Visiting Grandmama

Now all of John's siblings with families were gathered in Texas, so we decided to go and visist with their Grandmama Effie, their dad's mother. She is 95 years old but in good shape and spirits.

Grandmama Effie

Grandmama with grandkids and great grandkids

The photografers, Aunt Betty, where grandmama was staying, and Grammy Gay, John's mom.

Grandmama and some of her great grandchildren.

The kids enjoyed playing with all the toys that belonged to Aunt Betty and Uncle Charles' granddaughter. Here Zachary, Ella Kate and Mia.

Hannah and Brock

Emma and Amilie

Zach, Mia, Hannah and Emma.

Amilie and cousins at John's mom

Amilie really enjoyed meeting and playing with her cousins while staying at John's mom's house. His sister Sabrina and family were there with us so she got to play with the twins, Corinne and Emma, Brock and Hannah a lot. Grandma found this table stored in the garage that fit perfectly for the kids to enjoy their meals by. Emma, Amilie, Brock, Corinne and Hannah having some drinks in the pleasant warm weather.

A few days later, smily Emma and Corinne.

Amilie playing with Emma and Corinne (and her favorite wet rag).

Amilie in shorts for the first time after learing to walk. She got her first scruff on her knee whilst playing with dad in the playground. (Mom was Christmas shopping with aunt Sabrina).

Amilie and Brock hit it off really well. They just had a lot of fun together, Amilie especially, couldn't get enought playtime with Brock.


Amilie being entertained by her lovely cousins Brock and Hannah.

Amilie was lucky to get all the cardboard books that the twins had outgrown. She loved this one about the bear cub and would act out the story every time.

My Birthday in Nederland, Texas

We arrived in Nederland, where John's mom lives, on my birthday, the 17th of December. She had arranged a surprise birthday party for me: Sabrina, John's sister and family came in the same time as us, flying in from Raleigh, North Carolina, we met in the airport together with Tony, John's brother and his wife, and John's mom took us all to the tex-mex restaurant, Casa Olé. I realized this would be my birthday party when I saw her carrying a cake into the restaurant. Neat! We had a good time enjoying excellent food and white cake! :) Amilie, Anne Grethe, Corinne, Gay, Tony and Cindy.

Brent, Brock, Hannah, Gay, waitress, Corinne, Emma and Sabrina.

The twins and I. They surely know how to put a nice smile on.

Thanks for a nice birthday party, dear mother-in-law! :)

Thanks to my sister-in-law, Heather, I was able to celebrate my birthday again when she and the family came down from Nashville a few days later. She had brought delicious cupcakes from Ivey'sCakes. Yummi-yummi. Thank you Heather for thinking about me! :)

Cold in San Antonio

I come from a place where we have sudden weather changes but this is the first time in life that I have experienced such an extreme change of temperature. One day 75/25 degrees out in the sun working on my tan, the next day 43/7! That is to me extreme! Back in our winterclothes and ready to see downtown San Antonio.

Here outside the Alamo where there was a battle between the Mexicans and the Texans in the 1830s.

The Alamo

Amilie in David Crockett hat.

Summer flowers at home are winter flowers here.

The River Walk with loads of restaurants.

Nice stroll on the river walk.

Birds around sculpture.

Chocolate factory! We had to have a taste of this delicious

Chocolate Fudge! :)

We chose to have our dinner here though.

River walk by night.

Amilie and the Indian, neither very happy. San Antonio being so close to Mexico and earlier belonging to Mexico, there is a lot of Mexican influence in the city:

Hot weather in San Antonio Texas

Our first stop in Texas was Chris' house in San Antonio Texas. Fortunate for Amilie he has some nieces so there was some toys lying around for Amilie to play with. He had actually bought some extra for Amilie.

She liked this dog a lot and it also made a good companion for bedtime.

It was not so warm when we arrived in Texas, but during the next day it warmed up and we went outside to enjoy the nice weather. Here Chris and Amilie in Chris' yard.

Chris and John met at the race track so of course John had to put Amilie in one of Chris' race cars.

It was getting warmer and warmer so Amilie found a fun place to play in the shadow. I didn't really understand what she was playing in untill the night came and the neighbour put air into the plastic - it was one of his Christmas decorations, a globe with snowmen inside. Hope she didn't destroy anything.... Seemed to work fine the next night at least...



John enjoyed being in his short sleeves and shorts again. Amilie always like to play with him.



It got warmer and warmer and I had forgotten I had put woollen underwear on Amilie that morning because the house was quite cold after some days of cold weather. Poor Amilie got fussier and fussier till I realized it was probably because she was so warm...


It surely helped her mood to take some clothes of.

... and even more... Chris said she shouldn't eat the berries, she did anyways - at least had a taste...


We enjoyed the afternoon downtown at a Mexican eat out.


"This is REAL Tex-Mex!", John says.

Mom and Amilie enjoyed it too.

Amilie also enjoyed walking around in the garden of palm trees.

Summer in the middle of winter, yes please! :)

Enjoying the snow

Yesterday was a really nice, cold and dry day. The day before it had snowed some so we decided to enjoy the nice weather by taking Amilie to the hill by the church for some sleigh riding. Here are a few clips. The sun sets really early these days, so even though we got out as soon as Amilie had had her nap, the light was already becoming dimmer.

Sorry, the blog won't cooperate. Tried for 2 hours now and no results. Will try again tomorrow.

Some other time. Sleighing was fun. :)

Christmas celebration in Sweden

Because we are going to spend Christmas in the US this year we decided to meet with some of my family in our house in Sweden for a weekend to share some gifts and have some time together. Amilie's cousins, my sister Elisabeth's daughters had wrapped up some of their toys that they wanted to give Amilie, some new and some used. Nice and personal gifts from one kid to another, sweet. Amilie had a ball getting all the attention and unwrapping one gift after another. She also got all their "lego" that she already has been playing with loads.

Ada, Hanna and Christina enjoying giving Amilie their gifts.

My sister Elisabeth, Amilie and Christina.

Christina helping Amilie putting on her new Christmas hat.

Hanna and Amilie, here with glassy eyes because of an eye infection.

Ada (6 years) got Hanna Montana mike and "guitar" from the US. She almost knew all the words to the songs even.

Hanna (8) got a High School Musical mike and a note book from the same show. She enjoyed the singing too.

Christina also enjoyed her US gift from High School Musical. They are getting more educational gifts later, those and these from us and my sister Jorunn(luckily we got these before the dollar got so expensive). Here she and Christina are enjoying our play room in Sweden.