Driving Standard, Little Fire, Ice Cream Clown

Well, I think I told most people that the car we will be getting is standard which is custom here. Luckily I learned to drive a standard when I was 16, but it is still a little different then when I had a standard, so not sure if its the country or if its technology, but for instance the reverse is where 1st gear is but you push down really hard to get it in reverse. Then there are 6 gears which I really don't ever seem to need more then 3 or 4...

I went to leave the house today and two women had shown up to clip hedges (lawn care is included), one was right in front of the car so I was really focused on not rolling forward to disturb her, when I tried to reverse and turns out I didn't push down hard enough bc I was in first...luckily I moved slow enough and she was wearing headphones so she didnt notice:). Also, it is interesting that everything was being done by hand, not motorized hedgers or anything. Not sure why, but on a walk today, we saw this thing that looked just like those robot vacuums but it was roaming outside this one house...I assume it is an automatic lawn mower. 

Fire...So yesterday I attempted to warm up these delicious half baked baguettes that I have had before, well I thought I understood the oven, but when I put the bread in, it totally burnt the top. So today as I attempted to make frozen pizza for lunch, I actually read the English manual to the oven and tried to finish preheating the oven before I put the pizza in (I didn't wait yesterday so that is why I thought I burnt it). Well in Norway and Sweden, dozens of times I have seen people use this parchment paper type thing that they call baking paper. I know I bought the right stuff bc it even shows pizza on the cover. Anyway, once the oven was preheated completely, I placed the pizza on the paper into the oven, it's a tiny oven and although the rack was centered, there was a tiny bit if the paper that had curled up and when I went to straighten it, I noticed it was on fire!!!! Literally 2 seconds in the oven!!! I ripped it out and tried blowing the fire out but it was too big so now I am trying to pull it to the sink and charred pieces fall off, I'm yelling "Fire, Fire!", I don't want it to get on the floor bc I don't want to make marks there, I get it to the sink, I blow it out and wet the part on fire, then I turn around to check the floor and Ben sees that the piece in the sink is back on fire! Thanks to him, we get it all put out...where was Alex? For those of you who know him you won't be surprised to hear that he was in his room reading and didnt move even though he heard us yelling...he figured it was fine and was into his book...(at least this time he wasn't right in front of the fire playing video games like a previous time)...

The pizza cooked fine in the end on the rack with no paper:)

Ice Cream...the Swedish love their ice cream in the summer and everywhere you go you can find this creepy clown that means they sell ice cream inside. 

So we went walking to this beach on our lake today about 2 miles away that has an outdoor restaurant and of course ice cream!

The boys have been finding delicious wild raspberries on our walks...

And we saw a funny basketball hoop. It has a small back board and it looks like they invented a way to raise the hoop by the base...

Also, it looks like another sign there is a child living there is there are tons of yards with trampolines!

That's all for now, Thomas is traveling in Amsterdam for three days and we did get our luggage a couple of days ago, our stuff should arrive in Sweden tomorrow but I have no idea when it will clear customs or be delivered...I will keep posted:)