Springy Edinburgh

Norway day in Edinburgh. A Norwegian girl was hiding behind the rock, doing her make-up before her singing performance.

Edinburgh castle

Edinburgh castle

Another self-photo

Bump update

It is definitely getting closer now. Here are a few baby bump pictures from this weekend. The first two are taken today when we took a walk in the Princes street garden and the bottom two are from yesterday when we packed our hospital bag.

Enjoy!

When David Bowie met Grandma

Look what we've pulled out of the archives! When Shaena's grandma was working for Pepsi, David Bowie had the pleasure of meeting her. Pepsi were sponsoring his tour at the time. Yep, that is right, Ziggy Stardust and grandma Mary! Afterwards, grandma said: "He smelt so goooood!" :)

Mors Dag in Sweden is coming up. Gift idea?

Going, going, gone! Sold to the only guy that came to the viewing!

The apartment in Sweden is sold! The viewing last night didn’t really attract a stampede of people but one guy showed up and must have liked what he saw. He made an offer on the spot, the real estate agent haggled with the guy as he should, the guy raised his bid, and the deal was done. The initial contract got signed this afternoon and the new owner will take possession on the 15th of June.

I must say, I feel really relieved to get this out of the way and to have the deal done and dusted. I am done with tenants and it feels great to close the books on that part of my life as well. We wouldn’t ever move back to the flat anyway as it is a studio flat and would probably not move back to that particular suburb either, and if we wouldn’t have sold the flat I would have had to go out on the prowl for a new tenant, and that is always a drag. Plus, it is a constant responsibility as well.

We didn’t make the profit we would have hoped for, but at least we walked away with a few extra pennies in our pocket, which is not bad at all. I promised my dad a little something-something if we sold the flat with a profit, so I am happy I will be able to do that for him. It's not much, only a little token of our appreciation to him for making the effort to come out here this summer. Overall, to sum it up, it was a good investment and it served me well for the short time I lived there.

What else is new? Well, more prizes are drizzling in! I won a very nice home stereo system at work today. It was a Grundig iPod docking-station, CD-player, MP3-player and radio in one. I won it in this week’s competition for top scoring training calls with our clients. Nice!

Oh, and another thing; My brother John has booked his flights for 'Edinburgh Take 2' in the end of this month. He is making another attempt to come see us, and hopefully he will not be held up in traffic this time around. I am not going to request another finger-crossing-session, as it is all you guys have been doing lately. This time, I think we'll just go with Karma. :)

All of this combined, it has been a very good week, so we went out for a quick celebration drink with Ron tonight. Burgers and drinks at the pub, simple but very nice and relaxed. The plan for the last couple of days has been to make it to the movies to go see ‘Angels & Demons’ but it has been a busy week (as always) and we have just been too tired to go, but we’ll probably go to one of the afternoon-screenings this weekend. Sounds like it could be a good movie, so I am excited to go see it. Always up for a good conspiracy flick!

Another viewing, cross your fingers!

The second viewing for the flat in Sweden is scheduled for tomorrow evening, so make sure to cross your fingers real tight because at this point it seems like we need all the luck we can get selling it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great flat, nothing wrong with it at all but it seems like there are so many other flats in the same price range on the market in my area right now. I am sure I am worrying for nothing; after all, it is only just little over a week since the last (and first) viewing.

My brother John has been a great help over the years acting as my wingman back in Sweden and helped with organizing key-drops, met with tenants etc. Yesterday he also helped with getting rid of those nasty looking single beds you see in the photos in the advert, and hopefully that’ll give potential buyers a better idea of what kind of space they are actually buying. Thank you John, we appreciate it!

Crappy days and good days

Yesterday was a long and crappy day at work, today was a lot better and things felt like they were were back to normal again. I think I let other peoples lack of commitment and drive get to me personally yesterday, and that is obviously not the best in a business environment. But isn't it just very annoying when you are trying to get stuff done and you are trying to infuse a bit of passion and dedication into the workplace and it just feels like you are stepping through mud?

Anyway, today was a good day. Actually, almost every single day at work is a good day for me and I love what I do and what I am a part of. The CareerBuilder spirit and way of doing business is very right for me personally and I am very lucky I get to do all the things I do, so I really should not complain, but everyone is allowed the occasional moan once in a while, right? Usually when I need to moan, I type up a very long email to my boss, however this time I didn't, so yesterday couldn't have been that bad after all.

People in general, and Shaena in particular, are asking me what I actually do at work and I sometimes feel like Chandler Bing from 'Friends' who goes to work every day, but when asked what he does, he can never really give anyone a straight answer. I really should try to define what it is that I actually do, but I am involved in such a wide array of things on a daily basis, the list would probably be quite long and possibly very confusing to someone who is not a part of the wonderful world of the 'online recruitment advertising industry'. Needless to say, I do realize what a fancy pants line that was!

I think the ultimate question if you want to know if you are happy in your workplace or not is: 'If you won 10,000,000 whatever-your-currency-is, would you quit your job?' - If the question is a no-brainer-definitely-in-a-heartbeat yes, you are working in the wrong place, but if it is at least a hesitant no, I think you can consider yourself satisfied with your job and can afford to have a crappy day or two once in a while.

Late night words of wisdom from me to you, Dr. Phil-style! Free of charge. This time. :)

Everyone is booked!

So it's official. All our peeps are booked with flights to come visit us, baby H and Edinburgh! All in all we have, in order of appearance:

My Mom (17/6/09-17/8/09)
My Grandpa (17/6/09-1/7/09)
My Grandma (4/7/09-18/7/09)
My Aunty Nini (4/7/09-18/7/09)
Cousin Jules (4/7/09-18/7/09)
My Dad (15/7/09-29/7/09)
My Brother (15/7/09-29/7/09)
and last but not least...
Peter's Dad!! (19/7/09-29/7/09)

I can't believe this is all coming together so smoothly and I really can't wait to meet the little one and see what he is all about!! Be nice to get some professional family photos *hint hint*

Anyway, I'm at work...only 19 more working days to go and then a few more days till family starts pouring in. Started having braxton hicks contractions which are needless to say...interesting.

Hoping you are all enjoying the blog and our crazy stories!!

XOXO Shaena Girl!

A fancy new blog design!

What else to do on a Sunday afternoon? We have given our blog a once-over and created our own blog template. What we really should be doing is some house work and clean up all our dirty pots and pans, but this was so much more appealing for some reason.

Erin is moving to Sweden!

Today we also found out that Shaena's old friend Erin from back home in Winnipeg is moving (back) to Sweden! Erin has been accepted to Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and will study there for a few years. Erin is recently married to a Swedish guy and she also lived a year in Umeå, Sweden. These crazy Canadian girls, just can't stay away from the Swedish men! :)

Erin just started her own blog where people back home can follow her adventures in Sweden. Check it out: http://livinginsweden-stayingpresent.blogspot.com/

Lycka till i Sverige Erin!

Movies, movies, movies

Today has been a real lazy-day! Rolled out of bed not too late, not too early and my lovely wife had made me a nice cup of coffee and I was offered breakfast, but decided to make myself a breakfast Fajita from last night’s leftovers instead. Naughty naughty, but so delish! We then made our way out the door and the first stop was the barber’s where I got a haircut. Since I won £20 and bottle of wine in last week’s competition at work, we decided to go pick out a few movies to buy for the collection. We stopped by HMV and bought ‘The X-Men trilogy’, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Life Is Beautiful’. All great movies and we only had to pay £1 out of our own pocket! Sweet!

After a bit of an aimless hunt for new t-shirts for me, we went home and watched ‘Ghost Town’ with Ricky Gervais and ‘Deception’ with Ewan McGregor, none of them very good movies. Then we attempted to watch ‘The Da Vinci Code’ instead, but by that point I think we got a bit tired of watching movies, so we phoned people instead. We phoned my dad and talked TV shows amongst other things… are you starting to see a pattern here?

After our late dinner (a very brave attempt to make Macaroni and Cheese and beef mince that turned out very yummy) we watched a really good show, at least in comparison with other British TV shows, called ‘Bring Back Star Trek’ with Justin Lee Collins who interviewed and tried to reunite the original cast from Star Trek. Very funny and interesting! Who knew William Shatner is such a douche?

Last movie of the night was ‘Red Dragon’, the Hannibal Lecter-movie with Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins. At last, a great movie!

Hannibal Lecter: I'll call you if I think of anything else, would you perhaps like to leave me your home phone number?

Hej hej! Baby here!

I just got back from another appointment at the midwife’s. All is good, my heart is beating at the right pace, and apparently my head is facing down right now. Very useful to know, I know! :) Next appointment is in a month, and after that it is almost time for me to come out!

Last night Auntie Maeghan came by and baked banana bread for us, and as usual, it was awesome! That was it, just a quick update.

"Where's Waldo?"

The competition continues

Remember the prizes Shaena and I bought last weekend for the competition at my work? After that my manager Tracie and I have been dishing out prizes all week, ranging from bottles of wine and chocolate to iPods and even a digital camera. No expenses spared for our guys! I hope team appreciated the competition and had fun.

Next week, the prize-bonanza continues, so I am heading out this afternoon to acquire some more cool stuff. I think the team will be very happy to learn what next week has in store for them!

Webcams from Haparanda

Happy Saturday everyone!

My dad just phoned and said he found a website with webcams from all around Sweden, and below are the cams in Haparanda. Check it out, you might just be able to spot him! (Dad also offered to go out and stand by camera number 2 in case we wanted to see him! That's dedication!)

http://www.webbkameror.se/webbkameror/haparandakommun/haparandakommun_1.php

http://www.webbkameror.se/webbkameror/haparandakommun/haparandakommun_2.php