Easter Weekend (and some dirty laundry)

Allllie!!! I'm so sorry it's been awhile. I'm still over here truckin' along...just haven't found much time to get a post up lately with all the house stuff i'm trying half killing myself to finish. We are slowly making progress and I'll put some pictures up soon.

Loved your post! I'm so happy to hear that things are warming up and hope it continues....you looked so cute in your sunglasses and short sleeves:) I kind of forgot how shockingly white beautifully pale you get in the winter....not that I can say much for my ghostly looking skin right now either. It's pretty sad....and I had every intention to layout this weekend but that didn't pan out. And props on finally joining a gym...wish you could have done that years ago with me.

Ok....so i'm just going to dump my camera on your for a minute. Bear with me, this might get a little jumbled.

On Friday, Sam's parents and Eileen decided to make a quick trip over to see us, take us dinner, and help us do some stuff around the house. It was so good to see them:

And dinner was lovely even though my salad came without salad dressing and the weather was perfect:)

(This picture is a little blurry.)

Saturday was super productive in several ways. I think I mentioned that we are getting our laundry room repaired because we discovered some chinese drywall in the inspection process, and that stuff is terrible not good to have hanging around. So they started the demo process Saturday morning and now our laundry room looks like this:

Lovely:)

In all seriousness, we are glad it's being done because the current setup was not very practical absolutely stupid. The washing machine was draining through a punched in hole in the wall to the unfinished shower drain on the other side of the bathroom.?. Wow. So that led to this situation: not doing laundry for 5 weeks b/c we can't use our washer/dryer. ouch.

(it only took me 5 simultaneous loads at the laundry mat this afternoon, and so many quarters I could have bought another washer.)

Sorry...back to Saturday. The Browns came over early that morning and brought us Starbucks:) Then we packed up and went rug shopping. They wanted to know what they could get us for a "house warming" present and we definitely need a more appropriately sized rug in this room now. So we are super appreciative, and after some discussion with Sam (who's only concern was finding something that was soft enough he could "take his shoes off and lay on"), we agreed on a nice, neutral, short shag. It should be here in a couple weeks. So pumped.

After we had some more food, we came home to "work on the house." Lynette was so nice to unload some boxes and help me get a little more organized. And then I realized that we were missing a few hands...this is where I found all three of them:

So lazy cute. haha.

The Browns headed out about 3 and Sam and I did some painting. I'm redoing my dining room chairs for the 3rd time? ha.

Most importantly, we had a GREAT Easter Sunday. We somehow managed to go to all three services yesterday morning, and I wouldn't have had any other way. (I actually kept the nursery during the 2nd service, thinking that Sam was going to go read, but he ended up going to hear the service again, and then again at 11.)

We went to 8 am service to see some of our great friends Kevin and Kenzie Graffeo get baptized:) (You remember Kevin, he's one of Brian Odie's friends?) It was a beautiful sight:

Then, we had to stay for the 11 a.m. service to see another couple in our small group, Brad and Elena Collins, get baptized too!

It was a long morning, but great to be around friends on such a special day. Sunday afternoon Sam took me to this park up the road from our house called Ruffner Mountain. All I knew is that it would consist of some trails....not a half mile uphill climb for the first 15 minutes. I forget how ridiculously out of shape I am until I try to hike up a hill and then feel my heart pouding through my head within about 37 seconds. Pretty sad.

But it was a great little adventure walk...and after some complaining a little break, we made it up to the top of the look out point and I was surprisingly impressed. It's nice to see these little expanses of nature tucked away in the middle of a big city.

Sam way too close to the edge investigating the surroundings.

After a quick snack, we celebrated my feat with a picture (for you) and made our way back down.

(No....Sam is not a vampire, I just snapped the picture mid-kiss)

Whew! Almost to the car, and I'm happy about that!

Hope you liked our weekend of adventures:) All I can say is 3 weeks, Al. 3 weeks.

Love you,

Whit

never say never

So...it's taken me a few days again and I'm sorry... I am really happy I got to talk to all of y'all while you were all in Jacksonville! And I'm happy you got some trip stuff figured out. I can't believe it's so close now. This time next month you'll all be in Sweden, hard to believe:)

You might remember that for many, many months now I've been complaining of the cold. I have even been known at times to say that I thought it would never end. Well guess what? I sat outside in short sleeves for the first time since I moved here. Just so we're clear, that would be the first time in over 7 MONTHS of being in Sweden that I sat outside without a jacket. The bad news is that I was only able to sit like that for about 15 minutes before I got too cold and had to put the layers back on (you may notice there is a jacket and sweater in my lap in the pic). The very good news is that contrary to my earlier belief, winters here are not in fact eternal, AND it's warming up just in time for y'alls trip. Here's a few more from another day in the park...






Onto another thing I thought I would never say... I joined a gym. I've spent years observing people go to gyms with a mixture of curiosity and confusion, never quite sure why anyone would want to go to such a place. Anytime someone managed to drag me along it was normally the beginning of 3 days worth of pain that left me even more confused as to why people would choose to feel that way on a normal basis. Well, that all changed after one winter here. Suddenly there wasn't the option of going to take a run in the park that didn't involve me dying of hypothermia. Gyms started looking like the nice, warms places to get away from the outside, and I couldn't resist. So I'm now a proud new owner of a SATS membership card...and I get to go to all the Zumba classes I want to:)

Another good reason to join a gym is that my husband happens to be an amazing cook. He finds these recipes that are a little long and scary to me, but not at all intimidating to him. He's teaching me along the way, so I call myself his "sous chef". Here's some pics of the mustard chicken, potatoes gratin, and spinach from the other night. Pretty good, huh?




Yummmm....


Right now we're on the train to Malmö so I just took a picture of Bjorn reading. He doesn't know about this one, but I'm sure he'll find out.




There's a guy sitting across the isle from us from Texas, I think. He's studying in Italy now, so he's just visiting Sweden. When we got in I overheard him ask his buddy if Malmö and Lund are the same place. FYI: they're not. So maybe I'll warn him before they get off a few stops too soon.

We're going to Kivik for a few days after Malmö to check everything out so I'll be sure to put some pictures up afterwards. I think you'll like it:)

Hope you have a good Easter Whitty. Love you!
Allie

what a day....

Allliiiiiieeee......geeze i wish you were here right now so that I could vent my frustration over the day. So just for the sake of it, pretend you are. It's not that the day hasn't been absolutely beautiful, it's that the general moving-into-a-new-house-pains are starting to drive me crazy, there are still boxes to unpack and a whole room of stuff to got through....not to mention the fact that are kitchen sink has been stopped up for the last 3 days. You never really realize how much you take a simple kitchen sink for granted until you literally can't turn the water on because it's not going to drain. Fortunately, we have a very kind plumber who generously gave it some attention this morning at no charge:) Praise the Lord.

Then on top of that, I got my first traffic violation this afternoon right after I unintentionally ran a red light. The cop definitely pulled me and another guy over at the same time....how do you even do that? Imagine a cowboy herding cattle...and you kind of get the picture. Fortunately there wasn't a lot of other cars on the road while he was doing this. I was so mad Al, not that I didn't deserve the ticket, because I definitely ran the light (although if I had stopped I would've ended up in the middle of the intersection), it was that this cop has forever ruined my perfect driving record of no tickets up to today.....it makes my blood boil. I left the cop in tears (after I very rudely snatched the ticket of his hand). But I guess I have been reminded that I should pay more attention to what I'm doing while driving and not make a habit of running lights.

The even more frustrating part of this whole equation is that I just got a parking ticket for parking (get this) in front of my office driveway! ha! Who would have thought that after 4 months of me parking in relatively the same spot, that it is actually a parking offense because I'm "technically" on a city street in an un-metered parking spot. I even called the parking ticket man and tried to convince him that this was a dumb ticket to site, but it was to no avail. I paid the ticket this afternoon, but with two sticky notes attached reminding them of how they are wasting tax dollars, and paper by giving these dumb tickets. (Can you tell I've had one of those days again?)

Anyway....this is all capped off by our little friends at the Internal Revenue Service, who supposedly say that we owe about $2,000 this year on our taxes, with no return in sight! Lovely. I know I sound like Negative Nancy over here and I completely trust that the Lord will get us through this, but I do wonder how at times.

On a brighter side: I'm leaving to go to Dothan tomorrow after work to go with Mom, Dad, and Logan to see the Roquands in Jacksonville....after a day like today....it couldn't be at a better time. The goal is to finish planning the second half of the trip next month since we should have already done that a few months ago:)

Rooftop playground

Bare with my randomness for a minute...the other day I was photographing a project we did called "Dog days of Birmingham" where they have the Dog Day Care and one of the workers there had just adopted this cute little girl....her name is Allie.

Needless to say it made me think of you, not that there is any resemblance and you definitely don't chew on my shoes, but it was nice to hear your name (even though her's was short for "Alligator"). But she was just the cutest little thing....

Speaking of dogs, I think you have a brilliant idea of becoming the first "yorkie-poo" breeders in Stockholm. I seriously think it would be a cool thing to do....although, would the apartment situation be ok? I guess you don't really need a yard for those dogs because they are so small. I would love to help you in any way possible though, but just don't ask me to make you a website. I'm pretty terrible at html stuff. Let me know how that goes over with the hubs though;) If you need me to help convince him, I'll do my best.

One last hilarious story and I have to go to meet Sam and his dad, Mark for dinner. This past Sunday I kept the nursery for the 9 a.m. service, in the little baby room, which is my favorite. I was late getting there, (because I got lost on the way to church, and ended up in a "race day" traffic outside of birmingham). So by the time I actually got to the room, we already had 11 babies under the age of 7 months. Awesome. I jumped right in, and after a while noticed that one little guy name Jake hadn't been taken out of his car seat yet, so I picked him up and immediately realized he'd peed through his diaper onto his pants. So I lay him down to change him, and out of nowhere I see this fountain of pee! I freak out, because up to this point, that hasn't happened to me, so I'm frozen stiff, don't think to cover him up and it happens again. One of the girls says "Cover him up! Quick!" and then Jake starts screaming, and it just turns into an crazy funny situation, and I basically have to give him a bath on the changing table. I get a new outfit on him, and pick up him and take him to the floor to sit in my lap, and not 2 seconds later, the little guy projectile vomits on his new onesie and my lap. wonderful. Bath number two. I ended up leaving him in the messy outfit incase it happened again...it was either that or no clothes and I thought clothes would be appropriate for this setting.

Well! Hope you're still here. Thanks for listening to my day:) Look forward to face to face conversations soon....I really want to start a count down!

Love you!

Whitty

Busy days and a good idea.

First of all... I'm SO excited about your new house! It looks really nice too, Whit. I can't wait to see what it looks like when you get it all out together. Which reminds me, I liked the pictures you put up of the Expo you went to. The pictures were very impressive, and I noticed your drawings in the background which were pretty amazing. Sometimes it's just not fair you got all the creativity...haha:)

As for things here, it's been pretty busy but uneventful. I'm still just doing school stuff and working. I ended up in a pretty serious bad mood last week because Bjorn and I ended up with schedules that made it nearly impossible to see each other for more than a few hours for the entire week. Ok, that's and exaggeration but I really only saw him about 2 days. He went to a conference during the week and when he got back I went to work most of the weekend. I talked to my boss about not working all weekend from now on, so I'm hoping it will get better.

In the meantime, I've come up with a brilliant idea. In my search for a Swedish yorkipoo I've discovered: 1. They don't exist here, and 2. There is an interest in them here, and 3. For the most part, they haven't discovered how to create websites for breeders to sell dogs on. For example, when searching Yorkies or Yorkiepoos in the US there are about 100 websites created by breeders with information and pictures on their available puppies. In Sweden they seem to rely almost entirely on posting ads with very limited info to different sites. So... I told Bjorn if we got a Yorkie and bred it we could be the first Yorkiepoo breeders in Sweden AND the first with a website to sell them on. Seriously, it could work. And there is absolutely nothing I would love more than getting to take care of a bunch of puppies.

I'll let you know if Bjorn ever goes for it... I won't hold my breath, don't worry:)

As usual, I'm posting a scenic picture for you. One of the things Bjorn and I had time to do last week was take a walk around some different places in town so we got to see some pretty views... We're finding the really good places to take you all when you're here.

Sorry you were sick and I hope you and Sam feel better now! I want some pictures of the house once you get it set up.

Love you.
Allie

Our New House!

Allie... The old apartment is empty and we are officially moved in to the new house now and are already enjoying the change of address. The move went very well and a lot faster than expected too.

We had several of the guys and girls from our small group come over and help too so we were pretty much finished by around lunch time on Saturday afternoon. We got lunch for all those who wanted to stay and had a nice little pizza picnic in the front yard:

And now for a few sneak peeks of the inside from our walk through last week before we closed:

Ok! There's the run down! We have a lot of things to do but are looking forward to putting in the work. On a side note, I will say that a moving weekend is not the best time to get a nasty stomach bug. It was going around at work last week, and I thought I'd be the only one not to get it....wrong! It hit me late Saturday night and it was terrible....needless to say, I couldn't do much yesterday and then it hit poor Sam last night and he had to stay home from work today! I feel a lot better today and hopefully Sam will start feeling better soon! Alright....let me know how things are going over there....!