New hobby

I have come to realize that I like to bake. In particular sweet things that I can make pretty. Here are some samples:








Princess cake and cupcakes with marsipan buttons.









Carrot cupcakes.









Marsipan cake with mango mousse and custard.









Chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and banana.










Lemon cupcakes with sprinkles.

More tourism and such

The last couple of days have been filled with little rays of tourism. Thursday was spent in Göteborg, seeing the city and sitting in a boat. I did also get my butt kicked in two games of pool.

Most of friday was spent preparing for our yearly craw-fish, surströmming feast. I have come to realize that I like to throw parties. There is something exhilirating about being a hostess. The swedish delights were recieved quite well, except for the surströmming (fermented herring). The general reaponse when that can is opened is this:



Things we did over the weekend included and are not limited to going to the market, city park,a fireside at a ranch, christmas caroling, and chalking.

Now we are on our way to stockholm and the adventures will continue!


Hailey and Kelli with two of my nephews at the city park.

Castles and ruins

The adventure continues, we headed north monday only to go south again tuesday, only this time towards the east. The day started with a trip to Kosta. This is one of the capitals of swedish crystal. We visited the factory and let's just say that it wasn't only the americans that were impressed. If anyone has the chance to go there I truly encourage a trip!

We countinued further south-east to Kalmar. We visited Kalmar castle which started to be constructed in the 12th century and finnished in the 13th century. I love to walk on historic ground and think about what people have walked there before me. I also like to be in castles, I actually wouldn't mind my own castle one day:)




Wednesday was spent in Gränna and Visingsö. In gränna we saw the making of the candy-cane and strolled around.

We took the ferry to visingsö, which is a little island in the deepest lake in Sweden-Vättern. The story is that mr and mra giant Vist were going to a party on the west side of vättern but during the party it rained so much that mrs giant vist couldn't jump over the big puddle that was vättern so mr Vist took a piece of lnd and put it in the puddle for her to step on, and that was how Visingsö was created.

On the island there is the first royal castle in sweden, well, just ruins now... And ruins of a newer castle... New as in perhaps the 14th century. We rented bikes and saw them both and it was magnificent to see the scenery and experience the history!

The day ended with the best kebab in the world and a chriatmas movie... Yes you heard me...or read right... A christmas movie!!

I have friends visiting from the US. I picked them up in copenhagen saturday morning and we went to see the city, after roaming around, seeing several different churches we found the copenhagen cathedral (vor frue kirke) and saw the actual kristus statue with the original twelve apostles.

We stayed at my sisters house in helsingborg so on the sunday we went back to denmark to helsingør and saw kronoborg slott, that is the castle Shakespear had in mind when writing Hamlet. So, sunday afternoon picknick at the ancient castle grounds was pretty spectacular!