We almost have a house now...

Last week we almost signed up for renting a house but found another house in the last second. A house that we could not take a look at until today, so we did. We have said yes to the house we saw today but, wow, is it a hard decision!!! The houses are very different and here are the benefits... (for those of you who are not interested in our house search just skip this and go to the pictures below! :-)

House 1:
- Very nice owners
- Very nice house
- Nicer neighborhood
- Bigger house
- Easier (although more expensive) to make it into our home

House 2:
- Little cheaper
- Funished and has everything (bed linnens, kitchen stuff etc) = saves us money and time
- Very close to the beach
- Walking distance to a very nice park and playground

It is the second house that it seems like we are going to rent right now. However it is a littler "too furnished" for my taste, which means that it is too much furniture and too much "stuff", plus it does not have a king size bed which makes it hard for us to have the children in our bed, where they always seem to end up during the night... I want to make the house "our house" so that I will not feel like we live in someone else's home, which means that some of that furniture has to go (to the garage) and all that "stuff" will be sent to boxes! It is a very cute house and about four or five houses from the beach. It is also very nicely decorated even if it is little too much of it... Enough about the houses!

A few days ago I went to one of the parks close to here and we had a very good time. We saw a big turtle in the forest and we had a good walk. Marlee had his scooter, which he used even in the forest. Worked, kind of! :-)

Bicentennial Park

Like father like son... Alex and Noah

Two days ago we went to visit Aunt Jackie and Uncle Doug. We had a good time, as always with them! Unfortunately, we did not take any picture while being there but I did take a picture of one of the nice bridges on the way there... Must remember to take pictures next time!!!

The Batman bridge by Jacksonville

Marlee taking pictures with my phone in the car...

Today Marlee went to the pre-school this morning and after dinner we all went to the beach for a little while. It was great! Big waves, which makes me a little nervous with the current and all, but it was a lot of fun!

Walking down to the beach

Zoomed in in case you did not notice Marlee's outfit (goggles)

Past this "little" guy on the way

And met this dude on the beach

Alex and Marlee in the water

Noah waited on the shore

Just wanted to dip the toes!

I'm gonna get you!

Two cute videos of Noah, walking and laughing :-) What I am saying, that makes him laugh so much is "I'm gonna get you!".

Marlee started pre-school!

Life in Ormond goes on. Alex has been able to take some time off and look for houses. He is catching up on the knowledge that farmor and I have assembled while looking for houses. We still haven's decided if we will rent or buy but the bank is very slow on returning regarding our "money request" so maybe that will make our decision easier... Except for looking for houses we, especially Marlee, have done a lot of fun things, such as going to the playground, the beach, the fire station, library etc!!

At the grocery store with mamma. They did have more fun when the camera was off!

At the playground with farmor

"Holding on" to the same playground!

Visiting the fire station with farmor!! What a hit!!!

Found a scooter at a garage sale. Marlee cannot pass it without getting on = he loves it!

Added some more protection to my crazy scooter driver!

It is hard to be a scooter boy!

The big news this week is that Marlee started pre-school yesterday. It is very cute and part of a church here called Salty church. He is in a group of about 8 children and they are all around 3 years old. Three boys. Marlee will be there three days a week, 3h/day. I also signed Marlee up for gymnastics on Tuesdays and that starts in two weeks. I think he will need that because the pre-school here is a lot more "calm" than the one that he is used to in Sweden. However he seems to be doing very good (except when I drop him off :-(  ) and he wants to stay when I pick him up. 

First day at the pre-school!!

Marlee and I visited the beach last night and the tide was very very high!

Finally I took a new video of Noah walking. However this does not show how good he is now because I just put some shoes on his little feet. In other words, this is his first walk with shoes and as you will see, he is pretty good :-) When he is walking barefoot he hardly falls anymore and he does not crawl at all now.

Working on finding a house in Ormond, FL

Yes, that's true, we are trying to find a house in Ormond Beach, FL. At the moment I am up here with the children and farmor (Kathy). She is helping me both with the children and to find a good house. We do not know yet if we will rent one or buy one but we do believe that we want to live in Ormond. It is a very nice place! Alex had to stay in Miami because of a tooth problem. Hopefully he and farfar (Buddy) will come up here on Friday. We have been here since Sunday.

Weird looking caterpillar. Could soon be a beautiful butterfly but will become an Oleander moth...

Helping farmor planting some flowers

During our last days in Miami we got to see friends and Marlee made even more progress in the pool. He can now dive to the bottom and pick up things as well as using a snorkel!!!

Oh, I almost forgot about our trip to Miami Downtown. Marlee really wanted to take the train somewhere so we decided to go downtown and have an ice cream :-) Well downtown we also took the little city train as well as looking at boats. It was a very nice day with the boys even if it was really hot!!!

On the little train downtown with no driver

Yummy Italian ice cream!!

Pretty nice boats (yachts)

Today I got to go to a yoga class while farmor took Marlee and Noah to the playground. It was great and felt so luxury to do something all alone for my own well being :-)

Marlee knows exactly how to do yoga :-)

I just realized that there are no pictures of Noah but he is doing good. He walks more and more and is probably walking more than he is crawling now! Soon turning 1 (August 29)!

Boat ride and pool fun

Yesterday we all went on the boat with some of Uncle Cory's friend. we had a good time! Buddy and Kathy had organized some good food and drinks. Both Marlee and Noah got to drive the boat :-)

Marlee in the ocean with pappa

Noah driving the boat

Best buddies (children)

Back at the house we all went in the pool and Marlee and Noah had a great time!! Marlee is getting so brave. He was in the pool for two hours today and he jumps, dives and gets thrown high up in the air, and he just keeps saying "Again" :-D Unfortunately, I do not have any good pictures of all the fun things he did because I was in the water too with Noah. He is trying to "make coffee" with his little mouth and is not scared to go under the water at all. Marlee was more careful when he was Noah's age. Now they are both like two big fish in the water!

Water gun fight with Cory and farfar!!

An iguana climbing the window

I am trying to set up a thing on my phone so that I can use it as my house phone in Sweden, which would make it so much easier to call everyone at home but it is not working yet.

Completely crazy

Some time has passed since last time I added a post and it is only because we have had some crazy weeks!!! Therefore, this post will probably be the longest so far so get prepared for some reading, or skip it and just look at the pictures :-)

So, Marlee went to Fårö for a week so that he could spend some extra time with mormor and morfar and Alex and I were supposed to focus on the packing. However, we did not get as much done as we had hoped, not even close, and partly because our car breaking down, about 2h from home... Long story, but I got a ride home and we had to go back and pick up the car later. We did and towed it with the pickup truck. After towing for 1-2 hours we bored of doing that and found a small local car mechanic. He ended up being a life saver. Unlike the bigger car mechanics he could fix the car within 24h (the others had available appointments in about 3 weeks) and he did it for a third of the price!!! I would probably not use him if I had a fancy car with a complete service book but he was just perfect for our wreck :-D The car got fixed even if it took us more than a day to take care of it.

Towing...

Good to have you back home bro'!

Marlee came home again with mormor and morfar and now they had to take care of both children and not only Marlee. Alex and I had soooo much to do and we stressed like dogs the last week in Sweden. I would rather have spend time with family and friends, and I did a little, but we just had to do what had to be done = packing, cleaning, planning etc.

Packing Swedish things!!

Noah trying out the kick-bike :-)

Wonderful dinner with Sofia, Aman, Mobi, Fatima and Zeinab!!

Playing in the water!!

Dinner with mormor and morfar the last night (we thought)...

Typical Swedish "Plankstek"

Enjoying the company of mormor and morfar!

Alex and the children planted the Oaks that started out as acorns

The result of the the other acorn

Cleared out house... :-(

While stressing with the packing and all we forgot things that we should have brought to the USA, things that we should have done before leaving etc, but worst of all, we forgot when our plane left... In the car on the way to the airport, July 27, Alex realiases that the plane left at 2pm and not 6pm as we thought! That meant that it had already taken off and we had missed it... I had to enter the USA no later than July 29 according to my VISA so I was obviously in a hurry. We drove to Arlanda and there Alex managed to book me on a flight the next day and I would arrive to NY July 28 and then take a plane to FLorida. Noah and I got on the plane and Alex and Marlee had their flight booked two days later. So far so good!

Mormor and morfar got some extra time with Noah and Marlee when we missed our flight...

Noah and I arrived to NY as planned but from there, things did not go according to plan... We missed our flight to Florida, and spent the night at the airport. Luckily I could check in all the luggage, I had a lot!! and did not have to drag it around the airport during the night. Noah could sleep in the stroller and I slept on some chairs. It was a tough night but ok. The first flight to Florida left at 8am the next morning and Noah and I were on it!! Noah's car seat was not, however, and they still have not found it...

My luggage, plus Noah

Camp JFK, this is where we spent the night. I could sleep on my belly under the armrests and Noah in the stroller

Well, Noah and I arrived to Ft Lauderdale the next morning, July 29, and was picked up by farfar. Farmor and farfar took good care of us until Alex and Noah came, two days later. We also went to get the boxes that we had sent from Sweden. They had to get inspected because I had brought food, mainly ingredients for baking. I had also brought lots of dried, home picked, mushrooms and I was a little worried that they would find them suspicious and take them but they passed the inspection and I could bring all the boxes with all their content with me.

Right before we left Sweden Noah took his first few steps and he has slowly taken more and more steps. I managed to take a small video of it and here comes the first proof of Noah walking! He started when he was 11 month old :-)

Farmor has brought out a lot of Alex's old toys and among the favourines are the cars!!! They can be organized in all kinds of ways :-) Traffic jam is a favorite!

 

Traffic jam!

Both Marlee and Noah has made some impressive progress in the pool. The water is  32C/90F so pretty comfortable. However, not refreshing as a Swede would like it ;-) Noah loves the water and splashes and gets under it without any problems, just laughing. Marlee has been more careful but that has totally changed! Now he jumps from the edge of the pool and puts his head under water without any problem or fear. It is so fun to watch them!!!

Marlee in his "floating device"

A BIG yummy mango!!!

Noah is really brave in the water!

Before we got here farmor and farfar found a bike on the side of the road, that someone had thrown away. They fixed it and now Marlee loves it!!! He wants to take the bike everywhere. Our biggest worry right now is that we have not yet bought him a helmet and he, of course, likes to go fast!

Marlee and farmor

Alex has spent a lot of time looking for a car for us since we need to get one and today we found it! It is not only a good and safe car, it is also my companion from Sweden, imported in 2004. I have my very first VOLVO!!!!

Ok, time to go to sleep. The boys still wakes up way toooo early and it is passed midnight now, so Good night! Hope you enjoyed this loooong post!