Trick or Treat (English) ... Bus eller Godis (Swedish)

At 3 years old... I expected this would be the first year Isabella would really understand Halloween and get excited about her costume and going out trick or treating...

Isabella picked out her Halloween costume a couple weeks ago... she wanted to be a princess. She has been talking about being a princess for days!

We went up to my parents in the morning. After saying Trick Or Treat and going into the house... it took about 1 min before she wanted to get out of her princess costume...

She did go trick or treat later in the evening after seeing other kids doing it. She got a lot of candy but she has absolutely no interest in eating it. She wants to taste it and says she does not like it.

At my parents from door... trick or treat

Isabella was more interested in reading, playing the piano and having fun with Grandma and Grandpa

Isabella was more interested in handing out candy to the kids that came to the door...

... but as more kids came to the door, she decided she wanted to go out!

She had a great time walking around the neighborhood... we went to about 10 houses... she came home and counted her candy.

Happy Halloween Everyone! Halloween is even starting to be popular event in Sweden.

Breakfast is served

Most mornings it's just me and Bella and she just like is not a morning person. She wants her breakfast served her way with not too much fuss. After that and having her cloths changed she usually becomes her own glory self again.

A good breakfast is an important start of the day, cereal, water melon and goji berries for Bella

Bella in her much better mood with strawberries all around her mouth

Isabella's 3rd Birthday Party

So our peanut is not so little anymore. She has turned 3 years old and is a big girl with a lot of will and opinions. We had two days of celebrations starting on Friday first with a breakfast in bed together. In the evening there were a open house at day care and we also celebrated Bella's birthday. Saturday morning we had a brunch party at our house with her favorites; pancakes. We had pumpkin, strawberry and plain pancakes as well as fruit and pumpkin-chocolate chip bread. Mmmmmm it was so good. Most of her friends came over and loved playing with her toys and jumping on a bouncy we had in the garden. She got many fun presents; a sandbox, dresses, shoes, books and some snugly things. The fun had to come to an end at 2pm when she was ready for a nap. The evening was mellow with her order of veggie burgers and grilled asparagus as well as a small piece of chocolate cake made by Jessica.

We've added the highlights below. You can see all the pictures from her birthday here.

She absolutely loved opening the presents

She loved this Panda Bear and gave it a big hug right away

A bunch of pancakes (pumpkin, strawberry and regular!) with Sandy looking beautiful as always.

Even Annie (our daycare provider) came and Bella was so happy

All the moms from daycare, from left; Mary, Bu, Annie and me

A very important present, her own Charger shirt from Jess

James's family together at last... Allen surprised us all by driving from Fresno (norther CA)

The Meltcalfe's visiting from St Thomas... Richard, Cindy, Kainoah

Beautiful Chrissy came

Brian with his Girls, Rowan (left) and Fiona

Cindy and Bella

Synchronized hullahopping between Ki and Cindy

Toni gives it a try

...and Chrissy

...as well as Allen

Toby and Fredrica playing with the balloons

She got so into the this book from David, she forgot about the other presents

Uncle Allen had a great time with Bella... they jammed out on a few piano for her

Our beautiful birthday girl!

On Friday Isabella got to blow out the candles for the first time

Dad's 40th Birthday

Wow... another decade :-) I had a fun birthday week... The night of my birthday I went to a great yoga class with Ulf and David Snow.

Fredrica and Jessica three a intimate birthday dinner for me on the 15th. And my parents and the Somervilles got together on Monday night to watch the big Charger's game.

Dinner on the 15th... What a great gift... Microbrews from around the country!

After dinner... let's have some silly fun!

Bella loves the balloons for dad's birthday!

Outside my parents house... Big Four Oh...

You both did a great job decorating for the big game... bummer we didn't win :-(

#1 Charger Fans!

But what a beautiful night it was (if you haven't been to my parents house, the view is amazing!)

Social Butterflies

It has been a very fun weekend... but busy busy with meeting up with family and friends.

We met up with my cousin Paul Richard and Gina with their daughters Lucy and Kayle Sat morning

Our friend Sheena and her daughter Amelie were in from London.

This photo really captures Sheena.

All pooped out after a day with the girls. We were very impressed that Amelie could sleep in the midst of loud party

We put this picture up on Facebook and got some jealous comments about how it must be warm out here. We had a beautiful weekend... 31C (about 85F)... but when we went down to the beach to meet Sheena (just 15 min away) it was 10C cool and we about frooze :-)

Bella is practicing for the NBA one day!

Go Chargers

We're about a month into the NFL football season. Since having Isabella... in the past three years... I think I've only been to one game. But this season... I've been to the both of the first two home games!

Part of the motivation was Karl and Jessica's visit... Yes Karl is a huge American football fan (unusual in Sweden). His visit was during our home opener this year... so we had to get tickets!

Karl got a Chargers jersey while he was here... motivated me to get one two :-). While we lost the home opener, he had an opportunity to win in the last 12 seconds. It was an incredibly exciting game and a ton of fun to go with such avid football fans.

Charger fans! Me, Karl and Jessica (Karl's wife Jessica came to the game too... but we didn't get her in this picture)

I'm ready to try out for the Chargers... but didn't make the cut :-)

A big part of the culture of game day happens in the parking lot before the game... people bring elaborate barbeque setups... this blow up was next to one of them.

During the pre-game show the military brought out a flag the shape of the country to sing the National Anthem

Here come the chargers!

Miramar Airforce base (Top Gun) flew some F-18s over to start the game!

If you look closely... you'll see the Ikea just beyond the parking lot (had to take this shot for the Swedes :-)

#1 Charger Fan!

I'll post about my 40th birthday this week... part of my birthday is a Monday night football celebration tomorrow night watching the Chargers. It will be their toughest game yet this season!

Sick Bella and a whole lot of drama

Bella has been sick with stomach flu for over a week. Yesterday she finally went back to daycare and we're keeping our fingers crossed she is over the hump. But for 9 days, we were up every night taking care of her and changing sheets. One night I think we changed sheets 3 times. She was such trooper, she never cried, she always gave us notice and held her little hand over her mouth waiting for something to throw up in. She only time she complained was when she looked at me and said "mommy make it stop, I'm tired". So naturally we all were a bit tired. However, the two last night she has slept all night.

On Saturday we woke up early and decided to go hiking at Mission trails. When we returned to our car someone had smashed the window and broken into the car. They didn't take anything because there were nothing to take but they caused a whole lot of damage. There were glass all over the car and we had to drive home like that. Isabella was very scared and didn't quit understand who had done this. Luckily our insurance company helped us out and just a few hours later a company came to our house and removed all glass and replaced the window.

Later that day me and Bella was sitting outside enjoying a snack when she said "look mom a mouse". There it was and it's whole family in our green house. So it looks like we have a very cute but very unwanted mouse family living in our green house. So now the question is how do we get rid of them without killing them?

Not feeling her best after a hard night of throwing up.

What shall we do....

Viva La Work (aka 30 Hours in Vegas!)

So you all know Karl and Jessica have been visiting from Sweden. One of the special trips we planned was to Las Vegas... just the four of us. Isabella stayed home with Annie her day care provider. We made a big deal with Isabella about how special her first 'sleep over' was going to be. We talked about it with her for days... she was really excited. We had her own little pink suit case with wheels.

But then we realized, we had to be careful around Isabella not to tell her we were going on to Vegas, and especially that we were going on an airplane because that is all she would want to do. So we told her the four of us were going to work... Viva La Work! Fredrica said... and the joke stuck for the whole week.

We arrived at lunch time... to early to check in. So, it was time for our first board meeti

ng; with beer of corse! We went to a Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay. It is created and owned by Hubert Keller one of the top chef's in the US.

All four of our burgers were so outstanding... the best we've ever had. This is a

buffalo burger with blue cheese. It was totally amazing. Fredrica's lentil burger was the highlight at the table. Karl ordered a traditional burger... said it was the best he'd ever had... and was surprised to admit all three of our burgers were better than his!

We stayed at the Venetian Hotel. I had always wanted to bring Fredrica here.

Its a four star hotel, every room is a suite. They re-create Venice's canals complete with real gondolas (imported from Venice) and singing gondoliers. For those who have been to Venice, you know it is now where near this clean, but it is a really fun experience.

The attention to detail in Vegas is what always gets me. This is the corridor from registration. Complete with master painters re-creating the artwork of Italy.

I don't usually show off hotel rooms, but the Venetian is amazing.

The room is a suite... you can even take a virtual tour of the room we each had.

The view from Karl and Jessica's room. They looked directly out to the Mirage. You can see on of the Venetian's steeples to the right.

That evening we went for a drink with one of the best views of Vegas... the top of the Rio hotel.

A picture of Rio hotel

View from the Rio... this is the north third of the strip. Our hotel is toward the right.

Jessica is truly photogenic isn't she!

Martinis with extra olives please!

The light show at the Bellagio. This is simply the highlight of any visit. They performs shows to different music every 30 min. We caught "Singing in the Rain"

A view of "Paris, Paris" behind the the light show

Us in front of the Bellagio

Karl and Jessica

One of the things Karl wanted to do was put $10 on the roulette table in Caesars Pa

lace. This is the amazing entry way at Caesars.

We all found we could enjoy the slot machines together. We each played different things from Black Jack to traditional slots. It was quite a day in Vegas!

The next morning we had half a day. We got over to New York New York and rode the wild roller coaster the winds around and over the hotel.

We ate lunch at a traditional NY deli on a traditional looking street in SOHO. All in

all... an amazingly fun 30 hours in Vegas.

But it was sure nice to get home and see Bella. She had a fabulous time and asked when she could do another sleep over!