Max, Julliette and Leon visit us in Stockholm

When working for Flytxt in London, James worked with Max and became good friends. A lot has happened we both left Flytxt... Max married Julliette and we've both had kids. We had a really fun 4 day weekend together... starting with Midsummer and then cruising around Stockholm.

Leon and Bella became fast friends

We got out on some great walk around our house... Sweden does a great job keeping neighborhoods full of trees and walking paths despite it being a few miles from the center of Stockholm

With boys around it can't help but get a little competitive

Evidence of the Real Story: OK, maybe the dads contributed a bit to the competitiveness :-)

We took a harbor cruise around Stockholm

Deep in thought

Goofing around in Old Town

Waiting for our boat

The kids are seeing if Max can beat my score on the Flight Control... a game on the iPad

Hot chocolate of course

And it was simply a requirement to get to our favorite vegetarian restaurant... and eat so much we were ready for a nap

Max's new iPhone 4.... drool :-)

Leon, Max and Juliette

Oh yes... time for the mom's to relax

Fast fiends

Family Photo

Isabella cuts her own hair...

Boy did we get a surprise yesterday when we discovered Bella had not only cut her brand new Barbie's hair but also her own, right down to the rots. I guess it could be mommy's fault for telling her we needed to cut her bangs soon since they were getting long. No way did we expect her to take it into her own hands. It's was hard to stay angry at her but she now has lost her scissor privilege. Afterward she told us her Barbie looks terrible so I guess she will be looking for a new hairdresser.

Midsummer

We hosted midsummer this year at the house we are staying in... lots of kids, good food, and fun.

Food: Many types of Sill, gratin, Chicken, potato salad, bread, saft (like soda) and of course... strawberries

The adults: Max and Julliet (visiting from London), Fredrica, Molly and Liselotte (Ansi and Johan came later)

The champagne cork had quite a pop and found its way into the umbrella

Olivia, Isabella and Leon (Max and Juliette's son)

Yep... baby Herman stole the show

And Ansi's heart

Johan brought their new Labrador puppy Emma who was a hit with the kids

Leon loved her and followed her around everywhere...

... despite Emma getting overly anxious about licking his face :-)

Juliette

All the kids loved blowing bubbles... except most of them poured all the bubbles out on the ground within about 60 seconds of opening them...

The next morning... midsummer day... we were off to Skansen

Ahh Sweden... We Have Arrived

It is that time of year again... summer vacation time... and for us that means Sweden! We approached this year's trip to Sweden differently that in the past in a couple of ways. First we did a home exchange. So we have a Swedish family stay in our house while we stay in their house. It is working out quite nicely.

Fredrica also came over about almost a week before Isabella and I did. The main reason Fredrica went early was to be in Sweden for the Swedish Royal Wedding. Fredrica remembers has strong memories of when she was 6 and the current king and queen of Sweden got married. This was a big deal in Sweden.

Crown Princess Victoria married a commoner... e.g. not someone of royal decent. That was both a big deal and something that the Swedes really loved. This is a great shot with her new husbad Daniel.

There is a great photo gallery of Royal Wedding here

Yep... so that mean Bella and Dad did the transatlantic flight on their own. To break up the trip we left Saturday afternoon and spent the night in Chicago. This is Bella posing in front of a nice Fish restaurant we went to. She was such a tropper on the flight... while she almost fell asleep as we were waiting for our food, she ate and we got a great night sleep.

Great pic of the grand canyon as we few over. Before we left Chicago on our flight to Stockholm, we had the morning to play around. We got into the hotel pool and ran around alot.

On our first full day in Sweden we went to Junibacken, a kids museum dedicated to several great Swedish authors of kids books

The most famous is Astrid Lingren, author of Pippi Longstocking... among many others.

Sitting on the throne of winterland

Bella flying an airplane

Cuddle time with a dinasore

Bella inside Pippi's house

Dad and Bella on Pippi's balcony

The view form Junibacken

After Juniback, we went to one of our favorite restaurants on Djurgården

The next day we say Molly and Olivia. Isbella asked 'are we going to see Olivia now?" on the drive to our place from the Stockholm airport. These dancing queens didn't waste anytime getting down to some serious dancing... Take a look here and here

But most excitingly... Olivia has a new baby brother Herman. Boy he is cute!

We went back to our favorite restaurant Hermans... We've blogged about this before. The view over lunch was spectacular as always!

And... they added Hammock! I mean what better thing to do after a satisfying lunch that to have a quick snooze in a comfortable hammock :-)

Isabella's Live World Tour Begins Saturday

OK, for those fans that have been anxiously awaiting news is Isabella's world tour, here are the basic dates.

She will be in Chicago on Saturday night for a concert performance at the Intercontinental near the Chicago airport.

On Sunday, she'll be in Stockholm until July 11th. Concerts will be subject to Isabella's mood, ability to adjust to jet lag, nap schedule, and her approval on her outfits.

Tickets are available though TicketMaster or can be purchased directly from Ansi and Johan in Bredang Stockholm.

Fun with Color

I few weeks back I got an iPad. One of my new discoveries is an app called ColorSplash. It takes any image and makes it black and white. You can then trace your finger over the area of the photo you want to bring color back into. They have some nice ways to help you zoom and perfect the edges and corners. Here are a few pictures I had fun playing with.