Open house at the airport = Very excited boys!

"Ready for lift-off, Huddy?"

"Cheese!"

Yes, they are scratched already. But still really cool.

Ethan is getting a quick briefing from the de-icing guy
before going 36 feet up in the air

Our fearless little lad

Ethan - proud holder of a de-icing cherrypicker diploma

Captain

Co-Captain

Ethan was in helicopter heaven!

A funky old veteran airplane

Ethan in the luggage tractor thingy

Radio silence from Camp H-H

It’s been a busy month to say the least, hence the lack of updates. Seems like the weeks have just flown by and we’ve had long days and kept ourselves more than busy with work and activities!

Shaena is doing great in her fulltime Swedish class and has taken up swimming and the boys are in full-on nitro-mode both at dagis and at home. Ethan is getting used to his new glasses as well as getting used to a brother who is now competing for the best toys. Hudson is walking more and more and he is very proud of himself! For me, it’s been a few weeks of lots and lots of work as I am involved in another sizeable website project on top of being back to working for the man, but I guess being kept busy is better than not having anything at all to do, right?

Tomorrow should be a pretty wicked day out with the kids though. There’s an open house both at the local fire station as well as one of the airports so we’ll be checking out some more fire engines and hopefully the boys will get to sit in the cockpit of a jet plane. Need I say that Ethan is thrilled? "Go see fire trucks? Go see airplanes?"

We'll also be sure to pay those five bucks to upgrade this blog finally and will get some pictures posted from tomorrow's adventures. Stay tuned...

"Bada?"

Ever since we installed the bath tub, the boys have been going crazy for bath time. "Bada" (to bath) is Hudson's new fave word and he'll ask for a bath at any given time of the day!

A nice surprise

A few weeks back we joined in the celebration of two of our boys best friends birthdays. While there, a great friend had her super awesome camera with her and took some candid shots. Wilma has talent doesn't she?! If you are ever looking to get some family portraits, maternity, little ones, or bridal shots in Stockholm...please do check out www.wilmahowells.com Keep up the good work Wilma! Here's a few shots she took of our little crazy gang!

Ethan shoots a fire hose!

Fire extinguisher fun!

Fire truck driving

Walkity walkity

Summer - Check!

This is it. It’s over. Three and a half months of awesome paternity leave and an awesome long summer officially ends today. Tomorrow I am back to the grind so the business clothes have been dusted off and ironed. We’ve had a brilliant summer though and when you sum it all up, we’ve managed to squeeze in quite a lot from May until now.

Let’s see, we have…

…flown to Greece for a family holiday
…driven up north for another couple of weeks of fun in the sun
…choo-choo’ed on a steam train
…sailed away on a wicked cruise to Estonia
…had family and friends come visit from near and far
…had the pleasure of spending a weekend with friends at their summer house
…hosted a huge Thomas-themed birthday bash
…been amazed at a monster truck show (this could very well be Ethan’s highlight of the summer!)
…splashed and played with our pool and slip n slide
...hit up (nearly) every playground in the Greater Stockholm area
…and the boys have started a new, fantastic dagis!

...and we couldn’t have asked for more!

Lock 'n' Loll!

Ethan's new specs

After several doctors appointments and eye tests over the past few weeks, our little buddy finally got a prescription for glasses. Today was the big day when we went and picked them out at the optician. Ethan got to pick his the frames and he was dead set on these cool blue frames. He's been such a trooper throughout this whole thing and we are so proud of him!

Now, let's cross our fingers and hope he'll keep them on his nose once they are ready!

Ethan and Hudson - Rag doll style!

As a part of the 'inskolning' process at dagis (mentioned below) the parents get to sew little rag dolls that are supposed to look like their kids.

Here’s the result. See the resemblance?

Another giant leap for Harrison-Helinkind

Over the last two weeks we’ve been getting both Ethan and Hudson settled in to their new day care and we are happy to say that our two little butterballs have been true troopers throughout the whole ‘inskolning’ process. Inskolning in Sweden is when you attend day care with your child for the first week or so to gradually get them used to their new environment, friends, routines etc.

We were also incredibly lucky to have Grandpa Keith here at the same time, which helped so much as he was able to do inskolning with Ethan whilst I was doing inskolning with Hudson and Shaena started her fulltime Swedish class.

So far we are very impressed with the new day care and all the staff and both Ethan and Hudson are doing fantastically well and are getting great feedback… and it also helps that this one is only a 1 minute walk from our flat compared to the old one that was about a 10-15 minute walk. It all adds up! ;)

Another giant leap for Harrison-Helinkind taken!

Tallinn baby!

Another Baltic country to check off the list, yes sir! Estonia – Check!

Camp Harrison-Helin including grandpa Keith boarded the ‘MS Baltic Queen’ last Saturday afternoon, excited as ever and ready for an awesome 40 hour cruise across the Baltic Sea to Tallinn, Estonia. Grandpa had never been on a cruise ship before so he was a bit gobsmacked by the size of it and all the different entertainment options that were available.

We dropped off our stuff in our 10 square meter cabin (yes, 3 adults and 2 kids can actually fit semi-comfortably in such a cramped space) and headed up to the buffet for a feast. And what a feast it was! Those buffets are deadly!

It’s really lovely to be able to just sit down and enjoy a meal whilst cruising slowly through the archipelago and enjoy the view over a glass of wine. After dinner, there was live music and an Aladdin-show in the ‘Starlight Palace’ theatre and the night went on. Some of us went to bed, some stayed out for a bit more entertainment in the disco, piano bar, karaoke, cigar club, and whatnot. Good times! When we woke up, we were almost in Tallinn.

We headed up to the Old Town in Tallinn, which was only a short walk away, and scoured the streets for an open restaurant. We were starving! After a lot of asking and seaching, we managed to get a bite to eat. Wasn’t easy to find a decent restaurant that was open before noon, that’s for sure! The Old Town was beautiful and a bit ugly at the same time and we had a nice time just strolling around, looking at its unique old buildings and taking pictures.

A few of hours later, we were back on the ship and ready to sail back home again. Tallinn is well worth a visit and going there on a cruise is cheap, easy, effortless and fun!

(Oh, and I mentioned before that our blog was full and that no more pictures could be uploaded. Well, I managed to squeeze in a few more somehow, but now it’s definitely full!)

Steaming out on the Baltic Sea

A cowboy on deck?

3 generations of Harrisons

Morfar enjoying the fresh ocean air

Ethan had a blast on deck!

And Hudson had a blast in the
kids play room

Entrance to the Old Town through the city wall

Two hundred and something steps up to the view point -
No thanks!

There were plenty of beautiful churches
of all shapes and sizes in Tallinn

Trying out head gear at the market

A city wall turret and a church spire

An old clock that we saw in the tourist brochure on the boat.
Must be a landmark.

"Aaand pose!"

Another Peter-church!

Street vendors

Market in the Old Town main square

'The Broken Link' - Memorial for the
852 people who died in the 'Estonia'
ferry disaster

The light in the memorial park was perfect, so we decided
to snap some family photos

Outside the 'Life in Soviet' exhibition -
a typical Soviet Lada car in mint condition.

Sorry, we're full!

They say that you can never have too many memories, but in our blog’s case, it seems like you can. Computer memory that is. We have now officially used up 1021Mb of our 1024Mb of picture storage and pretty much no more pictures can be uploaded until we upgrade our account to a fancy pants paid account, at the hefty cost of $5 per year.

So, hang in there peeps…