Morfar!

Anna was so excited yesterday while she waited for morfar to show up for an overnight visit. He was coming to town to pick up his sisters from the airport, and came a day early to play with Anna. While Anna and I were waiting for him to show up, we were sitting reading a book. It was so cozy and sweet and I turned to Anna and said "Anna, you know what? I love you very much." And Anna thought about it for a second, looked at me and responded "I love morfar..." There you have it, it was morfar on the brain yesterday.


Morfar showed up in time for supper and some play afterwards, and then spent the morning with us today. They had a lot of fun...



As Anna said when he left, seeyousoon morfar!

Citizenship

After 34 years in Canada, I finally made the transition from legal alien to full-fledged citizen! You may think that it should have felt like a bit of a formality after all this time, but it didn't at all. I felt very proud and happy to become Canadian, and even got a little choked up while singing the national anthem as a Canadian for the first time.


Now it's time for Patrik to apply, and then we will all have dual citizenship. The best of both worlds!

Tofino

Two weeks ago, Patrik and I spent the most spectacular weekend out on the West Coast. Unbelievably, we had never been out to Tofino together, and I'd say it was about time. After an overnight pit stop in Nanaimo, we left Anna in the hands of mormor and morfar, and let me tell you, she definitely did not protest us leaving. She was elbow deep in helping 'momo' clean out the bird cage when we left, and had time to give us the briefest of hugs goodbye before sending us on our way.

As we drove, we hit 'stor skogen' just as the sun was shining through the gaps between the giant trees, and bouncing off of the snow below. It was so beautiful we had to stop for a wee walk.




As we got back in the car to continue driving out to the coast, we crossed our fingers for some good storm watching. Tofino is beautiful in the sunshine, of course, but heading out there in the winter, I would much rather have rugged stormy west coast weather greet us. And our wish came true! In fact, the day before we arrived, the storms were so bad that the beaches were closed to even those out for a wet stroll.

But take some wet strolls we did.




And since we had no kids with us, we acted a bit like kids ourselves...


As luck would have it, after two stormy days, we got to also experience two sunny days. Back to the beach we went for more walking and talking. And just holding hands in silence, too.





The place we stayed was fantastic, and we will definitely be heading back there in the not-too-distant future. There was a hot tub down near the water, which we enjoyed several times, a giant common room to lounge in, and a storm watching room with gas fireplace and gorgeous ocean views. We spent a good bit of time there one afternoon, drinking some wine bought in the Willamette Valley of Oregon while there on vacation last summer, and watching the weather and the ocean through the windows.


On the drive back home, both Patrik and I agreed that we wouldn't have traded our vacation for any other - not even the trip to Hawaii we had originally talked about taking instead.