Tuesday, January 31
Monday, January 30
Saturday, January 28
1 year in Sweden!
Guess what! Yesterday marked our 1-year anniversary in Sweden! Hard to believe it’s already been a year since the moving truck rolled up to our brand new home here in Sweden! It’s been a busy year filled with lots of ‘news’ and looking back; we couldn’t be any happier with our decision to close up shop in the UK and move over here.
We decided to celebrate by having our good friends and neighbours Helen & Miguel and the kids over for a pizza party. Homemade pizzas were had and the kids got sugared up well and good!
Oh and here's a poster that I found which shows everything 'typical Swedish' for your reference, just in case you need to refresh your memory. ;)
Thursday, January 26
Presentable and rentable
Only a few trembling days left of my 2 month paternity leave now unfortunately. The days and weeks have just flown past but we are definitely satisfied with how we’ve spent this time and we are most definitely keen on more! So, an idea of a longer multi-stop trip over to North America has been born and we have dusted off the old imaginary drawing board to see when it would be best to go, where we want to go, what we can afford, what our best travel options are etc. Stuff like that.
As the idea is to be away for maybe 2 months; we are also looking into the possibility of renting out our flat for at least part of that time and Shaena (you may have heard her gospel or seen shared links fly by already) has fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with this website called Airbnb.com. Basically it’s an accommodations rental website, only much cooler.
Airbnb recently sent out an offer to their members for a photo service where one of their photographers would come out and take photos of your home for free. Shaena of course jumped right on that and signed us up and today we actually had a professional photographer coming home to us to snap what we hope will be some cool, selling photos.
To prepare for the photographer's arrival we’ve been tidying and cleaning and been trying to keep our home clutter free at least until after the photo session (not the easiest with a 2,5 year old tornado and his mini-me in the house though). Shaena went around the flat snapping some preliminary photos earlier today before the guy got here and we think we are in good shape! We should have access to the photos in a couple of days so we’ll of course share some of them here as well.
The photographer’s name is Rob Schoenbaum and he is a native New Yorker who’s been living in Sweden for the past 8 years. We obviously checked him out beforehand and he looks like a pretty talented guy! Check out some of his work here: www.robschoenbaum.com
Anyway, this photo session and the flat rental may be a smaller piece of the puzzle for this next big adventure but we are sure excited about the prospect of a big trip!
So, North Americans… who would like a visit!? Drop us a comment and maybe we’ll pin you on our map! ;)
Wednesday, January 25
Saturday, January 21
Boys weekend at home
When the cat's away...
Whilst Shaena is off to Edinburgh for a rendevous with her girls, me and the boys have literally set up camp in the livingroom. A tent to me more precise.
As soon as the tent was set up; Ethan kindly contributed to the interior by bringing my laptop in there and proceeded to request one Youtube clip after the other! In no particular order: planes, trucks, roary, monster trucks, the happy birthday song, cars, garbage trucks and tractors. He then refused to let us out. King of the castle!
Funny enough; Ethan is usually quite stubborn when it comes to bedtime but in the tent, he somehow just falls asleep straight away! It might just become a permanent fixture in the livingroom...
Friday, January 20
Weekend away!
This is how I wish we could pack all the time! Sure does make traveling easier and a lot lighter! You think people overpack for most flights?...I do!
Thursday, January 19
Wednesday, January 18
'An Ethan by any other name...'
Ok, how weird is this! Right below the listing with the Hudson-article, there is an article about the name Ethan; basically saying that Ethan is one of the most popular names in Canada and North America right now. Who knows; if we keep looking we might just stumble upon an article saying that Harrison-Helin is the most awesome double barreled last name right now?!
'An Ethan by any other name...'
Tuesday, January 17
'Who names their kid Hudson?'
When we first announced Hudson’s name to friends and family, a few eyebrows were slightly elevated and comments like ”Hudson? To me that’s a car or a river!” were dropped. In all fairness though; Hudson is not the most common name for a baby boy, especially not here in Sweden. Funny enough; there was an article published in the Winnipeg Free Press recently (thanks Great Grandma for spotting it) where other parents have had similar reactions to the name Hudson:
'Who names their kid Hudson?'
Needless to say we agree with the lady at church who thought the name was "strong and sturdy but warm and inviting."! ;)
Thursday, January 12
Saturday, January 7
Friday, January 6
Photos are coming in thick and fast!
We promised to post photos from our trip once we were back home and had better access to good internet, so here we go! Photos from the trip will be added below so go ahead and scroll down and check out some of the previous blog posts that have been updated with photos. Enjoy!
Wednesday, January 4
Come fly with me
New Years celebrations have come and gone and the time has come for the Harrison-Helins to head back home but before we do, I thought I'd share one more thing with you.
Yesterday we got the opportunity to go visit the airforce base up here to have a look at the jet fighters and also to try their state of the art flight simulator; which in my geeky opinion is probably one of the coolest things since Michael J Fox's garbage-fuelled DeLorean!
Imagine that an imax cinema and a jet fighter simulator would make a baby and you get to be the cinematographer-top gun-pilot. That's pretty much what it was like sitting in that cockpit; surrounded by a detailed aerial photo of Sweden that you are flying over whilst controlling 'one of the world's most advanced weapons systems'. Can you tell I am excited about these things? ;) Both Shaena and I got to take it for a spin and we both managed to take off, fly and land safely again; thank G*d!
Anyway; after our flying sessions we each got a diploma and got to go out to the actual airplanes in one of the hangars with our guide Micke. I pretty much grew up on the base and have been running around the hangars countless times but I still get excited about these machines and the whole vibe of this environment.
Ethan on the other hand instantly spotted the trucks that pull the planes out of the hangar and was mostly interested in sitting in the driver's seat, pushing buttons and honking the horn! Micke let Ethan loose on one of the trucks and at one point everything from the headlights to the wipers to the blinkers and the rotating light on the roof were going at the same time!
Tomorrow morning we have a 6.35am flight to catch from the same runway we took off from in the simulator, so it'll be a 4am start to the day for all of us. Wish us luck!
* = (trying to keep our J*sus-rating on the Next-button under control!) ;)
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