Month: December 2023

Back to work and short day to start the week. It was nice to see everybody again after my vacation.

My friend (who I was supposed to see in California but missed by a day or so) and I met up in Stockholm for lunch today. It was lovely to see her again! We decided to have lunch at Eataly – the restaurant is so pretty with its early 1900s decorations and high ceiling. And the food was great too. Hardly any guests in the dining room since we went there after the lunch rush so we could take our time and chat for a couple of hours.

Back home again and more laundry in the washer. Some quiet time before it is time to start dinner. Vacation over – back to the real world again.

We managed to sleep in this morning and after close to 11 hrs sleep we got up and had breakfast. Puh.

Then we have been busy bees all day – picked up the package that arrived during our time away (fortunately they hadn’t had time to return it yet), got groceries, picked up some lunch on the way. Run laundry basically all day. Put up the advent-decorations and fixed dinner. 

And it was so nice to sit down with the boys for the first time in two weeks!  A great dinner with the advent candles lit. 

Got just about everything done today that I had hoped for and feel ready to get back to work tomorrow. Xmas is just around the corner but I feel quite ready which is great! 

The trip back to the airport went fine and we filled up the rental car before we returned it. Check. 

The flight was on time and the 11hr journey started. We had a little 6 months-old baby with his tired parents on the row in front of us which wasn’t great.. But, other than that it was a smooth flight with no turbulence and quite good food. We switched flights in Copenhagen and everything went well there too. The last flight for a while. 

A very long trip later we arrived safe and sound at a wintery Stockholm airport. It was great to hug the boys again after two weeks apart. They had shoveled the driveway so we could easily park – thank you! Now we are going to hug the pillows and get a good night sleep so we are able to turn back to Swedish time and get rid of the jetlag. 

The day that my mom doesn’t want to talk about unavoidably arrived and it was time to try to close our well-filled luggage. We barely managed – lol. 

We had a nice morning at the house just chatting and summing up the visit. Mom treated us BLT-sandwiches for lunch and dad had bought us a treat for afters. Yum! 

Then it was time to say our goodbyes and drive to the airport. Sad but I’m so very glad and thankful for this visit. So very special and something I will treasure for a long time. 

Thank you for having us! See you soon again!

Thursday already and our last full day. Time to start packing and see if we can close our suitcases – lol. Done some shopping since Xmas is coming up when we get back home…

Nicole came over and we went out to lunch together with mom and dad. Then we went to look for some last bits and pieces and found most of what we wanted. We had a great time and in the afternoon she had to go back home and we had to say our goodbyes. 😞

We met up with Kevin for dinner at a Japanese restaurant with mom and dad. It was a hibachi-place (kind of like teppanyaki) where the chef prepares and cooks the dinner in front of you. I had a steak & lobster – loved it!

After dinner Kev came with us back home for a bit and Lorna & David came over too for a drink and a chat. A great day with so much family around all day. Loved it!

A busy day seeing friends and family! First my sister Jennifer, her husband Lee and Nicole came over for lunch. We had a great time chatting and catching up for a couple of hours.

Then tonight we drove up to Nicoles’ to meet up with her cousin Dan w/ family and also my best friends from highschool Dusty and Keith. So nice to see them again! Also Nicoles daughter Emily and her Darrel came over. We had a pizza dinner with a lovely peach cobbler for afters. We had brought some Swedish candy for them to try – I think they enjoyed it!

A great day – so good to see everybody again! Miss them dearly and I’m glad they all could come to see us before we leave on Friday.

This morning it was quite foggy outside. Peter went for a run – great that he is feeling so much better again! Dad and I went to buy some donuts for breakfast – what at treat!

Then we all went over to the Nut Tree – which is like an outdoor shopping mall sort of. We had a light lunch and looked in some stores.

Tonight we went over to a Brazilian steakhouse together with Lorna and David for an amazing dinner! We had a really great time chatting and enjoying lots of different kinds of food. Afterwards we drove over to Candy Cane Lane which is a street where all the neighbors have gone crazy with their Xmas-decorations. It was amazing to see – all the houses and gardens completely decorated. A lot of people driving and walking by to see. The less-is-more didn’t apply here! Lol.

Monday and our last week this visit. We decided to drive over to the Mount Diablo and see if we could get up to the summit on top. It is south of Clayton and northeast of Danville. It is an isolated upthrust peak of 3,849 feet (1,173 meters), visible from most of the San Francisco Bay Area.

A lovely day and about 2 hrs later we arrived at the top. What a spectacular view! I’m so glad we went!

On the way back we stopped close to Walnut Creek for a nice lunch at California Fish. Back at the house in time for a soup dinner and now we’ve crashed in front of the tv tired after a long day.

Sunday already and Advent 1st. They don’t celebrate that over here though. But my mom and sis sent me pics of their first lit candle which was nice.

Me and P went out for a little drive after breakfast (mom treated us pancakes!) to look for a few things. When we got home we had a sandwich lunch and then it was time to watch the football game on TV – 49ers towards Eagles and we won (don’t remember the score, sorry). Yeah! Happy days.

Tonight we had a great family dinner – my brother came over, my sis w/ hubby hosted the dinner, my niece w/ family joined in – so 11 of us together at one table. Fun! My brother-in-law bbq teriyaki chicken and it was served with all sorts of goodies. Yum! We had a great time chatting and catching up. So glad they all could come!

We had the alarm set for 06.30 this morning and after breakfast me and P drove up to Woodland to Ns house. There we changed to their big truck and the five of us drove up to South Lake Tahoe. A lovely drive which took us a little over 2 hrs. 

As we were getting close to Tahoe there was snow on the ground and close to 0C / 32F. Brrr. We had a great lunch in the harbor overlooking the lake. Then we took a gondola up to the top to get an amazing view of the area. Up there people where skiing and snowboarding and it was quite a winter wonderland. 

On the way back we passed Squaw Valley (or Olympic Valley as it is called nowadays) which was quite fun to see. They had a memorial sign as we entered the valley with the Olympic rings and the fire. Neat!

Then we stopped for dinner right outside Sacramento before we arrived back at theirs to get our car and drove back to Vacaville again. 13 hrs later we arrived back home – tired – but pleased with a great day! Thank you for everything!