Great grandparents visit the cottage

Gamla-Farmor and Gamle-Farfar (Dad's Grandmom and Grandpop) visit the summer cottage and take a ride on the swing sofa with WC.

John Deere next door

At the summer cottage, Farfar and WC take a closer look at our neighbor's tractor.

I'm the NRA!

"I'll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands."

Gamla-mormor (Daddy's Mommom) and WC!

Three generations of Nilsson-Lindgren together at the senior care center in Helsingborg.

Summer cottage days

Fun in the sun!

Mom and Dad join in the fun!

Big wheels are the best!

Going hiking with Dad, piggy-back style!

During our first week in the summer cottage, in the middle of July, we enjoyed plenty of sunshine and temperatures bordering 90 degrees.

Sound Asleep with Woody

WC taking a nap, with a firm grip of Uncle Chris' blanket.

Midsummer in Sweden!

Our balcony in full sunshine at 8 PM; pickled herring, fresh potatoes with newly cut dill, served with cold lager beer and Swedish bitter dram snaps.

!

"Oh! Please Mom! do I have to wear your silly flower wreath?"

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!)