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Week 51-52
Dec - Dec
15th-28th |
I am going to lump two weeks together
this time as I haven't had time for my weekly account --
and now I have forgotten much of the contents of last
week. All I can remember is that the time has been full.
The Saterday before Christmas Mireille
and I had decided to let the kids look after themselves
and had left early in the morning for an enormous
shopping (discount ) center way out in the country
about 180 km south of us. We stopped for breakfast
at a hotel in Gothenburg on the way -- and then
stopped on the way home to see an old man we have known
well that lived along the way. Had a nice day --
just the two of us -- happens seldom!!
Mireille worked most of the day of
Christmas eve (which is the day we Swedes celebrate
Christmas) -They had spent the previous days with lots
of
Christmas baking and
stuff
She got off at 4:30 in the afternoon,
picked up one of our extra girls at her family, and got
home about 6 -- but Nathalie and
Emma had done a lot of the preparations for the
Christmas dinner so we ate about 7 --
Santa came
about 8 and after
all the packages got opened, and the papper got
cleaned up it was 11 in the evening. We ate the
traditional Christmas breakfast the 25th instead of the
ordinary 24th -- but we got all the eating done anyways!
Now we are looking forward to the begining of 2009 --
2008 has been a good one -- hope 2009 will do as well. |
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Week 50
Dec - Dec
8th-14th |
An older lady that we knew quite well a
number of years ago, before we were rejected from the
religious group I grew up in, passed away a couple of
weeks ago -- and we decided to go to her funeral this
Tuesday. So Mireille took the day off work, we got the
kids looked after, and drove up to the little village we
hadn't been to for 6-7 years. It was nice to refresh our
memories of this dear old soul -- but especially
Mireille found some of the other psycological implications
almost more than she wished to bear.
Had some of our good neighbors over at
the weekend -- interestingly enough, because of our
large house (and large familly) two evenings this
weekend neighbors came over and cooked a meal for us at
our house -
Carina and Henrik one night and
James
and
Erika
with their kids the other!! Then on another
night we were invited to some Curdish friends who had
gathered together some people
(and
lots of food) to celebrate the finalization of
imigration papers for a
nephew that had come from Turkey.
Our daughter Ellen has specialized in
the 'Hotel and restaurang' branch of her final
highschool years -- and her school put on a beautiful
Christmas dinner on Thursday (of course
cooked and
served
by the students) - We were really proud of
her!!
A pre-Christmas part of the Swedish
culture is Saint Lucia - here is a pix of
Nona
in the school Saint Lucia celebrations. |
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Week 49
Dec - Dec
1st-7th |
Another rainy week -- so rainy that I
spent a couple of days trying to figure out where the
water was getting into our outside lights along the path
into our house. It kept shuting off the ground fault
breaker on our main power entrance!! The first of
December is the last day a person can legally drive
without winter tires on our cars -- so true to my 'do it
at the last minute' life style, I spent until 11 o'clock
the 30th of November changing tires!! The snow has
vanished -- but there is usually frost at night --
so maybe it is a good idea.
We have a Swedish pre-Christmas
tradition of a spicy drink called 'glögg' - and we
were invited to some good friends on
Friday evening to
get together and fullfill this tradition... it is a
tasty drink -- but probably the most memorable part of
it all is the time together.
Becka works at a nearby larger
restaurant every second weekend -- this weekend was the
one she works -- Ellen is busy with her friends and
school as are the rest of the kids. Nona was at a
birthday party for a friend on Sunday -- It was at a
childrens 'invention' center so they got to try out lots
of different technical gagets -- lots to talk about when
she got home. |
