A family that moved from Sweden to Florida with their twin daughters and son a few years ago are back in Sweden. We got close to them as neighbors when we were in Florida and they were an inspiring family as they moved their children without knowing English and sent them to school in Florida. It wasn't overnight, but within a couple of months they learned the language, so their experience gave me courage that it can work in reverse for our family.
The other day Magdelena extended an invitation for our family to come spend the day and night with their family in their town about 1.5 hrs away. It happened that she invited us to come on August 3rd, my birthday, and that was the best present that I could have asked for here, to spend the day with familiar faces from Tioga that we all could hang out with. We got there around noon and had quite a full day. They live in a town closer to Stockholm, on a lake. The picture below is the view of their amazing house from the lake...
If you look at this picture, there is a house on the left and a garage on the right that is their neighbors, but the red cabin behind the garage, is theirs and they use it as a guest house and since this town is a popular tourist town, they sometime even rent out this one room adorable cabin for guests. Currently this cabin doesn't have running water, but Mats, the husband, is installing it himself for a sink in the cabin. For using the shower and bathroom, they have access to the larger house's basement bathroom so they do have to leave the cabin in the middle of the night if they need to go to the bathroom, but in many older cabins used as vacationing on the water in Sweden and Norway, I understand this is common. (Thomas's parents used to have a house by the ocean with an outhouse and an outdoor shower).
This is the one room cabin we stayed in...
One view of the inside...
The other view of the inside, there is electricity and a refrigerator and a few cooking appliances and a barbeque for use.
This is the view from the porch of the cabin, amazing!!!
We we got there, Alex and Ben played on the trampoline with Adrian. Our boys of course haven't stopped asking for one since:)
Then Magdelena showed the kids all the fruit they had growing and were letting them pick and eat everything the wanted. There were cherries, raspberries, something that seemed similar to grapes, and tons of apples that weren't quite ready but the cherries were the best!
It was such a hot day so it was perfect for cooling off in the lake off their dock.
Ben and Adrian posing before they got in...
Amanda and Martina...
Then after the first swim, it was time for hamburgers and hotdogs for lunch!
After lunch Adrian couldn't wait to show the boys the skate park! He has a new scooter (they use a brand called MPG I think here instead of razor scooters and they are much more stable for this type of use).
Martina using the unicycle Magdelena got for the girls. They took 10 days to learn, but they are great at it!
The adults went on a powerwalk after our lunch and into town. By the pier you could see this houseboat that someone parks there every summer and has a boat to go back and forth to the mainland...
On our powerwalk...
We came across a wedding, and Magdelena suggested doing lunges down the red carpet, notice I didn't quite go all the way to the carpet...
But she did:)...People might have been staring, a little...but it was fun to us!
Then we decided to get a full work-out in and did tricep dips in the town center...
And ran back home. It was a great work out!
After we took a dip in the water to cool off and then it was time to relax in the sun with a glass of wine:)
In the evening we had steak and chicken on the BBQ and it was delicious!
Our whole family had an amazing time! It was so nice to be with such good friends, it was the best birthday present I could have had!
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