it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...

and we have our tree...

sam joined us cutting down the tree...

i have yet to upload the pics, so the picture of the tree must suffice.

and i LOVE the instagram app on my iphone.

it's HOW i got this gorgeous picture!

sam has two "first" ornaments - a picture frame and a tomte (sitting at the top of the tree with a white beard)

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...

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... :)

Merry Christmas!

May you all enjoy Christmas with your loved ones!

Enjoy the hour, the day weekend.

Here's a story that made my eyes tear up... (you know, one of those forwards you actually don't mind receiving)


The Tablecloth
- things happen for a reason

The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry, to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn , arrived in early October excited about their opportunities. When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc, and on December 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished.



On December 19 a terrible tempest - a driving rainstorm hit the area and lasted for two days. On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had
leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall
of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home. On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity, so he stopped in...


One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church. By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later.


She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put
up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and
it covered up the entire problem area. Then he noticed the woman walking down the center
aisle. Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?"
The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had
made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria.




The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten "The Tablecloth". The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria . When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. He was captured, sent to prison and she never saw her husband or her home again.




The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor keep it for the church.
The pastor insisted on driving her home. That was the least he could do. She lived on the other
side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.




What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return.


One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood continued to sit in one of the
pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving. The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike?




He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety and he was
supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years between.




The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten
Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on
the door and he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.

I am not sure if this is a true story or not, but it caught my heart...

christmas shopping & a talent show

kim and i planned to hang out on dec 22nd since the beginning of november w/caleb, AFTER his studies were completed.

well, dec 22nd rolled around and caleb still had a paper to finish - no celebratory evening w/friends... :(

kim and i decided to keep with our plans of getting together and we went on over to danvers high school to see a talent show. we were there to watch isabelle garcia and her dance team. all i have to say it oh my goodness!!! it was such an amazing show. isabelle and her dance team were phenomenal! it was as though i was watching synchronized swimming on a stage. they were ALL in sync. i was so impressed. it was a high school dance team and they looked as though they could be professionals. granted, i'm no dancing with the stars or so you think you can dance judge, but they were fabulous. isabelle, i totally enjoyed your performance. keep up the good work. please let me know of any future performances!

here's a picture - from my iphone - i know, it's pretty terrible b/c it's from far away...

anyway, after watching the talent show, kim and i headed for some jolly old christmas shopping. i had such a fun time AND i found a gorgeous dress to wear for new year's eve - (big event this year!!! yay Johannes, sooo excited for you and Rebecka)

here's a photo of the newly weds to be...(courtesy of facebook, hope you don't mind J&R - i couldn't find a real good one of both of them, but i will be blogging once their wedding happens!!)


kim bought a few gifts and checked them off her list and i found a fun little present for caleb. then we headed to one particular store in the mall. let me tell you, it was quite the experience. being an individual who works in customer service, i was APALLED at the service. granted, it's christmas and the staff may be overworked AND underpaid... it was none-the-less horrible.
their attire was anything but professional, they were NOT customer service friendly and the employees kept sharing inside jokes with each other as if kim and i weren't there. to top it off, some of them kept letting the f-bomb slip. on the whole i'm not one to use obscenities, maybe in the comfort of my own home w/no one around, but come on peoples!! while WORKING?! if you hate your job so much, then quit, but don't inform the entire store of potential customers you hate your job...
part of me wanted nothing more than to walk out and say, "i'm sorry. this is terrible service and your store is not presenting themselves in a professional fashion" HOWEVER the employees would have probably been pleased had we done that. they're employees, not owners, their livelihood does not depend on the items sold in the store. as long as they show up, work their 8 hr+ shift they will get their paycheck.

after our disturbing experience in that particular store, we left the mall and i dropped kim off at home. we ended up talking in the car for a good 45 minutes. it was great. kim is someone i enjoy talking with and BEING REAL!! haha

why did our conversation have to get going AFTER all the shopping...

anyway... thanks kim for a fun night... i think i'm dead today... sooo tired, but i did get a nice warm shower, so i do feel alive.

for those of you who may not understand the above comment - our furnace blew and the plumbers, electricians, etc were here ALL DAY MONDAY AND TUESDAY. we had NO hot water for TWO DAYS!!!

sweden

my friend's getting married on new year's eve...

right after christmas, i'm taking off to sweden...

i'll be there in TWO WEEKS!!! i cannot wait!!! sweden during the christmas season is magical!

this is what i have to look forward to...

Siljansnäs in the Winter



Sunrises and Sunsets like this...




Pepparkakor - Gingerbread cookies



Lussekatt - from Santa Lucia - which was Dec 13th - hopefully my mormor will still have some left for me :)



Ice-skating on Lake Siljan - December parts of the lake will freeze over and if it doesn't snow, it's beautiful to skate on!



Stockholm by Day



Stockhom by Night



not to mention... i get to meet up w/family and friends...

marriage...

well, Christmas is almost here... and i'm putting in a post about our wedding...

we had a fabulous day at the Flying Bridge! our candy buffet & ice-cream bar were great hits... the weather was wonderful and most importantly, we had fun...


Caleb & Sara at Chapoquoit Beach - the weather was around 60F - not bad for the end of October...



here we are, exiting the church...
it was so fun to run out of the church w/flower petals raining on you

getting ready... i was on my cell phone b/c people kept CALLING me!! :)

here my mom is, helping me with my dress...

posing in front of Caleb's jeep...

we had a blast at our wedding...
i would like to post a few more fun pictures, especially family pics b/c they were a HUGE part of our wedding, but navigating this blog is a little tricky...

after our wedding, we went to St. Thomas for a wonderfully relaxing and fun honeymoon... we sailed, snorkeled, shopped, went swimming, kayaked, hung out on the beach, toured the islands w/a jeep, enjoyed yummy food and enjoyed each other's company... one of the great parts of a honeymoon is staying in a hotel where you have a "maid" to take care of your room everyday and there are no dirty dishes... when you get home... real life hits... ;)

pictures of our honeymoon will follow when i am willing to spend time to figure out all the little tricks of a blog... (shannon-please help me!)

we came back to a tiny apartment and lots of organzing and moving in to do. 2 months and hundreds of boxes later... we have "arrived". our apartment is not NEARLY as cluttered as when we first moved in and it's now relaxing... :)

Christmas

"Some days you gotta dance!"

Well, Christmas has come and gone... it's funny, I read the comics the other day and found one of the jokes to be funny and interesting... "It's funny how Christmas is so close, and then all of a sudden it is a year away."

A few unexpected events happened this Christmas, however, life is full of unexpected events...

There really is not a whole lot to write. I am somewhat at a loss for words, but I wanted to post something.

This weekend I am going skiing which I have been looking forward to since before most people started their Christmas shopping. One of my favorite places to ski in the East is Sunday River and I am so excited to hit the slopes. The feeling of skiing ALL day, and then collapsing on the couch watching a funny movie until you fall asleep is awesome! I LOVE the feeling of skiing off the lift at the top of the mountain only to race down to the bottom and do it again, and again, and again, and again until the mountain closes.

Hopefully everyone reading this blog has had a relaxxing and fun Christmas weekend. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2006!!!

Julen har redan gått... igår läste jag "the comics" och en "joke" tyckte jag var särskilt roligt och intressant. "Det är roligt hur julen är så nära, och sedan det är ett helt år iväg."

Några oväntad händelse hände under julen i år, men livet är fullt upp med oväntad händelse... Det var en minne som jag aldrig glömmer och tänkte på i år, julen 2003 i Sverige - ett särskilt par pyjamas given till mig av mormor och morfar, och jakt att hitta ett par ny pyjamas för den given till mig hade ett stort hål i (min mormor var ledsen om detta) :)

Några grejor glömmor man aldrig!

Jag har inte mycket att skriva. Det finns brist på ordorna, men jag ville skriva någonting, för att jag har inte skrivat under en hel månad.

I helgen ska jag åka skidor och det har jag sett fram emot sen innan de fleste människor började deras julshopping. En av mina favorit ställen att åka skidor på Östkusten är Sunday River och vi ska dit. Oj va kul det blir! Det är härligt att "bara åk" nedför backen. Det känsla att åka (skidor eller bräda) hela dagen och sedan falla ihop på soffan framför en rolig film tills man nästan somnar = HÄRLIGT!! Jag älskar det känsla när man når toppen av berget med skidliften bara för att åka hårt till botten och göra det om och om och om och om igen tills backen stängar.

Hoppas att alla som läsa bloggen hade en roligt och avslappning julhelg. God Jul och Gott Nytt År 2006!!! :)