a few more vacation images...

skating adventures
one morning we woke up and decided to go ice-skating on Lake Siljan in Dalarna, Sweden. we bundled up, grabbed our skates and headed out to the lake.
"long färd skridskor" is popular in sweden - directly translated it would be "long distance" skating. you put long ice-skate blades onto specially designed boots. i've tried it in the past, but i don't own a pair. i had regular hockey skates, but almost everyone else had the long-distance skates.


my mom and jakob - he has the long-distance skates, and special poles, they both have ice-pick thingies around their necks; in the event they fall through the ice, they dig the ice-pick in the ice and don't drown... good to keep around :)

we skated alongside the shoreline... probably a total of 6 miles.
it was such a fun time and good exercise! we kept warm despite the chilly weather...


my amazing mom and me: ice-skating on a cold winter morning



beautiful views of a frozen dock from our ice-skating trip




close-up shot: my brother phil and me

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gallivanting in stockholm


walking the streets of downtown stockholm in the winter...


drottninggatan, stockholm
it's a "people only, no cars" street in stockholm that stretches for about 1 mile
there are fabulous stores on both sides of the street


drottninggatan, stockholm
i love the christmas chandeliers - so festive



my friends: emma, henke and petra


petra and emma goofing off in the street


henke...
it was soo chilly out...
i had a hard time taking pictures...
my fingers were FREEZING!


close-up: emma, petra, sara


goofy shot: emma, petra, sara

we met during my sophomore year in sweden. it's great that we still keep in touch.
emma, if you're reading this, i'm still sending you the converse :) xo

emma, petra and henke all live in stockholm, so it's great to be able to catch up w/all of them at once.

we spend the afternoon at a café - "fika" is what the swedes call it - basically taking time to drink coffee, tea or hot chocolate, eat a sandwich or yummy bum and catch up with friends. such a good word, wish it existed in english :)

we walked around stockholm while they helped me pick out a few wedding presents for friends in the states. then we decided to grab some dinner.
we went to a fabulous italian restaurant, that i can't remember the name of... henke, petra, emma, do you guys remember?
anyway, you walk into the restaurant and you are given a plastic card. you find a table, order your food, eat, spend time w/friends. when you're ready to leave, you bring your plastic card to the hostess. she checks you out and you pay. it's great for friends getting together - no one has to worry about splitting up the check. you each pay for what you eat.
the downside... you lose the card, you pay $100...

so there's another peek into my vacation that i WISH hadn't ended...

beauty

i finally uploaded my pictures FROM my camera TO my computer from my trip to sweden.

here are a few images i captured that i wanted to post.

a christmas wreath on a woodshop door



a woodshop with frosted windows



a typical christmas chandelier
i want to have something similar someday...
i love the elegant simplicity :)



the sunrise from my mormors house around 9am



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now if only we could get loads of snow the weatherman is predicting...

twenty-seven

i graduated high school almost 9 years ago; my ten year reunion is coming up... yikes
i graduated college almost 5 years ago; my five year reunion...
i'm married; does this mean i'm supposed to be more responsible?
i work a full-time job; i miss out on the summer, fall, christmas and spring breaks and look forward to taking a vacation and getting paid for it
i'm fully past 25 - is that considered over the 20s hill or will that happen when i hit 30?
however
january 7
i did have a birthday party in sweden and it was a darn good time
here's the set-up...

fläder tårta
kladd kaka
pepparkakor
lussekatt
saft
kaffe
tulpaner

translation: cake, more cake, gingerbread cookies and saffron buns. juice and coffee. tulips to brighten a winter day

back to the grind...

it's back to work for me... i had a blissful 2 1/2 week vacation and now it's back to reality...

~a few highlights~

• spending christmas w/caleb's family
• johannes & rebecka's wedding on new year's eve
• shopping w/my cousins (in sweden)
• ice skating on lake siljan w/family & friends
• having dinner w/friends at valpiano in stockholm
• visiting my aunt and her family in uppsala
• ice-skating w/linnea and my aunt anna
• checking out the dom kyrka in gamla uppsala with my mom
• shopping and spending time w/my mormor
• birthday party for ME in sweden
• cross country skiing w/uncle, aunt and mormor
• spending time w/people i love
• coming home to caleb...
• celebrating "christmas" with caleb on jan 10

currently my body is functioning 6 hrs ahead of EST... so i'm off to take a nap!

pictures & videos of my highlights to follow... :)

skiing

Åskaken



today was my last day in siljansnäs; the thermometer read -24C so we thought it'd be a good chance to go skiing ;)

many people say that once it's past -15C it's almost too cold to go outside; this can be true... but i wanted to go skiing before i left...

so my morbror Håkan, his wife, my 79 year old mormor and i went out on a "liten utflykt". we packed sandwiches, coffee, hot chocolate, and candy in a backpack, put our skis in a thule rack and sped away on an adventure.

it was almost tooo cold to take pictures - as soon as you took your mitten off to take a picture, your fingers almost hurt from the cold.

however, for your viewing pleasure are a few pictures from our little adventure.


cecilia . mormor . sara

our "fika stund" by the frozen lake


sara . cecilia . mormor

i must say, it was awesome to go skiing with my 79 year old mormor (grandma). she is fabulous. more on her some other post. she turns 80 this year and hopefully i'll be able to do something special for her 80th birthday.


mormor . cecilia . håkan

racing to the end


sara

trying to cross-country ski down a small hill...



here's a picture of my mormor



i am soooo proud of her!! it was -24C (which makes it -11.2 F) and she went out skiing with us.
it was such a fabulous memory and it was wonderful to spend my last full day in siljansnäs skiing with my mormor. :)

airports, blizzards and the swedish language

Monday afternoon when I stepped off the plane at the Arlanda Airport outside Stockholm, Sweden I felt a rush of excitement. I'm coming home. It often feels that way when I come to Sweden.

This time, I'm "coming home" to go to a good friend's wedding on New Year's Eve - quite the excitement compared to New Year's Eve in the past where I have been a "youth worker" contributing to a "safe, fun" New Year's for teenagers, young adults, crazy peoples. ;)

I felt "home" and I felt I was "playing the part". I stepped off the plane wearing a skirt, leggings tugged into warm Ugg boots, a down jacket, handmade mittens from Sweden, iPhone, and a handbag. As I hurried downstairs to the baggage claim I thought about the possibilities of my 2 week vacation in Sweden.

First, I changed my money from dollars to kronor and cringed at the exchange rate. Years ago the dollar was strong the the kronor was weak. $1 = 10 kronor - now the exchange rate is $1=7.15 kronor - here's a better way to show it... Approximately 13 kronor per LITER of gas OR $7/gallon. I remember when gas prices were high at $4/gallon - can you imagine paying $7/gallon?

After exchanging my money I looked for my bags. They didn't have a sign to show where I could find the baggage from my airplane. I walked over to an airplane official to ask him and couldn't get the words out of my mouth.

Side note: my sophomore year of high school and one semester of my junior year in college I spent in Sweden. I can speak it fluently most of the time ;)

At this particular moment, I found myself stumbling for words. Of course, many of the airport employees must speak English, however I don't feel right speaking English if I have a Swedish passport in hand

Another side note: My mom is Swedish, my dad is American; I have dual citizenship - maybe this is TMI for the internet?

All goes well and I pick up my bags and head for the doors. I walk outside expecting a blast of cold air, but to my disappointment, it's above freezing and RAINY!

My friend Jakob picks me up and we head for Dalarna (about a 3 hr drive Northwest from the airport). As we drive north, the weather drops from 3 Celsius and raining to -15 Celsius and snowy almost blizzard conditions. Much more satisfying. If I'm going to be in a cold country, I want it to be cold and snowy, not rainy and half-cold.

We took a slight shopping detour, something I didn't mind, and continued to my mormor's house, as all you loyal subscribers read in the previous post, where I was treated to a "riktig" Swedish dinner.

Yesterday was my first FULL day in Sweden and it was quite the day. The morning was spent in my mom's hometown grocery shopping and errand running. We had dinner in the evening and then it was off to a Professional hockey game. During my year in Sweden, I went to most of the HOME hockey games of the team Leksands Stars. They are a professional team and well-known throughout Sweden. The game was an easy win for Leksand 4-0. I took a video and pictures of it, those will come later.

I'm still adjusting to the time here in Sweden. I didn't fall asleep until 3am Swedish time OR 9pm EST. Tonight is proof I'm still adjusting? It's currently 1:22am and I'm not the least tired and I'm the only one awake in the cabin...

I can blame it on the time-change, but maybe it's my addiction to the internet? Aren't vacations supposed to be time away from electronics and such (with the exceptions of cameras as they record important memories). I have to admit, I am addicted to my iPhone and am experiencing severe withdrawals from not being able to access the internet, check facebook, twitter, the weather and other meaningless possibilities the iPhone allows for. Granted, I could probably access the above for a $3000 fee at the end of 2 weeks. At this point, I'm not quite that desperate; although I did sign up for the international plan for the month so I can send and receive text messages and call people; for a marginal fee of $0.50/txt or $1/min.

At this point, those of you who are still reading are most likely bored with the drivel and I should end the blog post.

Enjoy your New Year's Eve :)

Here are two pictures my brother took.



A little red house, typical for Sweden :)



It's so cold the trees are COMPLETELY frosted over!

My brothers put together a time-lapse photo shoot. Once it's posted online, I'll include a link.

PS- Maybe my next post will be about today - shopping w/my cousins - it was quite the experience.

vacation: new hampshire

well, after martha's vineyard and time with my family - we headed back to the north shore, packed our things and headed for the mountains. we took a trip to lincoln, nh. no, not north conway, and not the outlet shopping... we headed on a hiking trip. we packed our backpacks and hiked up to mt. moosilauke. part of the way up the hike we pitched our tent and dropped our gear. we hiked to the top of mt. moosilauke and then back down to our campsite. we feasted on lasagna for dinner and hit the sack. the next morning, caleb tried out his french press and enjoyed a cup of steaming coffee. i had yummy instant oatmeal.
we hiked back down and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. our vacation was almost over...

doing push-ups over a little stream that was rushing down the mountain. refreshing!

caleb, being, well, caleb :)
i swear, he needs to go into professional acting or something...

sporting the headband look

at the top of mt. moosilauke
we put my camera on top of some rocks
and set up the 10 second timed shot...
not bad for a windy day
kinda like the engagement shot

vacation: cape cod

after our escapades with the jock family, caleb and I ventured to the Cape. my brother peter spent the summer backpacking europe and was leaving shortly to spend a semester in sweden. i had hardly seen him... we had a fun family dinner and wednesday morning we headed to martha's vineyard for a bike, beach and ice-cream trip. mv is a great day trip from the cape and it's such a fun island!!

caleb- sara- pete

before caleb & i left for mv

the boat ride

that's the flying bridge
where we got married on 10/25/2008 :)

ernie boch's llamas...

"i'm ernie boch... come on downnn"

for those of you who DON'T know who ernie boch is... he was a car salesman/dealerships owner, he passed away and the dealerships are still in the family. he has a large house on mv with a helicopter pad and llamas in the front yard.

c&s in front of the llamas
helmets & sunglasses required... ;)

c&s at south beach
warm water, awesome waves and a picnic lunch
fabulous day!!

for my friend ashley ;)

it was great seeing you in missouri
and great seeing you for breakfast in ipswich. xoxo

on the boat ride home
such a fun day!!

vacation: crane's beach

the day after Caleb left Calvary, we went on vacation.
it was wonderful to have a week of nothingness... we had plans, but it was lots of fun planned and nothing work related :)
Caleb's last day, Sunday, August 16 - both our families came - to hear him preach and to enjoy the banquet the church held in our honor. it was great to get support from both families. Caleb's sister Brooke, her husband Dan and their two little girls, Julia and Hannah stayed for the night: pizza, marshmallows and then Crane's Beach on Monday. we had such a fun time laying out, playing in the sand, walking along the beach...

dan-julia
walking to the pizza place, julia insisted on bringing her little wagon

brooke-sara-hannah
at the pizza shop :)

caleb practicing ;)

brooke-sara
marshmallows over a candle... just for kicks :)

caleb's wake-up call the next morning from julia and hannah... haha

hannah making calls to auntie summer, auntie k-k (kïrsten), grandma and grandpa...
she's saying she wishes they were there to go to the beach w/us :)

julia is more engrossed with the puzzle than with the camera... this is a seldom event in the giguere household... hence i had to have a photograph for proof!

hannah - aunt sara
making drip sand castles :)

hannah-uncle caleb
life is good walking the beach with uncle caleb

hot mamma :)

hannah -julia
playing in the sand together :)

dan-brooke
cute couple!!

it was so fun to have dan, brooke, julia and hannah come visit :) we're looking forward to visiting them or them coming to visit us again - despite the cramped quarters... ;)

and that was the end of our first day of vacation. stay tuned for the rest of the week...