This is my desktop background right now. Isn’t M a cute Viking? We took a day trip to Sigtuna, which is one of my favorite places. It’s a manageable drive outside of the city and yet it’s a small town. I have always said that’s where I’d want to live if we moved to Sweden. We wouldn’t, of course, but it’s a nice daydream. Anyway! We went on a Viking boat. It was touristy and silly but a lot of fun. M was the official steering dude. Is there a word for a Viking boat steering dude?

We ate almost every single meal (outside of breakfast) outside. Lovely! I am not a fan of eating outside at home because it’s far too hot here, and the humidity is terrible and the bugs are even worse. It’s great in Sweden. In the summer, anyway. :) These are my in-laws, along with Evie and my niece, Whitley, who was with us.

There really aren’t that many pictures of Evie and me. I try to stay out of pictures as much as possible. :) Still, it’s nice to occasionally see that I was there, too. Anyway, this was just before we went on a boat tour, I think.

Nice scenery picture from the boat tour. We were meandering through Stockholm. The boat tour was pricey but very enjoyable, even for the natives.

We went to Skansen, which is a zoo and open-air museum. Evie’s favorite part was the section with rides, of course. She got to ride her very first ride by herself, and she LOVED it. :) We have about sixty different pictures of her lookiing exactly like this. :)

While we were there, M won four kilos of Toblerone chocolate in a carnival game of chance. No one was more shocked than him.. except maybe Evie.

I can’t resist a second photo of the Toblerone. You’ll also be glad to know that inside, there were a bunch of individually wrapped bars, easy for distribution. We sent some home with my niece, left a bunch with my in-laws and M took most of the ones we brought home to work. Like we really needed four kilos of chocolate laying around the house.

This one was taken while we were out shopping. I had been dreading this day because I knew Evie would HATE all the walking and shopping, but she ended up staying with her Farfar and Farmor for the first time. :) She had a great time, we had a great time. I wasn’t sure how it would go, or even if they would WANT to keep her by themselves, but they did and it was really nice, from the sounds of it. I think they all enjoyed it, and I know it was good for them in a bonding sort of way.

Here we all are at the royal castle, Drottningholm. This is taken from the back… I chose this one because I wanted to tell a story and make sure you all know that inside, I am still twelve years old. So anyway, we are walking around to the backside and my father-in-law is pointing out the guard stationed at the back, keeping out the tourists, and he tells me, “We’re not allowed to see the royal private parts.” And I didn’t so much as quirk my lips because I didn’t want him to think he had said anything WRONG, linguistically, but inside I was dying. No, I imagine that the royal family doesn’t give acess to their private parts to just anyone. I think we’d have all heard about that in some sleazy tabloid otherwise. :)

Evie spent the day with Farfar and Farmor today for the first time, which was kind of cool. We went out shopping (and walking!) in the city and then made our way over to M’s sister’s house. Evie would have H.A.T.E.D. today’s trip so it was good timing. I was sort of dreading the whole day, actually, until they asked if she would want to stay with them this morning. We bought a lot of junk. Even Whitley got into the spirit of things and purchased a few items. She’s mainly been walking around trying to figure out something to buy, and then falling over in despair at the prices. :)

Yesterday was all about Skansen, which was fun. Skansen is a zoo/open air museum (as they seem fond of pointing out). Evie had fun but she got way too tired. M abandoned us when we left there, heading off to spend a little time with his BFF.

Sometime on Monday, we took enough pictures that they no longer show up on this computer when I try to transfer them. Never saw anything like it, but the computer recognizes the camera but refuses to list the remaining photos. So… I have a great excuse for not posting pictures… at least of the last two days. :) Pictures when we get home, probably more than you really care about seeing.

So anyway, we’re still having a good time. Whitley woke up with an earache yesterday morning, so that was a turn for the worse. She hasn’t had much trouble with it since then, at least, so here’s hoping that she doesn’t have trouble with it anymore. My throat has been insanely sore for the last two days. I sure wish we were healthy for this trip.

Yesterday was a bit slow, but we did go out to a small veteran car event, followed by lunch in a food court at the mall and then fika at home with M’s cousins. Evie was excited to play with another little girl, but they were both a little confused as to why that other kid wouldn’t understand what they were saying. :) She was five. They played pretty well together for all of that, though.. it was a bit of work for me, though, because I initiated tag and hide and seek and playdoh and those little bendy sticks that are covered with wax.

Today was a bit more active and fun. We went for lunch at a fairly fancy place in Stockholm with M’s best friend, girlfriend and new baby. We have been planning on spending time with them, but sickness has made it hard to schedule so we finally just decided to meet somewhere and have lunch outside. We followed that up with a boat tour of the city, which lasted almost two hours and was really quite nice. Evie was a good girl, too, which helped.

Tomorrow–Skansen! Since going to the zoo last fall was one of the Best Experiences of Evie’s life, we have high hopes for the day. I guess if that’s going to happen, we should get some sleep though. :)

I am glad to report that she has taken up quite well with Farfar and especially with Farmor. They go outside and look at flowers and play with kitty cats, and there is always ice cream and Swedish strawberries at this house, so they are doing well together. I bet this is the first time that Farfar and Farmor will need to have ”strawberries” written in their budgets, because we have been to the store just about every day, or every other day at least, to buy strawberries.

Whitley is also having a good time. She has become addicted to Swedish coffee, or what my in-laws might refer to more aptly as ”sugar”. ;) Yeah, it’s a bit sweeter than common.. hehe. Unfortunately, we all have a cold or something, so she’s not feeling that great, which puts a damper on things.

We have strangely not spent time with anyone other than M’s family. Usually we’re running from place to place, but this time has been much more relaxed and visiting-focused. I think that having a kid has been the reason for that. I kind of wish we’d brought her stroller..though if we had, I don’t think we’d have made our plane, so I guess it’s just as well. At home, she insists on walking everywhere we go, but she’s made us carry her most of the time we’ve been here. I guess she’s just not caught up on her rest, and of course, we are expecting quite a lot of her.

So far, we’ve been shopping several times and we’ve been to Sigtuna (one of my favorite places to be a tourist), where we rode out on a Viking boat, and to the cathedral in Uppsala, and we’ve walked around in Stockholm a bit, We’ve also been trying to get some official Swedish business done while we’re here. So far we’ve applied for and received M’s Swedish passport, which was really fast. We have some Evie stuff going but I won’t go into details about it until we see how it turns out.

I bought Evie a bunch of books and some clothes at a flea market that we went to today, and some more books at a store. I figure that I can justify spending a little more since I can’t exactly buy them at home. I want to find some cute Swedish-looking clothing, but I am having terrible sticker shock on the prices. ? Whitley has bought a bunch of jewelry and a Dalahäst (purchased for 80 kronor at the flea market and not 28727 kronor at the store.

E has crawled up in a rocking chair and covered herself up with a blanket so perhaps she is a little ready for bedtime. I guess I should go check on that situation and stop rambling.

Now that I have my rant about Continental out of the way, I thought I should move on to the fun parts. :) We have been having a great time so far, although we haven’t been all that busy. Yesterday, we were all so tired by the time we arrived at seven in the morning that we weren’t worth much. Whitley and I napped for a couple of hours and then we had lunch. Afterwards, we walked down to a little playground and let Evie run around. She thought that was lovely. M’s sister; Kina, found some blueberries growing and fed some to Evie, who loved them, so we ended up with Evie sitting on her behind in the middle of a blueberry patch, picking and eating as many as she could find. They were quite small and apparently it’s too early for them to be ripe, but they were. It was, as the Swedes were saying, pretty much what a visit to Sweden should be about.

There was nothing much else going on that evening. Evelyn fell asleep at 6:30 in Farmor´s lap (M’s mom), which we all thought was pretty sweet. Whitley fell asleep not long later. We had a light dinner and then headed to bed. Evie woke up at 11:30 (5:30 p.m. EST) and took about an hour to fall asleep enough to put her back in bed. By then, M and I were both wide awake, our bodies thinking it was 6:00 in the evening. We were up for a while and then finally were able to sleep. E woke up at 6:30 Swedish time, wanting water. I gave her a cup and she lay in her bed, drinking for a minute, while M and I were still laying there, just waiting for her to make us get up.. I mean, she’d been asleep twelve hours by then, so we knew she wouldn’t fall asleep again. But… after a minute, she said, ‘Does this bed have any blankets on it?’, so I went to cover her up and she fell asleep again. We all fell back asleep and didn’t rouse again until M’s mom woke us up at NOON. So… Evelyn and Whitley both slept about eighteen hours. M and I slept less than that, but still a considerable amount. :) So.. we were feeling a lot better today.

Anyway, M informed Whitley that we were driving four hours to a really tall mountain to hike, since we were just so energetic, but of course what he meant was that we were driving five minutes to go shopping in a mall for a couple of hours, because he continually lies to her about anything he can think of. It’s just one of their crazy things. Luckily, she knows he is making things up most of the time so she doesn’t ever believe a word he says. So we did a bit of shopping, but didn’t really buy anything because of the sticker shock of all the prices.

So, back the house and dinner, which we all enjoyed.. even Evie! Ham and pasta. We’ve just been hanging out at home since. M is attempting to put Evie to sleep, which is not going very well, from the sounds of it, and Whitley is upstairs in her room, writing in her travel journal, I think. As Evelyn did, in fact, sleep until noon, I am not sure how the sleeping project is going to turn out, but it IS nearly eleven p.m. so it should be okay.

In other news, her eyes are fine. The pink eye seems to be gone completely, though the pediatrician’s nurse said to give the meds for a couple more days just in case (I called today–somehow I believe I was their only call from Sweden! haha) She is also not contagious after the first 24 hours, which I assumed but wanted to check on. She hates them with a red hot passion, so I was hoping they’d be optional at this point, but alas..not yet.

Tonight, we are vowing to go to bed at a decent time, even though we are not sleepy, and get up at eight or so and get going on the day. Jet lag sucks. :)

Yeah. Welcome to our world yesterday.

Let’s put everything into perspective, though, and start on Saturday. We met my parents and niece for lunch, and then we brought my niece with us to the hotel near the airport, where we were spending the night. Both the girls fell asleep in the car on the way there. When they woke up at the hotel, Evie’s eyes were gunked up. YAY PINK EYE. We’re two hours from her doctor with an international flight going out the next day. I asked at the desk and found an Urgent Care center nearby, so we took off to the doctor. It was easily confirmed as pink eye—this is our first parenting experience with pink eye. It is not fun. So we pick up her medicine and drive around in circles for an hour looking for somewhere to eat. I finally gave up and picked the closest McDonald’s on the GPS. We drove for ten minutes and guess where it led us? To the ValuPark lot at the airport. Yes, the GPS was sending us INTO THE AIRPORT FOR DINNER. No thank you. That was really just a sidenote though because we finally ate and made it back to the hotel and the freezing ”heated” pool, where fun was had by all. When we get back, I am going to look into swimming lessons for Evie. She loved it.

After a restless night’s sleep, we get up and get our stuff ready to go. (This includes twenty minutes of trying to get Evie’s matted and puffy swollen eyes open and then medicated. Is this a good time to apologize to the flying peoples of the world for bringing pink eye onto a plane” Yeah, sorry about that.) We get to the airport, check in with minimal problems—although we did have go to through the security line twice because when we got up there, we found an issue with our boarding passes. Evie is grumpy, and none of us can blame her because HELLO, PINK EYE. We go through security, where I beep like mad. I was carrying all four passports and presumably they have a metal strip in them… according to the security people but I beeped several times later on so I have no idea.

After security, we have a couple of hours to kill and then I remember lunch. There’s only one place past security to eat in our general vicinity, so Whitley and I stood in line for 35 minutes. (Incidentally: after those 35 minutes, I waited an additional five minutes and then paid 22 bucks for two paninis, two bags of chips, two drinks, a one dollar orange that Evie wouldn’t touch after all and a bottle of milk. Whitley got a bottle of juice and a club sandwich for twelve, so I guess I can’t complain in comparison. The food sucked, too.) When we got back to the place, it was time to board.. or it would have been time to board if our flight wasn’t delayed. We had a few tense moments with thinking we were only going to have forty minutes to make it to our next flight, but eventually, a really nice gate agent really helped us. We decided to go to Newark and he put us in as backup on a flight that went out the next day. He even drew the route on a map of the Newark airport and told us how to get to the C terminal from A. We left before originally scheduled, so we had an hour and twenty minutes before the flight departed. We were GOLDEN.

HAHAHA. That is when this story takes a turn for the AWFUL. We get there and we are still rushing like mad because it’s a big place and we want to get to where we need to go as soon as possible, just in case. We ride the shuttle, we walk aaalllll the way through the C terminal to the gate, where we….. are told that we need to be in Terminal B. We’re not on that flight. We have 45 minutes at this point. M is pissed because he knew we wouldn’t have time to make it because of a Continental employee’s directions. The woman directs us to the Continental Customer Service, where we had to wait in line again. There, the woman ridiculed us for waiting at line (at yet another Continental employee’s direction) and basically just told us to run, knowing full well we wouldn’t make it. Yet, we had to try, so we ran. I mean, RAN. Two adults, one teen and one carried three-year-old, running like mad through a crowded airport. We get to the shuttle and we ride to the next terminal and can’t find the gate on the signs, so my brilliant husband heads to the SAS check-in counter. We were second-guessing that decision at the time, thinking that we might be killing precious minutes, but it was the only thing that saved us. They started messing with boarding passes and passports and affixed a beautiful green dot on our boarding passes that let us go through priority security lines, called the gate to let them know, and told us basically to run. I sent M on ahead at first, but we got back together at security, where we got to skip the mile-long lines. Then there was more running, still with the carry-ons and the Evie being carried. (We all took a turn, with M doing most of the worst of it, Whitley taking over in the middle and me finishing up. She weighs 40 pounds, by the way, and we stupidly decided against the mei tai, even though I was going to bring it for just this very sort of thing.)

And… we made it. After Security, M ran on the last few minutes to the gate—yes, the farthest one in the terminal–by himself, while we were struggling with the girl and the stuff, so that he could alert them that we were there.

WE MADE IT.

We burst onto the plane with everyone staring. We were red-faced, hot, sweaty, exhausted and really just operating in a state of shock, but we made it. Our reserved seats were apparently reassigned, but since there were two together for Evie and someone, and then someone behind that seat, we didn’t say a word about it. I got to sit in a window seat on the other side of the plane in the aisle behind them by myself, so M got to do baby duty for the entire flight. She was pretty good, he said, and she managed to sleep three and a half hours. The rest of us… not so much. But we made it, and that is all that matters.

I’m finishing this up at two in the morning (eight EST) because we woke up in the middle of the night with Evie, who woke up confused, and neither of us could go back to sleep because our bodies were thinking it was time to be awake. I think it’s time to go give it another try, though, because I have a feeling we’ll be up with her again pretty early.

We’re here… by the skin of our teeth. :)

So, this post goes out to anyone that this policy change affects.  Don’t buy stuff you can’t afford.

hehehe.

We live about an hour and forty minutes away from the airport we are flying out of (Cincinnati) for our trip to Sweden next month.  There’s a closer airport (45 minutes) but it usually costs a lot more to fly from there, so we prefer to pay less and drive the extra hour.  It’s about twelve hours of travel time, including a stop in Newark to change plans, so adding another two hours on to the morning sounds… well, terrible.  For ourselves, we wouldn’t care as much… we’ve done it before and certainly wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the six hours we spent stranded in Oslo last time we went, thanks to our plane arriving late.  But, we’re already dreading this trip because we’ll have a three-year-old with us, who will probably have a hard enough time with the traveling without tacking on an extra couple of hours.

Anyway, we were talking about it and how nice it’d be to just go up the day before and spend the night in a hotel.  Much to my surprise, we both ended up agreeing that it would be a smart move, even with the additional cost.  Two hours less driving, less stress in that we won’t have to worry about being late, two hours less traveling in one day, an evening of fun vacation time the night before with an indoor pool (one of our travel requirements) and sleeping a little later.  Sign us up!

But it gets EVEN BETTER!

A little research yesterday led me to book a hotel a mile from the airport.  They offer complimentary shuttle service to the airport that runs every half hour, 5:00 am to midnight… and parking for up to two weeks is free.  So, the new plan is to drive up on the Saturday of our vacation, have a little local fun, play in the pool and then get up on Sunday morning, eat our free breakfast, and then head over to the airport on their shuttle.  When we come home, we’ll ride back to the hotel (again with the free shuttle) and pick up our car and go home.

I bet if you’re a frequent traveler, you can guess why this is so awesome.  Here’s the breakdown.

Hotel room: $79.99, plus Insane Hotel Taxes and one extra day of parking ($5) for the fifteenth day (our return) will run us about $95.

Parking at the airport in the long-term economy lot: $7/day, or $98.

It is cheaper to stay in a hotel.

We may never park at an airport again. :)  Of course, if you have a short trip planned or you live next door to the airport, it might not be worth the hassle.  There were cheaper hotel options available than the one we chose, though, so technically, you could even do this and leave your vehicle at the hotel and not even spend the night, if it’s cheaper than parking at the airport.

I will also add that I found this idea through parksleepfly.com, but I did not book through them because they charge $4.99 per transaction and you have to pay a deposit on the room.  I found the hotel I wanted and called them directly, double-checked the parking/shuttle situation and booked it through them because the rate was lower than ordering online for whatever reason. (Which is another tip… always call. You never know.)

I am SO happy about this.  Now I’m just hoping that Evelyn sleeps well there. She’s never actually stayed in a hotel. I might not be so excited if she stays up all night and we are all running on fumes before we even get to the airport… :)

Anyway, that means I had $180 profit just on those, plus a handful of assorted other MMs. So…. last night, my husband took me out for a birthday dinner (not frugal in the least but delicious) and allowed himself to be talked into swinging by Walgreens afterward.  The draw?  I promised to let him help me pick out what to spend that $180 of free money on. :)  I didn’t even have a couponing shopping list ready. (I am perhaps a little burned out on shopping after last week!)

It’s actually kind of hard to spend that kind of money. I mean, you could buy anything, but what would be the most useful way to spend it?  We bought six cases of Sprite Zero for M, a pair of sunglasses, a Barbie car and a Mickey Mouse game for E, some allergy meds, some hair accessories.. just a wide assortment of random stuff.  It was just over $100 of stuff and I walked out of there paying about $6 out of pocket. (Sales tax.) It was fun!  Except at the very end, when it was incredibly embarrassing. I checked out with a beauty advisor that is used to the way I shop.  I pointed out one of the ad coupons, she scanned it, and then waited patiently for the next coupon and I didn’t have any.  haha.

If I can get myself motivated, I am planning on using some of the rest of the RRs on photo printing. I need to update our albums, plus a few other little albums that I need to get done. I might also pick up some bottled water and charcoal.  What would YOU buy with an excessive amount of absolutely free* coupon overage?  And, would it bother you to pay twice what something is worth in that situation, or would you figure that it was free anyway so it didn’t matter?  There were a few things I refused to pay drugstore prices for, hehe. When it’s five dollars or even twenty,  I would just keep rolling it without thinking about it as real profit, but I knew I didn’t stand a chance of doing that with so many of them (especially since I received a bunch of other RRs from the regular freebies.)

*Free, except for coupon costs, which were accounted for MONTHS ago. Maybe fifty cents each?

In other news, my first yard sale of the season–which has been sadly delayed for two weeks in a row so let’s hope that third time is a charm–is Saturday.  Can’t wait to see how we do!

“Evie, can you bring me four different kinds of flowers?”

And.. the hunt was on.  She finally found four different flowers so I asked for one blade of grass.  (She brought me a handful…)  I asked for a twig, a vine, a leaf, a dried leaf, something green.. whatever I could think of.  It kept her busy for a long time, and when I finally ran out of things for her to look for… I started telling her to do things instead.  Run around the tulip* tree three times! Go touch the fence!  Run over to the white door! Run around the tulip tree! Stand right there and jump to touch a dogwood branch! Spin around four times! Run around the tulip tree!  (That one was her favorite and she requested it a few times. “Say, ‘run around the tree!’” she would instruct me.)

*It has tulips planted around it. It is not a variety of tree that produces tulips, no, although that would be awesome. Tulips are my favorite flower.

Anyway, that is my parenting hint of the day.  She loved it, and it was great fun for me, too. As a bonus, she was so worn out when I took her in that she wanted to go straight to bed instead of taking a bath. (She is a bit of an insomniac so her desire to go to sleep is always celebrated.)

Incidentally, I also do a minor version of this in the grosser public bathrooms.  Can you touch your head? Can you rub your belly? Can you stand on one foot? Can you point at your knee?  Anything to keep her from touching the toilet or running her hands over the trash can.

Try it!

In other news, I ordered that paper I talked about from Staples Monday morning. It arrived Tuesday, as did an email that said my $32 rebate is being processed.  Talk about easy!