Windy beach day(?)

Most Floridians would probably consider today as being an indoor day because of fairly low temperature and strong winds. However, after being inside all day it felt really nice and refreshing to go down to the beach and breath in the fresh air and try to walk  (and push the stroller) against the wind.

 

Indoor activities - Yatzy

 

 

Chili on the beach!

But also fun with Fatima :-)

A cool dude that we met by the beach

Drawing with Fatima

 

Our little Roly-poly

We cannot put Gabriel down now without him turning over to his belly. He is happy for a pretty long time (compared to what Marlee and Noah were like) but gets tired after a while.

 

 

 

 

 

Great day at Blue springs

We spent the day at Blue springs and had a very good day. We spotted manatees and an alligator. The kids had lots of fun at the playground and Noah went on the swing for a long time. He normally wants to get off after a minute. 

Extreme unluck

So our friends arrived late Saturday night but the boys did not seem to remember. They woke up happily at 7:30, probably too exited to go back to bed :-)

The trip over here turned out to be close to a nightmare. Mobi, Sofia and Fatima arrived late at night to Miami after taking three different flights. They had made a reservation at an hotel close to the airport so that they would not have to drive far on the dark in a new city (which repeatedly has been voted the worst city to drive in in the USA). However, the hotel was overbooked and they had nowhere to sleep! After some misunderstandings and long waiting they got a new reservation in a much nicer hotel in the Grove. Finally some sleep!!! They woke up to a beautiful view and a nice swimming pool. 

Then the started to drive up to ormond. They did not get far before the GPS died and the charger did not work. Lost in Florida!!! Luckily the way from Miami to ormond is easy, straight north on I95 and we could keep in touch with text messages. They arrived safely and we could return the rental car the next day so no stress! Not until the next day at least...

We started out Sunday with church and then a birthday party for a friend to Marlee. We left the party well in time to return the car. 

No one had told us that it was Daytona 500 that day... I was surprised that several roads were  blocked on the way over to Daytona from Ormobd but I had no idea what was waiting us. International speedway blvd was packed and so were all the gas stations when we tried to find somewhere to get gas. Cars where parked everywhere at the gas stations so no one could get gas. We finally got some gas and could drive to the rental place at the airport, next to the race track, from which thousands of people were leaving, and they did not care about red lights or right of way... Well, we got to the airport finally and the car was dropped off. 

I started to feel sick yesterday and during the night I felt pretty bad. Today I've been ok but I stayed home instead of going to st Augustine with my friends. 

It is great to have them here and the boys are having do much fun!

Transition

Mormor and morfar went back to Sweden three days ago and I can tell that the boys miss them, I do too!! But we are very happy for the two weeks they spent with us.

Since we expected new guests today (Saturday) we took the chance to meet some of our Ormond friends during the two days in-between-guests. Yesterday we had our Swedish friends from orlando here. The kids had so much fun. We went to a near by park and broghy their bikes. It was a nice day even though it was freezing in the morning (we even had icicles on the car). 

We harvest our mushrooms the other day. They were really yummy!!!

Now Sofia, Mobi and Fatima are here and the boys fell asleep at 11:30pm!! We'll see when we wake up tomorrow..,

Our organic mushroom farm

I got this organic mushroom farm for Christmas and it seems to be a success. A perfect gift for a swede who misses the mushroom hunting in Sweden. They grow like weeds!

I just had to share this!

It is way past midnight but Gabriel does not seem to care the slightest... He is so happy I just had to share this before going to bed!

The sun keeps shining!

I have been struggling with my blogger app on my phone and today I finally manage to post the Thursday post (wet n wild). I did change the date for the post after it was posted so it still looks like it was done Thursday :-) However, that post being so late and difficult to get online made the rest of the posts late so here comes a quick review of the past three days.

Friday

Great chili and sunny day. We spent the day at the playground and in the evening me and Alex went out for a dinner without any children, not even Gabriel!!! Cousin Owen and his girlfriend Hollie joined us. Mormor and morfar took the boys and farmor and farfar came over for dinner and helped out. They came up to Ormond on Tuesday.

 

Morfar driving the fire truck

A drink and Gator bites (alligator) for appetizer

 Saturday

Great day at Silver Springs national park. Pappa stayed home to work :-( since he took Thursday off.

 

Silver Springs National park

Marlee got the chance to pet a Corn snake (same kind of snake that he had on his bike a few weeks ago)

Pic nic with Swedish pancake and Swedish Lingonsylt :-)

I am trying to convince Alex that we should build rocking chair like this (please encourage him if you talk to him!!!)

Marvelous Marlee!!!

Mormor trying to take a picture of us all (which might seem like an easy task but is surprisingly difficult!)

We are not trying to hide his precious little face, we are trying to make the bang long enough to go behind the ears, on our Rock star!

We went on a glass bottom boat ride. It was fun!

One of the springs. It is unknown how deep it is but the deepest anyone have been in it is 81 feet

A very old boat on the bottom. Possibly from the Spanish settlers..

big fallen log

Probably one of the most romantic places to celebrate Valentines day

Morfar made a fire when we got home and farmor and farfar came over. We discovered that old palm leaves work great! :-)

Today (Sunday)

The sun keeps shining and we enjoyed coffee outside after going to church. Later we went to the park with Curren and his mum and little brother Toca. Toca took his first three steps at the park!!!!

 

Noah and Toca playing at the playground

 

Last night farmor and farfar brought us a new (and better) TV and took the one we had to use in their house. Both me and Alex were kind of reluctant, thought the one we had was perfectly fine (just like old stubborn folks). I hardly use our TV and do not really care about what kind or how big TV we have. Or that is what I thought until I tried the new TV and its functions. IT IS SO GOOD!! It has all the things we need and that we normally use when watching something (Netflix and YouTube) except for Swedish TV, and we do not even need to use a laptop. It is so convenient and I really don't want to go back now (just like old stubborn folks, except they would not admit it ;-)!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wet n wild!!

We enjoyed the sun yesterday and spent most of the afternoon outside. Marlee and Noah prepared valentines cards for their friends at school. Morfar replanted some of the cactuses that he helped us remove from the front door. Marlee has played a lot of yatzee with Mormor and he is getting so good at counting!!! Farmor and farfar are here now, too, and we enjoyed dinner with them last night. 

Today we had a great day at wet n wild! Could have been a lite warmer, especially if you ask Noah but we had a lot of fun! Marlee was do brave and went on several of the big rides! Gabriel was amazing, he slept pretty much the whole time we where there. I must say that it is rather challenging to go to a water park like this with so many small children but thanks to all pappa, mormor and morfar we all got to enjoy both big slides, family slides and the boys!

You might not see this again

(Tried publishing this from my phone all day yesterday but no luck...)

Alex posing in a suit (tie might be added later). He is on his way to Jacksonville to give a speak on a conference and is all dressed up :-) Good luck, darling!