Midsummer Afternoon

WC and his personal favorite - the German police car - crawling across the open lawn. The family went outside to enjoy the weather in an almost deserted inner city on Midsummer's Eve, and eat strawberries and ice cream.

In the playground area.

In the swing of things...

Some of WC's first steps...

 Sometimes a walk in the park is no walk in the park. Good thing to hold on to Daddy!

Please! Give us a Republic!

Oh well, what's a royal ball? After all, I suppose it would be frightfully dull, and-and-and boring, and-and completely...ANACHRONISTIC!!!

Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Victoria Bernadotte yesterday married Kermit the Fr... sorry... her personal trainer Daniel Westling, henceforth His Royal Highness Prince Daniel Bernadotte! And the servile attitute of Swedish journalists reached an all-time high with the coverage of the wedding. Gone are the days when the servants were kept in closed quarters... or, well... not that former Swedish kings didn't spread their wild oats but at least they never formally mingled with peasantry or anything short of pure blue blood.

So with this final rule broken, what are the the reasons for keeping the royalties gurgling Pommery Grand Cru (the champagne chosen by His Majesty the King for last night's event) on my (and other taxpayers') expense?

And.. here's a funny twist... The monarchy is supposed to be great PR for Sweden, but the Swedish public broadcasting company made it impossible for AP and Reuters to get live footage from the event. 

Tara and Kim did a boycott on us much of this event as possible.

Instead, we celebrated a nice summer evening by having fresh asparagus for starter together with sparkling wine, and a European plaice for main course, served with fresh potatoes and compôt of tomatoes and shallott onions. And to finish it off we ate homemade chocolate sauce on vanilla ice cream and a strawberry cup in white wine. God Save the Queen? We don't think so!

Warren Christopher 1 year!

Today, on June 12, 2010 our son got to celebrate his one year birtday! 

FFA theme for everyone!

Father and son in party hats and a table decorated with a Swedish flag.

Mommy's boy dressed up in a bowtie.

A onesie that says it all!

Sitting nicely for the camera on a chair from Farmor and Farfar and in a slipover from MomMom and PopPop. (Please! Everyone... notice the John Deere socks!)

Yes, it makes sounds when you push the buttons... we know!

Master Chef Mom had prepared a sandwich cake in the shape of a locomotive!

Grocery shopping in the sun

WC and Mom after some grocery shopping in the sun.

Everyone under the age of 1 will have Mommy's homemade salmon pudding.

The grown-ups are having 
Marennes oysters
Fried char from the Swedish highlands, served with fresh potatoes and cod roe sauce
Fleur du Cap Chardonnay

For the Swedes:
Någon som gillar god mat är ju Ulf Elfving, ... förstås... och ett par tre flaskor rött!!!
Varför inte en Hawaiiburgare, eller fransk makrill? Men först... Boys II Men med End of the Road.

Nietzsche and a flower pot

Our New Sculling Machine!

Yes! Yesterday we got ourselves this great new sculling row machine!!! Workout sessions in our apartment just became a lot easier.

Nu är det vår!

Now it is Spring, and WC and Mom went for a leisurely walk around 'Sjöstan'.  I had my camera and captured some great Spring moments.

Even the geese were out walking their little ones! 

WC really enjoys this weather, I'm sure!

Finland, Finland, Finland!

Here are some photos from our weekend cruise to Helsinki. We enjoyed a beautiful day in the capital of Finland (while humming on the Monty Python song "Finland has it all" - play the youtube clip below). After a guided tour in downtown Helsinki we walked around the tourist area with the presidential palace and the National Cathedral (above). We also visited the rock temple church, which was never really "erected", but rather blasted into the granite (small pic to the right).

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Pony trekking or camping
Or just watching TV
Finland, Finland, Finland
It's the country for me

You're so near to Russia
So far from Japan
Quite a long way from Cairo
Lots of miles from Vietnam

Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Eating breakfast or dinner
Or snack lunch in the hall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all!!!

To the right is a photo of Tara with the local public transportation behind her. I guess the open tram railcar is alright for the summertime, but it will probably be way too cold for the winter!

Our Silja Line ship "Symphony" (below) waiting for us in the Helsinki bustling harbor area. We jumped between time zones on our way back from Finland, via Mariehamn on Åland and landed in Stockholm early the next day. On our return trip we enjoyed the amazing seafood platter at the Happy Lobster restaurant on the ship's promenade.

"I'm on a boat mother-f----r don't you ever forget!"

At The National Zoo in DC

Contemplative pose while visiting the National Zoo in Washington D.C. Uncle Chris behind the camera.

Bandy bandy!!!

Today we enjoyed sitting in our apartment, watching the heavy snowfall outside. It is late March and the weather is anything but springtime-like. It was a perfect setting for the world cup event in cross-country skiing from Falun (where the snowfall was rough!) and the afternoon highlight - the Swedish championship game in bandy between Hammarby and Bollnäs! For all non-Europeans, this means 90 minutes of outdoor play in coold weather, on an ice rink that is as big as a football field (and a ball that is about the size of a golf ball). The heavy snow on the ice made it almost impossible to skate, much less accomplish any passing game.
We loved to see the curse finally being broken - and for the first time ever Hammarby became Swedish bandy champions! Yeah!

Snow, snow and more snow... By the way... can you spot the ball?

Mr. Oatman

Catchy tune...

Sunday Dinner

Poached trout with basil and thyme
on a bed of peas "bonne femme"


Petit-choux cakes filled with home-made vanilla cream,
draped in Sherry-flavored chocolate sauce

Ingredients:
2 trout fillets, skin on
Small handful of basil leaves and thyme leaves
salt & ground pepper + olive oil

Peas 'bonne femme'
100g unsmoked bacon lardons
Olive oil, for cooking
100g charlotte onions
sprigs of thyme, leaves only
200g of peas

Tara's Response

I felt an urgent need to respond to my husband's decision to include a quote by Rand. So many things she says are remarkable and beautiful, but there is one quote to which I am particularly attached, as it was through reading this in Atlas Shrugged that I realized my ultimate happiness would be achieved through greater self-reliance.

'I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. '

Beautiful quote

"I like cigarettes, Miss Taggart. I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind—and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."

Winterland

Winds came in at 30 ft per second during Saturday. (The snowpacked cars bear witness to the wind force.) Today after two days of snowing, the Stockholm region had received between one and two feet of snow. So we decided to just go out and enjoy the winterland in the national reserve just around the area where we live.

Frosty the Snowman

X-mas gift from Mommommom and Poppoppop!

Weekend recipe

Finally, we had time to sit down to a nice meal this last weekend (since our son was nice enough to go to bed early).

We enjoyed... boiled artichoke for starters, for main course; sirloin steak and oven-baked potatoes together with Kim's veal sauce (made of veal broth, plenty of cabernet sauvignon, soya, olive oil, cream, ... and last but not least... white Italian truffle!). For dessert we had Kim's Chocolate/Vanilla "I scream for Ice cream"!

Kim's Chocolate/Vanilla "I scream for Ice cream" ingredients
(2 servings)

1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of rich (more than 35% cacao) milk chocolate drops/chips
1 egg
3 cups of cream (yes!)

Gay Mother Goose

WC got a collection of Mother Goose poems by MomMom and PopPop. And his father can't get enough of the funny adult versions of all the rhymes ...

Välling in a bottle

Ode to our son. No need to explain. (Well, just this one fact - "välling" translates into "gruel" in English, a grain soup for older infants and grown-ups alike. Like something in between grits and infant formula.) Just read the lyrics below and sing along with the music video by The Police.

Just a child today, less than 18 months, oh
Another hungry day, with no one here but momm--yyy
More starvation than an infant could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair, oh

I'll send an S.O.S. to the world
I'll send an S.O.S. to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Välling in a bottle, yeah
Välling  in a bottle, yeah

A year has passed since I left the boobs
But I should have known this right from the start
Only formula can keep me together
Milk can mend your life but
Lactose can give you heart(-burn)

I'll send an S.O.S. to the world
I'll send an S.O.S. to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Välling in a bottle, yeah
Välling in a bottle, yeah
Välling in a bottle, yeah
Välling in a bottle, yeah

Walked out this morning, don't believe what I saw
Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore
Seems I'm not alone looking for remains
Hundred billion infants here, hooked on  fluid grains

I'll send an S.O.S. to the world
I'll send an S.O.S. to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Välling in a bottle, yeah
Välling in a bottle, yeah
Välling in a bottle, yeah

Music of Faith and Devotion

A Pain That I'm Used To. It's no good. Black Celebration. Blasphemous Rumours. Barrel of a Gun. Enjoy the Silence. Personal Jesus. Strangelove. Master and Servant. Shake the Disease. Lie to Me. Useless. Photographic. Precious. Stripped. World Full of Nothing. A Question of Lust. Never Let Me Down Again. Policy of Truth. Judas. I Feel You. Comatose. Freelove. Shine. Suffer Well. Damaged People. John the Revelator. The Darkest Star. Lilian. Ice Machine. The Sinner in Me. In Chains. Corrupt. Wrong.

A music critic in a British tabloid once argued: "all your songs seem to be about the same thing - it is just pain and suffering". Martin Gore allegedly replied: "On the contrary; pain and suffering are not the same things - they are indeed very different from eachother."

February 26, 2006, almost four years ago, we were both singing along with the songs mentioned above at the Depeche Mode concert in the Scandinavium Arena, in Gothenburg. (We have all their albums and several obscure, re-mastered B-sides.) This upcoming Sunday, DM are set to play in The Globe Arena, Stockholm - less than half a mile from where we live. And we don't even have tickets. We are probably getting old...

The grabbing hands,
grab all they can
all for themselves
afterall
[...]
it's a competitive world

-

E V E R Y T H I N G   C O U N T S   in  L A R G E   A M O U N T S !

Winter in Stockholm

The lakes and nearby bay frozen solid. (Picture of Järla lake.) Kim's old swimming place dressed in snow and ice. Travelling on the ice is nothing new to the Swedes. Sweden even won a a battle against neighboring Denmark by marching its entire army over the ice to capture Copenhagen in 1658.
WC in his pram next to the ski trail out on the lake. Open ice skiing and/or skating is a big thing here. But don't think that the Swedes stay away from safety measures. One of the most commonly seen safety gear here are the ice-prods (wooden or plastic prods with sharp steel points - used to grip the ice when climbing on to it from the water). Also - the open-ice skates are quite different from regular skates (see below).

"Feel the Zen in 2010"

Happy New Year!

WC and Tara enjoying the new year together, with WC sporting his new "Old Glory" outfit.

December 2009

God Jul och Gott Nytt År!

Several posts will come up soon as so much has happened! For now, though, we - Joakim, Tara, and Warren Christopher - want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

WC enjoying his toy

Here is our darling!

WC is born!

Today our son was born at Södersjukhuset in Stockholm, Sweden!

Michael Baryshnikov in Stockholm

Last week we went to see 59° North perform at the Dance Academy House in Stockholm.

Tonight we were able to get tickets to see Michael Baryshnikov - live at the Royal Theater (Dramaten) in Stockholm. It is hard to believe that we actually did see him, and that he is still full with such vigor, at the age of 61!

Here is an excerpt from his truly amazing performance of Le jeune homme et la mort.