A Summer of Homelessness

We have finally returned to our home in Lund after 10 weeks of homelessness. This summer was really extraordinary for our family for many reasons and I think that we learned a lot about our selves in the process. One of the really fun aspects of this summer is that we had almost zero internet access for 10 weeks. Which means that most of our friends and family have gotten to know almost nothing about our adventures.

Over the next couple of weeks we plan to post a series of blog entries that will give you a little taste of what it is like to be a vagabond family in Scandinavia. Along the way we will introduce you to some of the wonderful people we met, show you some of the places we visited, share some fun stories, and let you hear a little of the insight we gained.

Here is a little pictorial preview of what is to come:

Viking Age Monuments...

Exploring of Castles...

Swedish Wildlife...

Lots of Really Old Churches...

And, of course, lots of stories about our girls.

Tour de Sverige

Our grand tour of Sweden

As you may know the house that we have been living in in Sweden is a summer house that belongs to a family from Stockholm. And since it is now summer they are living in their summer home making us officially homeless. This is of course a little bit scary but it has given us an opportunity that we probably will never have again in our lives. We have 11 weeks where we are free to travel and we are taking the opportunity to see as much of Scandinavia as possible.

Below is a map showing the rout we began to travel starting on June 18 and will be finishing at the end of August.


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Often on this trip we will be staying with friends and distant relatives at other times we will be staying in little cabins, hostels, and hotels. For almost three weeks Matthew's parents are traveling with us, later in the summer our very close friends Mike and Nila will be joining us. it is to be sure a grand adventure and we are very excited about it.

One of the real exciting aspects of this summer is that for the vast majority of the summer we will be living completely computer free. This means that for those of you that follow this blog you will not get to see pictures from our trip until September.

Kirchentag in Germany

The Kirchentag

A few weeks ago we took a trip to Germany to attend the 32nd German Protestant Kirchentag. Kirchentag means "Church Day" in German but ironically it lasts five days. The Kirchentag is an event that takes place every other year and given the fact that weekly church attendance in Germany is very low it is absolutely mind boggling the level of participation in this festival. I was told that this year there were over 300,000 individuals that participated in Kirchentag and only about 1,000 of those participants came from outside of Germany. The only larger regularly occurring Christian gathering is World Youth Day but the Kirchentag is much older.

We took the train to Germany and the train took a ferry from Denmark to Germany. Linnea really liked riding the train. Even after riding the train for six hours she still wanted to go on another train. Luckily the trains were very nice and the German train even had a play room just for children on it. Pretty cool.
The whole reason we ended up going to Kirchentag was because a group of people from Grace Lutheran Church, the church Kristin grew up attending were going to attend and we decided to join them. We spent last summer worshiping with Grace and have long considered it our Church home when we are visiting Kristin's family in Western Massachusetts. Below is a picture of the entire group from grace together. It was really good to hang out a little bit with the whole group. We are really thankful our friend pastor Derek Harman invited us to go.

While the whole Kirchentag experience was incredible there was no doubt that for our entire family the best part of the experience was getting to stay with a host family in Bremen. Axel, Henrika, and Sjut were wonderful hosts and we really loved getting to know them. I think we were all nervous when we met for the first time but it did not take us long to really become friends. As Christians we often talk about being brothers and sisters in Christ with all of the Christians that live throughout the world but here we really had a chance to experience the reality of that family relationship.


The entire city of Bremen was taken over by the Kirchentag. Just when you thought you had seen everything you would ride the bus down the street and see another venue that could hold thousands of people.

Above is one of the morning Bible studies. There were at lest 20,000 people that showed up for this chance to read the Bible together.

Linnea just seemed to love being around all of the people and would try to make friends with anyone she could.

Some of the events would fill up rather quickly. The above picture is of the overflow from one of the events where they set up a portable Jumbotron outside after the arena filled up. People were so interested that they sat outside in the rain.

Our first day at the Kirchentag wa a little crazy. We would find something we wanted to go to in the schedule, start heading towards it and after walking half way there realize that there was no way we were going to make it to the event. We simply were not used to the huge scale of the Kirchentag. At lunch we decided that it was our goal to make it to one just one of the days 100+ events. Finally we made it to a concert that was really a lot of fun. It was raining when the concert started but the sun came out and Linnea and I even got to dance a little.

There was a whole section of the city that was designated for children's events. We spent a whole day just doing kids stuff and we loved it.


We went to a children's musical about the life of King David. It was fun but our girls thought that it was a good chance to catch up on their sleep.

On our last day in Bremen we had lunch at a little outdoor cafe. It was a perfect way to end our time in Germany.

Not only did we have a good time in Bremen but I was interviewed by the local paper and was quoted extensively in an article about what it is like for foreigners to attend Kirchentag.

Linnea's Birthday - Blowing bubbles, Hello Kitty and Scootering

What a great 4th birthday for Linnea! In the morning, we had pink pancakes made by our expert Swedish pancake chef, Matthew. Then after breakfast she received her first gift and most wanted gift, a pink Hello Kitty scooter and she's been scooting ever since! She also got a great Hello Kitty t-shirt from dad. Linnea is very much into Hello Kitty, it's really big here and Matthew thinks it's kind of like an evil empire, hence the t-shirt below. It was designed by one of his classmates from Swedish class.



Before our guests arrived the girls took a pre-party bath and Linnea taught Sonja how to put her face in the water blow bubbles in the tub. It is very cute and we've got it on video, but I think it is too big to post here.

Here's Linnea taking a much needed nap in the back yard before guests arrived.



Sonja was very helpful with the decorating and cleaning. This is a room separate from our house that is just perfect for parties in the summer. We lucked out again and had great weather for her birthday.




Scootering



Opening gifts from friends, which included a Hello Kitty cell phone, camera, t-shirt, hair accessories and purse along with a bubble making kit.



The pink strawberry cake specially decorated by Linnea.



Celebrating



Sonja dissatisfied with her birthday hat.



Pin the bow on Hello Kitty.



When it was the adults turn, Linnea was in charge of spinning. And the game got increasingly more difficult as the poster was moved to different locations as the poor person was being spun about 20 times. Of course for everyone else, it was wildly funny.



All the friends have left and it's time for PJs. Notice the tattoo on the tummy!



Linnea showing off her gifts.



She requested a picture of herself in this pose. Don't ask me why.



Well, in less than 2 days now we are off to Germany where we are bound to have some adventures. Wish us luck!

Rape Flowers in Bloom

After dinner last night I took a walk in the countryside that surrounds us. I really wanted to get some pictures of the flowering rape flowers. They are absolutely amazing, it looks like an ocean of yellow. The pictures came out pretty good, but they really don't do it justice. The rape flower is a very popular crop in the region so we see the "yellow seas" everywhere. I guess the flower is very easy to grow and grows so fast that they actually harvest it twice a season. The seed is then made into rapeseed oil that I've noticed a lot of in the grocery stores.

So here are the pictures. Enjoy!

How Time Flies!

Linnea's birthday is on Friday, the 15th of May (in the Jungle of Nool and the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool...). We can't believe she is going to be 4. She has been acting older and more mature these days. She likes to "mother" Sonja and really likes all of our baby friends. Many people have commented on how good she is with younger children and I have to agree, she is a great "big sister". We are having a BBQ birthday party for her on Friday that she is very excited about. We'll definitely have photos to post of the party.

I've been having so much fun being home with the girls. We've got a good numbers of friends that we get together with regularly and I often take the girls to the park/shopping/etc. We have been very active lately, something going on most days of the week!

It is hard to write about the relationship Matthew and I see developing between the girls. They get along so well and love each others company. One afternoon Matthew took Linnea out to run errands and I was home with Sonja. Well, Sonja just crabbed and crabbed until Linnea came home for her to play with. As I mentioned before, Linnea acts as a little mother to her sister and often offers to watch her and take care of her. All very sweet. They are still a couple of goof-balls though. The following pictures are proof!

Playing at the park




It's never to early to learn how to help out around the house





GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) girls in training


Enjoying the sunshine



The Wednesday after Linnea's birthday we leave for Germany for 6 days. When we return Linnea begins school (Dagies) and my mom comes into town for 2 weeks. Then after that we only have a few days until we are off touring Sweden for the summer. I can't believe it's that time already. How exciting!