Ever seen the movie 'Day after tomorrow'?

Once again, winter has come to Edinburgh and once again, chaos is upon us. Remember early this year when we told Britain to get a grip? It's that time again.

Yesterday we had about 3 inches of snow and Edinburgh city centre was complete mayhem. Buses stopped running, food deliveries not getting delivered, schools shutting down, Ethan's playgroup cancelled and funny-looking snowmen scattered throughout the Burgh and this sudden drop in temperature also meant that a bunch of people from my office got stranded at home. This would obviously never happen back home in Sweden and Canada...except for Toronto!

Ethan seized this opportunity to try out his winter wardrobe made up of an eskimo-suit, a leather pants and jacket outfit, winter boots and a cute little toque:

Snow and mischief in The Burgh

Snow on Castle Rock

Snow on a Mini

Ethan has been introduced to crayons. Behold! His first wall mural!

Ethan has also found a light switch he can operate himself. "Lights on! Lights off!"

Warming up at Starbucks


"High five!"

Thank you Ethan...

King Ethan by Isabel

Ethan-mania

Bundled up in his awesome raincoat and cool hat

On fire, as per usual

Proud to be standing

Ethan in his Christmas jumper and red winter boots

Mommy and Ethan

Remember this guy?

My laptop, which is also my work computer, is getting very very old and is about ready to kick the bucket. The screen quality has steadily decreased over the past few weeks and today, out of the blue, it started 'blue screening' and restarting on me in the middle of typing or emailing so I thought it would be best to back up all my stuff before the laptop goes completely bust. So I did and also took the opportunity to clean out my closet and delete a whole bunch of stuff that I had stored since about 3 years ago.

Anyway, while I was going through what seemed like millions of old Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and other businessy stuff, I also stumbled on a few family photos and just had to stop for a moment and reminisce about the first few weeks and months with Ethan and how he has changed so much over these 16 months! This anxious wrapped up little thing in the photo has now grown into a real little person with his own personality and a very strong will, his own favorite dish, his own favorite TV shows and his own way of doing things... and even his own way of doing things he is not supposed to!

Just thought I'd share this one with you:

Wisconsin, here we come!

Peter here. I just did my usual read-up on my list of blogs that I like following and when I got to Erin's blog, she had written this long and awesome post about their Christmas trip to Vietnam and how they finally got around to booking it after months of research and I thought: "Hang on... wait a minute... we have booked Christmas trip too!"

Yep, you heard me! We are now all booked up and ready to be Wisconsin-bound for Christmas and New years and are of course super-excited to go across the water, hang out with our lovely family and get stuffed full of really awesome food for a couple of weeks!

Rumor has it that the whole basement in the house is getting redecorated just for us and that it is purposely designed to look so awesome when it's done that we'll have a hard time justifying leaving the basement and ever coming back home to Scotland. This is of course just a rumor at this stage but given the fact that we've had so many avenues and potential opportunities open up lately, maybe a prolonged stay in a basement in the cheese state would not be the worst option out there! ;)

So, again, inspired by Erin's blog entry; here's my list of things to must-see's and must-do's in Wisconsin:

No visit to Wisconsin is complete without a visit to 'Jeeptoberfest'...

...or a stay at the Pink Flamingo Motel...

...or posing under a humongous cheese sign!

It must be genetic!

Rollin' with the Oldies!

If it's printed on a t-shirt, it must be true!

The many faces of Ethan

“Relax, take it e-e-easy, there is nothing that you can’t do!”

After a hectic few months we finally ‘have the weekend off’ to chill, relax and recharge our batteries. Well, not entirely true. We have been invited to a few things this weekend and last night was Maeghan and Reg’s leaving party. A whole bunch of people met up at the ‘Ghille Dhu’ for a few drinks, some good banter and a Ceilidh. The two of them are ditching Scotland for greener pastures in Canada and we are of course going to miss them dearly!

Today we are having a lazy day, just hanging out and with no immediate plans to leave the flat, or even get dressed for that matter! It is only when you decide to stay at home and take a break from running around you remember to appreciate the little things. So, today Ethan has been policing the flat in his police cruiser, we've been playing, snacking and we’ve blown and popped soap bubbles. Oh, and Ethan beat his old record and took 4 steps this morning! We've even had time to mop the floors and dust the picture frames in between play-time, snack-time and nap-time! (The fact that I am actually getting excited about that accomplishment; does that mean that I am getting old?)

We are in an interesting phase in our lives right now with a lot going on and a lot of opportunities and good things on the horizon but also a lot of things that we need to figure out in the near future. It is all good things though so we are not worried. If it is one thing we are good at, it is 'to roll with the punches' and make lemonade when we are given lemons. Don’t want to reveal too much just now so let me just leave you with a cliff-hanger and say: “When we know more, you’ll know more!” :)

This guy is 16 months today:

Happy Halloween!

From:

'Ethan The Mountaineering Dragon' and his keepers.

We are so 2000-and-late… with our blog updates!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to drop a quick line and let you know that we have not forgotten about you, or the blog for that matter! Facebook helps us remember your birthdays and the mobile phone address book helps us remember your names when you are calling us… ;) No but seriously; September and October have been two very, very hectic months for us and lots of exciting things have happened (and continue to happen!) Lately, we’ve mostly updated the blog with photos but we figured you’d probably be mostly interested in following our photo trail around Europe anyway.

The three of us are back in Edinburgh for the next two months and are (hopefully) doing great trying to juggle work, play dates, baby groups, birthday parties, visits, nights out, our new (and blossoming) website business, and much more. As you know, we love having tons on the go so no complaints there!

Next up on the list of things to plan and do is to get Shaena’s passport sorted and then start planning for our next trip across the water: 'The Harrison-Helin Wisconsin Christmas With a Capital 'C'’! Very much looking forward to that too!