First Time to the Dentist!

Isabella got in for her first 'meet and greet' with Dr. Dixon. We love our dentist and actually the first time Bella kind of met him was in  a Saturday emergency due to an infected tooth when she was still in Fredrica's belly. He did such a great job on a difficult problem and ever since we been very loyal time him. I think Isabella fell in love with him (Dr Ben which she calls him) right away as well... 

Isabella was so amazing, she helpfully opened her mouth... we have 18 of 20 teeth in (2 baby teeth still to come). According to Dr. Dixon, she recently got two new teeth and we find that amazing that we never know when she is teething because she is so good about it. The only sign usually is that she grinds her teeth. We wanted Isabella to get comfortable with Dr Dixon and the office and his staff and they all were so good with her. Now many of the staff not including Dr. Dixon knows James very well since saw James grow up.  Isabella talked about her experience and Dr. Ben all day. You gotta love when a visit to the dentist is this much fun.

Bella showing of her teeth

What a perfect patient!

Our 80th Birthday Party!

We are both turning 40 this year... so we celebrated our birthday together with a blow-out "80Th Birthday". Combining birthdays like this is common in Sweden... but not so in America. Our friends thought we were so clever to come up with the idea :-)

It was a great party... it was a warm San Diego summer day as usual. We decided this year to cater the event so that Fredrica and Jessica didn't have to kill them self cooking. We used Naked Cafe  which is one of our favourite breakfast places.  The manager Josh and Fredrica collaborated on the menu to make it what Fredrica would have made herself. The result was fantastic and all vegan. We had quinoa, pasta salad, 3 kinds of dips, wraps and for the kids we had almond butter and jelly sandwiches, quesadillas, veggies and a vegan ranch dressing. Jessica and Fredrica could not help them self and did bake dessert so we had strawberry cup cakes and Oreo cookie cup cakes as well as thumb print cookies and cinnamon buns. It was a perfect combination of kids and fun people. Thanks everyone who came celebrated us. You can see more pictures from the party here. All our pictures here

We look good for 80!

We bought a Slip 'N Slide... none of the kids including Isabella had ever seen one. I don't think we've ever seen kids have so much fun! Finally we had to cut them off as they were shivering it started to cool off... no hypothermia at birthday parties is our motto :-)

The kids surely had fun... but didn't quite get the 'slide' part down... so we needed some older 'helpers'

Now this was smart... Fredrica thought to create a 'crafts table'... the kids were so entertained... the parents had time to eat (OK and drink and chat... the kids were so pre-occupied some of the adults started eyeing the Slip 'N Slide)

"Come on mom, jump through the hoop"... this was a big hit, kids these days have never seen a Hula Hoop

Annie, Isabella's day care mommy, used to be the self-proclaimed Hula Hoop champion... she had it going on (even if the focus or our camera didn't). And she even pulled it off in a tube dress!

OK... my wife just looks fabulous doesn't she!?! This is her beautiful yogi friend Natalie.

Well... I don't look so bad either. This is my closest cousin Cindy

Yep... it was a party after all!

There's no one that will make you laugh more than Andrea!

Cousin Ed... wondering when the pizza guy is arriving :-) Ed has done incredible home improvement work for us... look for a future blog entry on that!

Friends from work... Rich and Julie (our local hearts partners)... my boss and Ulf (the one Swedish transplant at Intuit)

Mums Fillibabba (Swedish for "Yummy for my tummy")... we got consistently compliment on how delicious the food was.

We forgot to say 'no gifts'... but it was sure fun opening them up!

Beautiful flowers sent from Sweden... Thanks Ansi, Johan, Frida, Ola, Karl and Jessica... these flowers were amazingly fresh for having crossed the Atlantic Ocean!

Recycling from your phone?

San Francisco has always been pretty cutting edge when it comes to being green and recycling.  Their web site is really helpful.  I just picked up they now have an iPhone app that can help you figure out, by typing  what you want to recycle, where is the closest place to your phone!

Too funny

Isabella loves her puppets we bought her in Seattle. James caught this on camera when Bella and mommy was putting on a show. As you can tell Bella needs a little more practice. When we saw this video we cried because we were laughing so hard. It looks like Elmo and Bert is a little bit drunk and sinking lower and lower down. Big Bird tries to help out but with no success. I don't know but maybe it's only funny to us. You be the judge. We have to admit we're easily amused these days. The second video is Bella hugging the fan because it's so hot in our house. The temperature reached a 103F yesterday.

Last Day in Seattle

Its our last full day in Seattle... Isabella wants to ride on a bus and go on a boat... have you ever seen these "Ride the Ducks" tours? They are popping up in lots of cities.

Its a tour bus that goes around the city AND literally drives into the water and includes a water tour. Perfect!

As you'll see, this is a wacky experience... and you get that feeling just looking at the bus/boat

A big part of want makes this tour different from others is that they create a festive atmosphere on the boat. At one point we broke into 'Saturday Night Live'... as I said I don't think Isabella naturally has an appreciation for the 70s :-)

Here is random thing we say on the drive... a 30ft (10m) tall Indian Totem-poll....

Had to snap this shot... Seattle a dog friendly city? You think?

A few of the area as we drive across a bridge on our way to venture out into the water

Here is a picture of the Seattle skyline... from the middle of Lake Union... yes we are on that crazy bus in the middle of the lake

The driver paused for pictures as we floated around on the bus...

The movie 'Sleepless in Seattle is known for Tom Hanks living on a houseboat. This is the actual houseboat from the movie

We became fascinated by the houseboats... they were so romantic and intriguing

The only thing I really hated about Seattle is that the streetlights were not timed. You just spent forever at red lights with no cars anywhere around. Fredrica just happened to catch this on video... the absolute hight of my frustration!!!

We'll end our blog entries on Seattle with Isabella's first merry-go-round ride... she loved it! Dad got so excited as she wanted to go faster we almost lost her off as she didn't realize how important it was to hold on!!!

Playing with the Muppets

The Science Fiction Museum in Seattle had a special Jim Henson section, the creator of the Muppets.

What was really fun is they had a little 'show' area where the kids could watch Muppet performances ... and even more fun go do the performances themselves! Make sure you see the videos below!

Isabella checks out Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. These are the real thing! But behind glass...

So they had some Muppets to play with... here is Grover...

... and Oscar the Grouch

What was the most fun is they had an area for the kids to perform with the Muppets. At first, Isabella was terrified. Since this is where most of the fun was, we thought the whole afternoon might be a bust... but the longer we stayed, the more curious Isabella got, until she finally went back state with Mom

And then she got much more adventurous and Dad and Bella had a duet.

Isabella had so much fun that we bought some puppets from the Gift shop. In the morning we had our own little Muppet show!

Upstairs in the Experience Music Project. It had a huge array of instruments for you to play with... you could even make your own CDs and have a ton of fun. Isabella was a bit young, but she enjoyed jamming out on the drums

Bonus video... the audio is terrible but the Muppets are dancing to ABBA!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July (despite this post being several days late)... we have had a wonderful day in Seattle... again beautiful, weather in the 80s... perfect!

We started the day with another hike... same general area as yesterday. We went down to Pike's Place market... where they throw these large fish around as people order them... its quite a site (unfortunately we didn't take any video... but it is so unusual that it is worth looking at someone else's video here.)

Here is a short video diary of the afternoon as we start to relax and settle in.

4th of July Video Diary

We found a Whole Foods Market real close to our hotel. Here is where we had our late afternoon picnic... you can see our hotel in the background. We weren't the only ones with this idea!

And can you believe it... a playground right in this park in front of our hotel!

The fireworks started about 10... Our hotel opened up one of the lake facing rooms and invited all the guests to come and watch the fireworks... unfortunately, our room faced the opposite direction :-(

Another picture of the fireworks... they launched them off a platform in the middle of the lake!

Some fireworks were so bright it almost seemed like day time!

A short video of the fireworks if you'd like to see more... mainly for Fredrica since she had to be in with Isabella and missed them :-(

We're in Seattle

We went to Seattle for the July 4th weekend... we'll have a few blog entries over the next couple of days about our trip.

Seattle is known for the rain... but we picked the right 5 days to go! Perfect sunny (dare I even say hot) weather while we were there.

We arrived on the afternoon... the day before 4th of July. We stayed downtown right on the water. We got right out for a nice seafood dinner overlooking the water.

Our arrival video diary

Out to dinner... it stays light until about 9:30 here... not like Sweden but much later than San Diego!

Seattle is a mecca for Vegan and Vegetarian restaurants... way more so than San Diego. We've got a list... and five days... we're going to get to as many as we can! We started out at a vegan donut shop... yes that's right... no diary and the most amazingly delicious donuts we've ever tasted

Especially fun for Isabella because she doesn't get much sugar... she loved it!

Seattle reminds us so much of Sweden... lots of water, lots of forest & nature. We took advantage of the good weather and plan to hike everyday! We found this place just outside the city... there is a lot to explore here!

Pausing on our hike around the lake... for a little stone skipping!

This is the view from our walk/hike

Isabella loves this slide... a short video about the area

There was a great playground near where we parked. Isabella made fast friends with Hazel. Before we knew it they were holding hands going down the slide over and over again!

More to come soon... fireworks tomorrow on the 4th of July!!!