day talking and laughing with all of them. :)

Then on Monday morning, Fredrik and I left for Niagara Falls, Canada. We drove through, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York before making our way into Canada, a very short 4 hour drive. Our room was gorgeous! We could see the falls from our full wall of windows, and when we opened our balcony door, the sound of the falls was music to our ears. We were only about a 50 feet walk to the falls.





Fredrik and I did all of the touristy things. :) We rode the Maid of the Mist and walked behind the falls. We had a delicious dinner and then took a walk at night along the Falls and looked at the beautiful lights. So, of course I have many, many pictures to share. :) But I will add those when we get home. I'm sure Leia and I will have many nights to come sitting up late and trying to get us all back on the right sleeping schedule. The trip back to Europe is always worse with jet lag.. :/

On Wednesday we were going to take the day and go to Cedar Point, but we decided that since none of us were really interested in riding the rides, the high entrance fee seemed a little much. So we decided to go to the Toledo Zoo instead. :) It was very nice and had many great animals. It was very, very warm and humid that day. So the animals were mostly laying around in the shade and trying to stay cool. :) Pretty much the same thing we were doing. :)))

Then today, we took it easy. Fredrik, Leia and I took a last shopping trip to buy a few things we needed. We had some lunch and then we took Leia to the beach. :) We went to Lakeview Beach in Lorain.





She loved the sand. She was a little afraid of the water at first, but then she got more into it and stood in the water with Mommy a little. :) We realized it was her first beach.

Mormor and Morfar took us to dinner tonight. It is always difficult to say goodbye, so it is usually best to do it quickly. We'll get up early and leave for the airport around 08.30, and our flight leaves around 11.00. A short flight to New York/New Jersey and then a 4 hour layover in Newark. Then our flight to Stockholm and we'll arrive in Sthlm early Saturday morning.

Almost everything is packed. And I think we are ready to go. Vacations are always nice, but it is always nice to go home. We are hoping to be well rested enough to drive home on Saturday instead of waiting until Sunday. So that we can have 2 days at home before Fredrik goes back to work (he took monday off).

But I suppose that is all until we arrive in Sweden. :) Many pictures to come from our trip. So be patient and I'll try to get them uploaded in organized postings!

Wish us a safe trip!

First tumble.

Leia had her first tumble down the stairs today. :( She screamed plenty, and she wanted her Mommy to hold her but she soon felt better. At least it was American stairs, so they are carpeted. And the stairs aren't very steep.. they were probably the best stairs for her to fall down if she had to fall down any at all. Hopefully it will help her to pay more attention, and realize that someone might not always be there to catch her if she happens to decide to take a jump. It didn't take but 3 minutes until she was up infront of the TV, dancing and swinging her hips to an Iron Maiden concert on TV...

Fredrik and I are enjoying our time. :)

Yesterday we got to spend most all of the day with Carie and Lillie. :) Pictures to come! And today we got to spend a couple of hours with another very close school friend of mine, Irene, and her son, Jason. There are still a couple more people to try to meet up with.

We got back from Kentucky on Wednesday evening, then Fredrik and I decided to go to the drive-in movies. :)) We had so much fun! I've taken him only once before. This time we saw: Land of the Lost and Terminator. Terminator was a great movie! Land of the Lost wasn't so good. :))) But it was 8$ (70 sek) per person for both movies! So 4$ a movie (32sek). And the food they sell is delicious! After the looong drive, we hadn't eaten since lunch at 12.00 and we didn't get to the movies until 21.30, so we were starving! We bought almost one of everything they had. :D (Pizza, mozzeralla sticks, corn dogs, popcorn, etc.. etc..) But the food was yummy (and cheap).

Then.. we spent Thursday with Carie. Today we went shopping and bought a cute Cleveland Browns fleece jacket for Leia. :) And then Fredrik and I stopped at an Army surplus type store in Oberlin and bought some neat t-shirts, including one for Leia.

The last 2 days I've also made plenty of homemade bread for my parents' freezer. I hope to make more before we leave, if I have time.

Tomorrow, we hope to meet with another friend, and then go to more fun stores if we have time. We also have 2 high school graduation parties to attend.

Sunday, we have church, and then my sister and hopefully some of her bunch will be coming here to have a cook-out with us! Looking forward to that. :) Leia will get to play with some of her.. cousins, and second cousins. :)

On Sunday, Fredrik and I are also planning to go into Cleveland and go to Border's Bookstore and have a nice, late dinner at Friday's.

Then we'll leave early Monday morning for Niagara. The drive shouldn't take longer than 4-5 hours. Hopefully traffic will be okay and we can make good time. We have booked a fantastic hotel room and we are SO looking forward to the trip. :) This will be MY FIRST NIGHT away from Leia since she has been born.. :/ (Fredrik went away on business not long after she was born, so he's been away from her before.) So I am curious to see how I do being away from her for so long. She is 20 months old, and I've never spent more than 5 hours away from her at one time. I have a feeling it will be more difficult for me than for her.

Cleveland Zoo.

Pictures from our day trip to the Cleveland Zoo.




**Do Not Feed the Construction Workers** :D A new exhibit being built for the elephants. Expected finished date: 2011.















































The sea lion exhibit, which was beautiful! Unfortunately the sea lions had just gone inside and we didn't get to see them. :(







Yes, these are just a *few* of the pictures from our day at the zoo! We saw lots of beautiful animals and Leia had a very good time. :) We all had a good time!

As promised.

As promised, more pictures! :) (Uploaded from Norton, Virginia!) :)


How do you work this thing?!?!?!!!

Yes, Leia is hugging the Coke can......

Leia loving the swing in Mormor and Morfar's backyard.









Leia trying to give Micah kisses. :)

Leia's first Sunday school class with "Aunt" Patsy.

Leia trying to throw away all of Mormor and Morfar's tissues.

Flight.

Finally - here are some pictures! :)


Before checking in at Arlanda.

Waiting impatiently for the plane to arrive. We left Stockholm 1 hour later than planned.

Getting ready to take off.

Leaving Sweden.

Checking out the onflight options.

The most fun was playing with all the empty plastic cups!

Over Norway.

Over Norway.

Over Norway.

A 3 hour nap for Leia.





A nap for Pappa, too.

Landing in Newark.

A view of NYC.

Leaving Newark.

Leaving Newark.

Leaving Newark.

Arriving in Cleveland.

Arriving in Cleveland.


So there are TONS of pictures left to share!! :) But I can't do them all at the same time obviously.

Today we took a day of rest and Fredrik and I went to see the new X-Men movie (Wolverine), and tomorrow we are leaving bright and early for KY. We'll be back late on Wednesday. Then Thursday we'll be spending the day with Carie and Lillie. :)) Yay! So, here's wishing Carie and Lillie a nice flight tomorrow! And hoping we have a safe and looooong drive. :)