Apres-nap exercises

Back on the line

After two years with the slackline in storage, we finally dusted it off yesterday and tried to move our rusty bodies along it. Although we lacked the style we may have once had, and we fell off far more than we stayed on, it felt great to walk the length of it again!




Our little beach outing was very gear intensive, and poor Anna didn't have very much space to herself in the bike carrier.


Before our slacklining outing, we had a lovely breakfast guest. William stayed overnight on Saturday night and we had a couple of hours playing together before his mom came and got him. He and Anna really had fun together, imitating each others sounds, sharing toys, sharing kisses and hugs, and staring out at the world together.

Crawling!

Now we're in business! Anna crawled for the first time yesterday! I saw her make one crawl move forward, and so I tried to entice her to crawl some more, but nothing worked until I used food for 'bait'. Should have known... Of course, when I ran and got the camera, she wouldn't do it again. But I didn't have to wait long - she lived up to the motto of "will crawl for food" again today. She's growing up so fast!

Father's Day

Funny thing. Patrik's Father's Day wish was the same as my Mother's Day wish - to spend the day with the family doing something outside. So, after breakfast in bed (of course!), we headed up for a hike at Seymour. Our plans were derailed momentarily when it turned out that as we drove up the mountain, we drove straight into a huge, dark, wet cloud. And it was coooooollllld! Maybe not perfect for taking a wee one for a hike. So, we headed down to Deep Cove instead where the weather was much better, and went for a hike along Indian Arm, with lunch at a look-out point. We capped the day off with a barbecued salmon dinner and a glass of wine out on our new cozy covered deck. Sweet...

Midsommar

It is midsommar this weekend - the start of summer and the longest day of the year - and the Scandinavian Community Centre celebrates with a big festival. Because of bad weather, we didn't end up going camping this weekend, but instead brought Kate, Curt and William with us to the festival. We had a lot of fun with dancing around the 'midsommar stång'


visiting the viking village,


visiting the 'troll garden',


dancing to live entertainment,


good food and old friends, and much much more.

Pool Party

After a morning in the park with a few friends, we came home for lunch and then were joined by Linda and Clara for a bit of a pool party. The girls had fun, and spent a good part of their time in the pool playing musical sippy cups. Anna wanted Clara's, who used Anna's, but then Anna wanted that one instead, and it went around and around like that for quite some time.

Big house, little house

Mom and dad arrived this morning for a few-hours-visit after having spent a couple of days over in Gibsons with Marcus and his family. From the sounds of it, their new house is looking fantastic and we can't wait to see it. We're heading over to the Sunshine Coast next weekend to go camping with the Newsteads, and so we'll definitely be driving by the new house to have a peak then.

Speaking of camping, we thought we would set up our new family tent and our little travel cot today ahead of the trip. Anna seemed to be pretty happy with her sleeping arrangements.



After the tent set-up, a quick lunch is all we had time for before mormor and morfar headed to the ferry. The afternoon was then spent in relative laziness at home (i.e. no big carpentry/roofing/painting projects on the go), and it feels pretty good.

Härliga Mimmi

Just as Miranda, David and Elias were heading out the door to the airport on Friday, Mimmi arrived from Victoria for a couple of days visit. Anna is very taken with her, and they have been two peas in a pod. We've spent the past couple of days relaxing in the backyard with feet in Anna's pool, at Lynn Canyon where Mimmi went for a dip in the glacier fed river, and out on a bit of a girls night on Commercial Drive with Amanda. As Mimmi said, it has felt like 'sommarlov'.





This morning, mom and dad arrived in time for a coffee with Mimmi before she had to head to the ferry, and now Anna is content in mormor's arms.

Terlingen visit

We've had Miranda, David and Elias staying with us for the past couple of days. They're getting ready to head off to France for the summer where David will be mountain guiding in Chamonix. They're flying out this afternoon and are out now trying to get there very very long list of errands done before they head to the airport.


But, we've managed a nice couple of days together with dinners outside, kids playing, and a brief moms-only outing last night.


Patrik got home a little late from work last night and joined us in the backyard for the tail end of dinner. Guess how happy Anna was to see him?

How to keep cool

These are a few of Anna's favourite ways of keeping cool on these hot summer days:

hang out in the pool,


keep hydrated,


wear as few clothes as possible,


catch a breeze in the swing,


and hang out with her cool mama (ha!).

New Car!

Patrik and Anna were out for a walk on Sunday, and while strolling around the neighbourhood they came across this car sitting out on the sidewalk. The people were giving it away and so Patrik scooped it up and carried it home.  Since both Patrik and I have a car, it only seemed fair that Anna should get to have one too.  As you can see, she is pretty delighted with it. She can already "drive" the car, though she's stuck in reverse at the moment.

Grattis Hugo!

Hela familjen Eliasson skickar Hugo en bamse födelsedags kram, och Anna har några extra ord för honom ocksa...

Vi hoppas att du har haft en lycklig och kul dag, Hugo, och vi ser fram emot att få leka och umgås med dig snart. Nu är det inte länge kvar tills vi ses!

The fun stuff...

Besides the renos, we have managed to fit in some fun over the past week or so, including some pool time, walks, flamenco at the Kino Cafe with some girlfriends (my first time out with the girls since some time well before Anna was born), a backyard party at Carrie and Darren's, and a fantastic dinner at Kate and Curt's. And today, Anna and I are going to finalize everything with the day care that we found for her to start in September! Yahoo! We're not excited about sending her to care, but it is so hard to find child care in Vancouver that it is just a great feeling to have found something that we feel good about.

Reno Progress

It's been a noisy messy couple of weeks, but now that the exterior renos are almost finished, I can say that it was well worth it. The roof reno that Anna and I went to Nanaimo to get away from a couple of weeks ago took longer than planned (of course!), and then the painters were back this past weekend to finish up the trim, doors, gutters, etc. The yard has been essentially unusable, but Anna and I have managed to find small pockets of space to set up her pool to cool off. Here's a little progression of the house exterior...