Back in Luleå!

After 3 nights away from my family I got back to Luleå late last night. I have had a great time and this trip was exactly what I needed and was hoping for. Karin, who I met in Australia, lives in a really nice apartment only about 5 minutes from the main street of Västerås. So, what have we been up to the last few days? Thursday night we had a great dinner cooked by Karin, and just talked and relaxed. Even though I slept the whole way to Stockholm on the plane, I was tired and had an amazing 10 hours sleep! I can't believe when that happened last time. Friday we walked around Västerås, did some shopping, had coffee and cakes and in the evening we went to Karin's parents for dinner. They built a house recently outside a very small country town about an hour from Västerås, where Karin grew up. I have only met Karins parents once when they came to visit her in Adelaide a couple of years ago, but it was really nice to see them again.

Saturday - another great nights sleep and a relaxing breakfast at home before shopping for an hour, then getting picked up by Karins parents for a trip to Stockholm to go to Rebecca's (Karin's sister's child) first birthday party. Heading back to Västerås later in the evening just in time for me and Karin to go out for a super nice 3 course dinner. We also went to a bar after but the music was too loud (I know I am getting old) so we went home around midnight.

Sunday - last day, took the train in to Stockholm in the morning and spent the rest of the day strolling around, shopping, eating and just enjoying the big city.

The photo is from a cafe at Söder in Stockholm where Karin and I had coffee and cakes and just watched people through the window for hours.

Adam and Jakob have had a good time while I have been away but it is nice to be back again. Adam had cleanded the house on the weekend and it was so nice to walk in to a tidy and cosy home! Jakob woke up 5.20 this morning so no more sleeping in for me :-) I am glad I got an hour with him before starting work. It feels like he has grown the last few days and he is talking even more than before I left.

Not sure if he will get up early tomorrow morning again so I better go to bed...

Weekend away!

Tomorrow I am leaving work after lunch to fly to Stockholm and from there take the bus to Västerås to see Karin. Karin worked at Visiocorp in Adelaide for a while and she was doing my job when I was on maternity leave. She moved back to Sweden last year just before us. I really really look forward to this trip! It will be great to see Karin again and spend some time together, and nice just to relax, eat good food, sleep in in the morning and not have think about cooking, cleaning, washing, working etc etc. Hopefully Adam and Jakob will have a great time without me and even though it will be nice to go away, I know that is going to be great to come home to the boys again on Sunday night.

Helping daddy

Today Jakob helped Adam to put together a tv bench for upstairs. He went to get all his tools and took the job really seriously as you can see.

Adam bought the bench from Ikea yesterday and he also bought a few other things for upstairs and for the babies room. He also went to an outlet shop for outdoor clothes and bought some fleece jackets and a really nice windstopper jacket for me! unfortunatley mine was to small so he went back there today to swap it for a bigger one. He also took a drive over to Finland to buy some winter shoes for Jakob. Finland has a really good brand and it is also cheaper to buy it over there.

Last weekend!

Last Sunday we went to some friends in the morning. The afternoon we stayed home and Jakob and I did some raking in the backyard and played with his balls.

Last Saturday Adam had to work all afternoon. Jakob and I went to see Stina and Martin and their newborn litte girl Lova. Jakob was really sweet with her and even helped Martin to change nappies.

Rubin

Most of you know that horses have been my passion for many many years. I used to spend every day at the riding club when I grew up, and kept doing it until I moved to Australia. In Australia I did some riding on and off, and even competed a little in show jumping, but when I got pregnant and had Jakob I stopped. The horse I was riding over there was at a friends farm 90 kilometers from where we live and it wasn't practical anymore.
When we moved back to Sweden I started riding once a week for a few months until the horse got sold. Now I am back helping Bettan (I used to rider her old horse for many years before I moved) with her young horse. The riding club is only 10 min from where we live but it is still hard to find time to go, especially when Adam has been working late evenings. I try to go once a week, with or without Jakob. Jakob really likes being there, he loves watching the horses jump and he likes filling water buckets.
It doesn't matter so much that I can't go there so often, this is a stage in my life when it is just not possible, and I know when time allows me again I will do much more riding. For now, I am happy to go there when I can and even one day a week is better than nothing.

Thursday after day care

Today when I picked up Jakob from child care he was not very happy. He did not want to leave, he wanted to stay and ride his bike and play with his friends. I think he was a bit tired too. I finally managed to get him to the car and when we came home he wanted to play outside for a while. We went to the small playground just behind our house and he had a go on the swings, rode the horse and looked at all the wild mushroom in the grass.

He also tried to do some shoveling taking about how he wants to do it with daddy. Winter is not too far away so in a month or two he will be able to do as much shoveling as he wants to!

Sleeping on the floor...

The other night when I was going in to say good night to Jakob I found him like this, asleep on the floor. I don't know how it will go when we get him a proper bed frame. I guess he will learn over time not to fall out of bed.
2 nights this week Jakob has woken up at night crying and saying that he wants his door open. That has never happened before. I have had to lay with him in bed for a few hours because when he finally went back to sleep after an hour or so, he was sleeping restlessly. The last 2 nights he has slept like normal again.

A day at Ormberget

Ormberget means The snake mountain and is a small hill not far from where we live. In winter it's a kids/beginners ski slope where I learnt to ski as a kid, and Adam tried skiing for the first time last winter. In summer it is mainly used for running (lots of running tracks) and for picnics.

We went there with my friend Maria and her family. Here is Andreas cooking some Swedish sausages on the fire. Yummy!

Walking up the hill wasn't as easy as walking down. Luckily Adam took Jakob in the pram.

The walk home through the forest was great, all the trees are so beautiful now when the leaves are starting to change colours.

Happy Anniversary!

Today my mum and dad are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. Dad came home from the hospital yesterday, just in time for the celebrations!

Jakob and I went to say hello and give them some flowers and a little present from all of us.

Saturday afernoon...

This afternoon we went to visit Maria and her family that live very close to us. First the kids played outside and after a while we all went inside (apart from Andreas who was outside painting their new shed). Jakob really likes Melvin and when I was holding him he wanted to try too.

Adam is playing golf all day with some friends and tonight they are having dinner and drinks at our place so as soon as I have put Jakob to bed I will leave the house.

When we came home from Maria's, our neighbours granchild Filippa came over and wanted to play with Jakob. She is 5 but likes playing with Jakob. At the moment they are playing with trains...

Happy Fridays!

For the rest of the year I am having Fridays off work and it is great! Not that it is great that my company is not doing so well at the moment, but it is great to only work 4 days a week, it may never ever happen again so I am really making the most of it. This morning the freak woke up at 6. Adam was up with him for a while and then we swapped and he went back to bed for an hour before going to work. I had a nice couple of hours with Jakob in the morning. We made up a fire, played with trains and horses etc. At about 9 Maria and Melvin came over for a sandwich and some cake, it is so nice to have visitors in the morning!

After Maria left Jakob and I went outside to play in the beautiful autumn weather. We played on the swing, climbed up to the cubby house, played football, tennis and cleaned up all the leaves outside the front of the house. Jakob was a great helper.

After a day nap and some quiet time in the house I dropped Jakob off at mormor and morfars. Morfar got home from the hospital today and was really happy to see Jakob. While they were looking after Jakob I went to my first pregnancy yoga class here in Luleå. It is hard not to compare it with Vanessa's class in Adelaide, but it felt great to do yoga again and hopefully I can keep going until the baby is born.

Wednesday

Time flies and it is already wednesday. Adam is working late so Jakob and I have had a nice evening to ourselves. He has just gone to bed but is still awake. It is so fun to hear him talking in bed. He talks about what he has been up to at day care, he pretends he is on the phone, he sings etc etc.
Dad is still in hospital but will hopefully come home again tomorrow or on Friday. He is feeling pretty good but one foot is numb and has not been getting any better. The doctor's say that it can go back to normal again so we just have to keep our fingers crossed. He had another scan yesterday and the bleeding has stopped. He is still not allowed to drive a car for 6 months so this will be good practice for mum!
On Friday I am hoping to go to a first pregnancy yoga class here in Luleå. I hope I like it because for me it was a great preparation for giving birth when pregnant with Jakob.

More pics of the sleeping beauty...

I just can't stop taking photos of Jakob when he is asleep. First of all he is so cute, but secondly it is so much easier when he doesn't run around...

Stina's and Martin's cabin

Last weekend we were invited to Stina and Martin's cabin about 40 min drive from Luleå. Jakob had lots of fun picking and eating strawberries...

Helping Martin with the potatoes...

And they even went on a boat trip to look for some fish. Jakob was a bit scared at first and didn't want to go but once in there he was fine and has been talking about it every day.

When the boys tried to catch fish (without success...) the girls had a nice sauna!

Jakob was really hungry after an eventful day so he had dinner before the rest of us.

Dinner was great with lots of choices of fish, cray fish, salmon, pies etc etc. When Jakob hit the wall at about 10pm we drove home; or I drove, the two boys were asleep within seconds :-)

A baby brother!

Yesterday Adam and I went to the hospital, not just to see dad, but also to have the ultra sound. We were both a bit nervous. It can be a very exciting moment but also very scary. Jakob had a white spot on his heart that is a so called soft marker for Down's, so having the ultra sound when pregnant with him was not just a nice experience. Anyway, it all went very well yesterday and at this stage the baby looks perfectly normal. This time we also wanted to find out the sex and there is no doubt that it is another boy. We could all see it very clearly! It was such a relief that the baby looked okey and I felt exhausted after. After seeing the little baby in there the pregnancy feels more real. Even though I have felt him moving for a few weeks now, it is still hard to believe that there is a baby in there.
The official due date after the ultra sound is 1st February, which is Jakob's birthday :-) According to my calculations the due date is 28th January so that will be the date that I aim for.

Visiting morfar

Morfar hasn't been feeling well latley and yesterday he had to go to the hospital. They found out that he has had a small bleeding in his brain. He now has to stay in hospital for a little while and rest. When we got there Jakob climbed straight on to his bed and was really curious to see what morfar was doing. When he realised he was eating dinner he got even more excited and morfar had to feed him the rest of his meal.

Jakob also got to see when a nurse came to check morfar's blood pressure, temperature etc. He has been playing doctor at child care a lot latley so he really liked watching the whole process.

Talking about child care. Today all the kids went on a little walk to the small forest next to child care. They had to carry their own backpack with some spare clothes and a bottle of water. Jakob told me all about it when I picked him up. When I came to get him today a few of the kids, including Jakob, were practicing high jumping. Someone has built a small high jump with a matress behind and the kids were lining up to run and jump over it. They were so cute!

In mormor and morfars kitchen

Jakob is growing and learning new things every day. He talks all the time and it is just so fun to listen to everything he is telling us. He is not shy at all and wherever we go he talks to people, ask who they are, what they are doing, where they are going, and tell them what he is up to. The way he is playing is changing a bit too. He still loves jumping and running, but he has also started to like games where he has to concentrate a bit more, like puzzels etc.

Mormor and morfar must have about a million different spoons so the other day he put them all on the kitchen table, sorted them and counted them.

In the rain...

Last weekend we had some heavy rain on Saturday. Jakob who was a bit sick and therby, sick of being inside the house, convinced me to go outside and play in the rain. I put on my rain gear and went out with him, and I have to say it was actually really nice. Jakob loved it!