The North Sea

Our travels in Sweden took us to the city of Gothenberg where Aaron & Stina reside. It is on the south side of the east coast of Sweden on the North Sea. It is so beautiful! Everywhere you look there are quaint houses, straight out of a magazine. See?

As soon as we arrived in Sweden, Aaron & Stina picked Ryan, Tim (Olson, a cousin), and I up from the airport. We made a QUICK stop at Jannerlands to have fika... and I demanded time to brush my teeth and put on deodorant. I wanted to change my clothes, but was denied. :) Aaron had something up his sleeve; he had planned, what he called, "The Last Shindig" with the family before getting married. We headed down to the harbor where he had arranged for us to head out on the North Sea on a sailboat! So amazing!

We were so tired... but it was so worth it! Thanks, Aaron!

The Wedding

First of all, it was an amazing day!! The weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and everyone was happy and beautiful! The day went off without a hitch. For me, it started with Ryan, Jenelle, and I helping the florist finish decorating the church. Let me tell you, Ryan has hidden talents with flowers & greenery that I never knew! Here's the reception tables:

Jenelle & I then went to help Aaron and Stina get dressed and ready to go take pictures. There are many different traditions for weddings, and one difference is that most bridal couples do not have a wedding party or personal attendants. So, Jenelle and I worked our magic. :) Here's the couple headed to an island off of the coast of Gothenberg for pictures:

We all headed to the church to finish getting ready ourselves and then to take family pictures. Here's my hottie husband in his suit, oh and me:

The wedding itself was beautiful! Afterwards, we all walked a short distance to some close friends' of Aaron, the Jannerlands, for a garden party. This was ABSOLUTELY incredible, and the best part of the day if you ask me (which obviously you are if you are reading this!). The garden party consisted of "fika" (what the Swedes eat all the time: coffee and a little something...in this case cupcakes and yummy cookies), a traditional Swedish wedding dance, and a contest. See the board below:

When you arrived at the party, the hosts were giving out pins with either Swedish colors or American colors. The colors determined which country you "played for". Throughout the party there were several contests set up where you needed to pick a person from the opposite country and challenge them to a contest. Such a fun idea! I ended up being a Swede...

Who would have thought I'd be shooting a gun at a wedding? Not me! (By the way, I hate this picture...but it just captures the moment...)

Following the garden party was another walk back to the church for the dinner and formal reception. This too, was incredible. It is tradition in Sweden for you to have hosts & hostesses for your wedding. I know what you are thinking, we have that tradition here too. NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST! The job of host & hostess is absolutely amazing. They take part in the planning of the wedding and prepare for the reception beyond what I can even express. They help the bride & groom create BOOKS for each person at the reception that includes information about EVERY person in attendance: how they know the couple and a little about what they do. It's incredible. They also plan and are the "MC's" for the reception program. The progam is run a little like a talent show... you are to prepare something in advance about/dedicated to the couple (a slideshow, a song, a poem, a story, a letter, etc.) and during the reception let the hosts know you would like to share something. They then create a lineup of acts that are performed during the reception. I can't even tell you how creative and amazing some of the performances were.

Swedes definately out-do American weddings! It was an amazing time!

Saying goodbye requires...

Lots of love before you go! We spent tons of time in the few days before we left getting extra (extra) hugs and kisses and cuddles and playtime and tickles.... and, and and!

Just to tide you over...

We're back...but busy of course! We got back Saturday night...Aidan didn't sleep at all that night...ear infection. This did NOT help jet lag. :) Back to reality! Kids are super emotional, but they did fantastic while we were gone. We had a great time! Can't wait to show you more pics...that is, if anyone still reads my blog! :)

Crying at McDonalds

Did you know that I leave for my trip in less than 3 days?
That's not very much time.
I have a lot to do. I haven't even STARTED packing.
And that means in less than 3 days, I leave my babies for 12 days. I'm starting to freak out.

I had my Mothers Day pedicure scheduled for this morning. Ryan ended up having to work, so we got our favorite babysitter, Katelyn, to watch the kids. I was very organized about the few errands that I had to run after beautifying me feetsies. (yes, it is a real word) Unfortunately, the universe was out to get me!

Post coffee & pedicure...
Stop 1: Bank--to get something notarized, double check our accounts were set up for overseas travel. My mistake, but banker couldn't notarize what I had without Ryan there too. Accounts were NOT set up for travel, like I had JUST DONE YESTERDAY. Glad I checked, but a pain in my butt. Took me 50 min. to do these (or not even do one of them) two things (and the other thing I had ALREADY done yesterday.

Stop 2: Walgreens. Pick up prints I ordered online. Pictures of our little family for the kids to have while we are gone, and one for us to take with. Plus a picture of Ryan and I. I am going to make a little "pocket chart" with a picture of us on a popsicle stick so the kids can move "us" along to see when we will come home. PICTURE ORDER NEVER CAME IN. And they didn't have popsicle sticks.

At this point I am 10 min. late getting home and still have to go to McD's to pick up lunch for Ryan and his coworker and drive 20 min. home. I ran into my girlfriend in the parking lot and of course start crying because I am so frustrated!! Drive across the street to McDonalds...

Stop 3: McD's...order through my sniffling!

Start driving home... dig into the bag for my cheeseburger to cheer me up. They screwed up the order and forgot the french fries for the guys. Not enough time to run back. :(

Now for a quick rest time for the kids and I have to run back to town to redo my errands. Awesome. At least Ryan said he'd treat me to DQ to make up for my morning!!

Hopefully I'm getting all of my bad luck out of the way before our trip.

Aidan's dedication!

Our sweet family!

For our educators...

My Mom wrote a great letter to the editor that made it into the paper this week. Please take a moment to read it and be thankful for our educators!

Here

It must be something about me...

If you've read my blogs for a while, you'll remember that people like to say random, weird, and sometimes not so kind things to me! Here's some to jog your memory...
Here & Here

Well I've been comment free for a while now and I was thinking maybe it was just another symptom of pregnancy for me! That is until a few weeks ago...

I've recently been going lap swimming with a good friend of mine once a week at a local gym. We happen to go Thursday mornings @ 8 am, during the aquasizers class. We enjoy watching the cute old ladies dancing to the oldies in the pool; I imagine it will be me some day too. Well in the locker room after class one of the ladies was chatting with me about the importance of exercise, blah blah. So as small talk goes, I commented on exercising to lose that baby weight! I shouldn't have...
Me: Yes, exercise is really helpful to lose that baby weight (or something!!).
Lady: Oh, let me see your stomach!! (MIND YOU, I am NAKED at this point.) She walks over to me and comes in close for a good look.
Lady: OH Honey! You do not have anything to worry about, you look great!
Me: Thanks....

(great compliment... LITTLE awkward!!)

Then, 2 weeks later, I ran into the same little lady again...of course, I too was naked again. :) Although in the process of dressing...
Lady: Oh, you have those panties!!! (seriously, just plain low rise briefs!) I just don't know how you get them to stay up! Let me see those!! She walks over to me (MIND YOU, they are the ONLY article of clothing I have on), proceeds to grab the waistband of my undies and tug on them to see how they stay up! WHHHHAAAT!
Me: Well, I don't know, they just stay up for me....

Oy... We'll see what this week brings!

Randoms...

Woo! Has life been busy! Here's what's up with us...

Potty training is still going well...rarely an accident. This pooping business is something else though. I'm trying to "catch" her before she is about to go and put her on the pot, but it's a SERIOUSLY big deal. I'm not worried about it, I'm just sick of cleaning poopy panties. :)

Olivia's 3 is so different than 2. She is much less oppositional than she was. Her opposition has turned into more dramatic emotion, but it's so much easier to deal with! And so much more enjoyable. She loves to have conversations with you about anything. Our new thing she likes to do is each night before bed we tell each other what we did while we were apart from each other (i.e. at daycare & work).

Aidan is a man on the go. He is developed such a spunky little personality!! His face is always full of expression...as are the "utterings" that come out of him! My favorite story of last week was when we quickly grabbed dinner at (insert fatty fast food restaurant here) and were seated at a table next to an older woman, and what appeared to be her daughter, who had Downs Syndrome. Aidan quickly took to the two of them and spent the whole meal saying "Hi" in his sweetest voice and waving. The daughter loved when he would take a french fry and open his mouth as wide as he could, put the end of it in and "chomp" the bite off. Hilarious! I wish you could see the expression on his face!

Aidan is also talking up a storm! He definately uses words more than any other form of communication anymore. His new favorites are: No, mine (really, can you imagine!), tractor (tac-tor), airplane (a-peen), bus, and strawberry (ta-bee). He's become quite the little imitator of new sounds and words which is very fun for Olivia. They both love it when we drive around and Olivia will say "Look Aidan, there's a ___!" "Say ____!" He tries his hardest!!

We HAD been enjoying the spring weather, being out and about as much as we could. The last few days have been quite miserable not being able to be outside as much as we would like, but we're making do! Hopefully soon it will be spring again.

T-31 days until we head on our trip to Sweden for Ryan's brother's (Aaron) wedding! We are so excited!! All in all, our trip will be 12 days. The first 8 will be in Sweden, then the final 4 in Rome. As thrilled as I am, I am also getting apprehensive about leaving the kids for such a long time. I know they will have a blast with Grammi & Grampa, and I will probably miss them more than they miss me!! :) OH, and we found out our tickets on the flight over got bumped up to Business Class. Score! Probably due to my Mom giving us some frequent flier miles for the tickets and her high-flying status. Thanks Mom!

Aidan's 1st birthday!

Yes, his 1st birthday happened in January. (January 6th to be exact)
Yes, I forgot my camera for the birthday party with Ryan's family.
Yes, I now have the pictures!!
Yes, I think it's really annoying when I forget to switch around the order of my pictures so the last is first. :)

He looks less than thrilled!

Aidan's Minivan cake... I mean RACECAR. :)

Race car or station wagon, you decide...

Not my finest cake work!! :)