and around the world we go!

September is already looking to be a busy month with us venturing off in a circular direction to hit up some cool cities. We will be visiting Stockholm (come on Alexander Skarsgård! and Erin, Svante and brother John) then to Amsterdam, Frankfurt (Hello Jess, Denis & wee Ben) then Paris, London and off on holidays!! We're not sure exactly where we are going but somewhere exotic none the less.

This shall prove to be our most adventurous trip yet while we try to pack accordingly and prepare ourselves for the challenge that lay ahead. Meanwhile, our friends in the Mongol rally seem to be doing well. I have been reading their website today with the great tool Google translate! Seems things are going well for them. Check out their site www.hemanhunters.com

When we get back from our ventures it is time to submit el-passport for renewal. I've already emailed the Canadian Embassy in London to find out what the processing times are. I've been warned in the past that they are up to 12 weeks and there is no option to expedite it which would suck as we'd love to go somewhere "packerish" for Christmas.

Also we have visitors coming! My "sister from another mista" Mel and her bff Heathery are going to be here at the end of August! Woop woop! Be great to have them here for a few days and show them the beauty that is the Burgh!

It is kinda hard to believe though that next week is August already. Where has this summer gone? Time to gear up for the Festival or as I like to call it to my old colleagues "the stresstival" Hey, maybe we'lll bump into some cool people on the street? I already hear Norm from Cheers is going to be here!

Happy Birthday Wee P!

Boo boo bear

The summer I am finding in Edinburgh is difficult for things to do with E-man. Most baby groups are closed for the summer and most of the friends we have made are either away on holidays, working or have other things on. I wish I could find a website that was precisely up to date with accurate info but instead we made our way down to a baby (guess I should start saying toddler) group that claims it was still happening during the summer only to find out that they decided to give the staff the summer off (What about the moms!!) I cherish these groups so E-man can socialize with other kids and burn out this uber-energy he has come to possess!

Really I am just having an off day. Usually we find plenty to do and have loads of friends to hang with. Tomorrow is a new group that we went to last week for the first time. It is held in a long hall with tons of toys. I was noticing that some of the toys are possibly from the 70's which is cool that they are still in use and actually more appropriate that the toys that are now around.

My lovely Husband is making us an awesome dinner after and once E-man is asleep he said that we can watch CM (Criminal Minds) A new show I'm addicted to however we are on the last season that has been aired so little does he know that we only have 5 more episodes to watch before we have to wait till Sept 2010!

Now to plan some more awesomeness!

The real sporting event of the year – The Mongol Rally 2010!

Now that the soccer world cup has finally been put to rest, hopefully, and the ear shattering noise of the Vuvuzelas have finally died down, hopefully, we can focus our full attention on the race of the year, the event that really matters. I am of course referring to ‘The Mongol Rally 2010’!

My best friend in the whole wide world is heading out for the adventure of a lifetime with two of his buddies. They are partaking in an annual charity race called ‘The Mongol Rally’ where they will be driving a tiny car (a 1.2 litre Fiat Punto) from Gothenburg in Sweden down London where the race officially starts and then from London and all the way to Mongolia only to give the car and all their money away! Sound crazy? It is.

The rules are simple:

- The vehicle must be a car with a maximum of a 2.1 litre engine with exception for emergency vehicles (police car or ambulance)
- Each team must donate at least £1000 to a charity in Mongolia and the car must be donated on arrival in Mongolia
- Since the primary goal is not to arrive first in Mongolia, each team can choose their own route.
- GPS is (obviously) not allowed.

The guys have named their team ‘He-Man Hunters’ and hence named their car ‘Battle cat’ (you know, He-Man’s cat?). Battle cat has been prepared and kitted out for the past few months and they are just about to embark from Gothenburg in the next few days and the official start from Goodwood Circuit outside London is on Saturday. There will be a few checkpoints along the way; the first one is in Prague on Monday where a huge ‘Jules Verne’ themed party is organized in a castle. From what I have heard, the team has decided not to shave for the duration of the adventure and how to have nice thick beards, maybe not for the first checkpoint, but at least upon arrival in Mongolia.

I will definitely follow their adventures through Europe and Asia on the road, off the road and searching for the road and of course keep my all fingers crossed for the next few weeks as they are heading off to somewhat unknown territory.

After watching ‘The Long Way Round’ DVD with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman where they drive from London to Mongolia and then around the rest of the globe on motorcycles, there is definitely cause for concern as some of the countries they drove through, and the team will drive through, are very rural to say the least. We are talking no roads, live off the earth, sharing a shed with a donkey and a cow, no amenities or public services…and then there is the mud. Lots of mud!

On their website, the team will be blogging whenever they can find access to the internet and it will also be possible to follow their progress through Google Maps under ‘Route’ on the site.

Check out He-Man Hunters’ website:
http://www.hemanhunters.com/

Check out the Mongol Rally website:
http://mongolrally.theadventurists.com/

Good luck guys, I am sure you will have an absolute blast!

Bear necessities

Rain, sun, rain, sun. That is how our day started as we had a family fun filled day of movies, bus rides, balloons, face painting and circuses!

The filmhouse in Edinburgh was celebrating their 25 year anniversary and hijacked the jumbo-tron at Festival Square and showcased family friendly films. We were ready to watch the "Jungle Book" and sing along.

Ethan had a fabulous time dancing to the music of this timeless classic and afterwards we all decided to get our faces painted. Unfortunately for the other adults, I was the only one that was able to since there was a kid first policy in effect and after I was done and the kids saw how cool I looked, the line actually started to form!

So off to the next destination - Gerry Cottles Circus!

Peter, Ethan, Heather and I jumped aboard the 25 to Leith Links to get to the 2pm showing. We were a tad bit late but were still granted access by the man in the top hat and ushered to our seats. The tent was muggy and filled with bright colours and lights. Ethan was amazed and stood on Daddy's lap and yelled "ooooooh" while clapping and dancing. Heather and I proceeded to devour the cotton candy that is oh so needed while at the circus!

Unfortunately for Peter, no elephants were present. He was super excited to ride one if they were there. Instead there were jugglers, acrobats, clowns, contortionists and gymnasts. For a 2 hour performance it was a perfect medley of funny antics and nail biting, death defying acts. We may make this a regular family event when the circus comes next year!

Can you imagine though being in a Circus? Behind the tents were camper vans galore. It really must be an interesting life to travel from town to town to wow the crowds. I was saying to Peter on the way home that most likely there are a lot of family acts as we saw young boys performing. Not too likely a family would let their young ones leave to "join the circus"...who knows, maybe Ethan will want to one day!

Travel time again!

Booya! We have only just settled in after our holidays but antsy in our pantsy as we are, we have started planning out our travel schedule for the fall. Top of the list right now is a work/fun trip back to Stockholm. My company is hosting Sweden’s largest career fair in September and Shaena and Ethan will tag along, just because they can. If we can, we might just combine that trip with a holiday week somewhere warm as well, just because we can. Suggestions are most welcome!

The other wild and crazy plan we are working on tonight (Shaena is in a nutty research mode, totally in the zone!) is to work out a way for all of us 3 to combine another one of my work trips, destination: 3-4 of our offices around Europe, and so far we have actually discussed, and this is going to sound cheesy, both planes, trains and automobiles. The challenge right now is to try and find a rental car company that offers one-way cars and drop off in another country. That’s where we are stuck at the moment. If all goes well this could turn into a wacko road trip but we might also just go for the safe and easy option: the zoom-zoom.

Will we ever just kick back and relax like normal people? I think not! This week we’ve also been wining and dining with the lovely Orlaith one night and with Fun Time Heather and Andy yesterday (“Hello! Rice Kiiing!”) and this weekend we have a full schedule with an outside movie screening AND 'Gerry Cottle's Circus' is in town! …oh, and Rod Stewart is in town tonight playing the Edinburgh Castle so we’ll try and listen to the concert from our living room window. Phew!

“Take him to the Greek!”

This week and this weekend have been packed with fun stuff and milestones! As we’ve already mentioned, the days of baby formula are gone. Ethan is now a fully fledged milk drinker, ready to down those delicious bottles of cow juice! He really seems to enjoy his milk and Mama Bear and Papa Bear are definitely enjoying both the ease and the money savings. Ethan is also practicing his Lion sounds and can't seem to get enough of roaring!

Speaking of fully fledged; Mr. Ethan is now also a fully fledged Swede as his Swedish passport has arrived! Shaena and Ethan took the train to Glasgow on Friday to pick it up and he looks smashing in his little passport photo. (Well, the passport photo is obviously normal size, but you get the drift).

On Friday evening out faithful Godmother Orlaith reported for babysitting duties once again so that Shaena and I could get some time to ourselves so Shaena took me out for date night to see the new Twilight-movie; ‘Eclipse’. It was a good movie, they all are, but this one was a little bit slower than the first two. Still a good movie, just more girly jibber-jabber and less action.

Oh, and if we haven’t already mentioned this before; we have found a new restaurant in town that could very well be our new oasis in the Edinburgh food desert from now on! Just by chance, when walking home in the torrential rain from the Meadows Festival (remember the hippie-gathering we wrote about a while back?) we walked past this new restaurant called ‘My Big Fat Greek Kitchen’ (MBFGK) and this is also the restaurant that Ethan took us to for his birthday dinner and it is just divine!

After the discovery, Shaena has frequented MBFGK with the mommy crew and told everyone how amazing it is (she is a very good promoter that girl) and yesterday we met up with Jen, Mike and Tara for lunch. Once again; walked out of there filled to the brim with Halloumi, no disappointments, and I must say; the owner and the staff are just the nicest people in the world!

Jen and Mike could not get enough of us so they invited themselves to dinner in the evening as well (ok we invited them, but who’s counting!?) and we whipped up a lasagne, some Caesar salad, garlic bread and banana bread for dessert. After dinner, we played Monopoly Edinburgh Edition and got our bums kicked by Jen who’s a property mogul and extortionist in disguise. Good times were had by all!

Today we’ve had a fairly lazy day with lots of Skype calls (Grandpa Stefan got a new webcam for his birthday so it had to be tested) and I have tried to figure out a few things with our new Internet empire as emails with requests are starting to drizzle in.

(Lots of brackets in this entry, by the way!) (Brackety brack, don't talk back!)

"Ethan, what does a lion say?"

Today is a day to celebrate!

Well that's it! No more formula! We have reached another milestone in the world of being a parent. I am really excited for this as it means that the diaper bag is becoming lighter and lighter! Now Ethan and I can drink and eat whatever we want and not have to worry about finding the right stuff on a day out. We can also save some money too...formula is fricken' expensive!
YIPPEE!!!

Guest blogger: A message from Grandpa Stefan!

Hi there!

Peter’s Dad Stefan here. I have the honour to write a guest blog entry today.
Peter, Shaena and Ethan visited us here in Haparanda, in the northern parts of Sweden and it has been great to meet them! It was seven years since Peter was here last, and now he has a family.

I picked them up in Luleå with my old Volvo and took a little longer route home; I wanted to show Shaena the beautiful landscape here. The Midnight sun was new for Shaena, and Peter had been away so long so he wasn’t used to it either. The summer nights here are so nice, I have been driving home 03.30am and enjoying every minute; sunny, no cars, pleasant temperature, far from the long dark cold winter. Peter and I took a little tour around the new Haparanda and Tornio, it has changed so much since IKEA came here, and they are building these two towns together. Peter took some very beautiful midnight sun photos.

The next day we visited my work at the library and I must say; I was so proud to show my little Grandson Ethan to all my colleagues. We also visited the rapids in Kukkola; I use to do that whenever my children come home with a girl or boyfriend or in this case with a family. Ice cream in Kukkola is a little tradition I have. We were lucky; they were building the bridges for the fishing, a very old cultural tradition. If you look at the pictures of the bridges and the viking ship model riverboats it is hard to believe that the picture is from 2010!

We had planned to go to the Arctic Circle, so we drove to Rovaniemi, Finland and ate pizza and hamburgers at Lordi’s Rocktaurant. It was strange to eat being watched by Freddy Krueger. Thinking of Ethan, it should have been Winnie the Pooh instead.

After lunch, we met Santa and they also had the 'Earth axle' rotating in there, which was new to me. We also went fishing in a pond and Shaena caught her first fish ever. I took a little longer route home; I wanted to show the Swedish Torne Valley.

The last day was a visit to my Mother in Båtskärsnäs. It was the first time she met Shaena and of course Ethan. She had cooked a soup of something I haven’t eaten in a very long time; stinging nettles. It tastes like spinach, but better. We went to the beach and camping in Frevisören, four kilometres from Båtskärsnäs, a place where I have spent a lot of time in my youth.

We then went back to Great grandmother; she treated us to a very delicious pastry and we also took a four generations photo. Then it was time to say goodbye, the next stop was Piteå, and I went home and had another delicious pastry in Finland at a 50th birthday party. It has been very nice days for my wife and me and naturally for my mother.

Ethan's birthday party: The trail of devastation

Ethan's birthday party: Party Central - In the eye of the storm

Ethan’s 1st birthday party was an absolute blast! Never knew a kid’s party could be so much fun and so draining at the same time! Imagine 7 toddlers all banging and gabbing at the same time and their parents are trying to have actual conversations whilst look after their elusive kids. And then there is chocolate, grapes and crackers. Everywhere.

All in all, 25 of our friends showed up to congratulate the little man and Ethan got absolutely showered in cool gifts and nice cards! From what we hear it is a tradition over here to give a baby very loud and annoying gifts on his or her first birthday, so he got: A drum with drumsticks, maracas, a 6-in-1 jungle bongo band kit, and a book with animal noises. He also got some really neat wooden toys, more books, and clothes from Polarn & Pyret (only namedropping because it is Swedish!)

To cater to our more mature, or at least older, guests we had brought in sandwich platters from our friend Gary’s sandwich shop, Shaena had baked these amazing cakes below, there were chips, dips, drinks…the lot! There was even a ‘Godmother’s Cake’; a gluten free variant of Ethan’s cake.

We hope everyone had a really good time and we would also like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone for coming and for your great gifts! Ethan has had so much fun playing with his new stuff today and mommy and daddy have had fun listening!

Oh, and 'Auntie Nini's Birthday-Party-In-A-Box' definitely is the best thing since sliced bread and we can hardly wait until next year for 'Auntie Nini's Theme-Birthday-Party-In-A-Box'!

Daddy showing off Ethan's new book

Piers & Lesley

Pheobe (Ethan's partner in crime!)

Olivia

Matilda

Isabel

Esmé

Melek

Ethan is parched from all the partying!

The aftermath

Ethan's birthday party: Prepping for Babymageddon

Kitted out Betty Crocker chocolate icing star cake with Ethan-candles? - Check!

Silly family self-photo complete with party gear? - Check!

Good party mood and successful testing of baby-snacks? - Check!

Multi-colored wall decoratations? - Check!

Ethan-balloons? - Check!

Bibs, noise makers and tiaras? - Check!

Nibbles and streamers? - Check!

Party Central clearly marked? - Check!

Balloons on door to indicate where the party is at? - Check!

We are good to go! Bring it on!