But sometimes things work out and people come to visit. Last year and the year before, it was us that flew over and stayed for a month...this year, it was my mom's turn. She hadn't been to Sweden in 4.5 years...unreal. She stayed for nearly a month and it wasn't long enough. It's never long enough. And my brother and his family came for a week and it wasn't long enough either. John and Simone and the boys arrived in Sweden at lunchtime and we met them at Ales Stenar. Then we took them home to drop off luggage and unpack and whisked them off to a friend's 50th birthday party.
During the week they were here, Anders had to work and Karin was in school, but we managed to get some quality time in with all of us. We went to Skånes Djurpark (a huge natural zoo with Scandinavian animals) that has been recently renovated and overstayed our welcome, since we didn't realize the park closed at 2...and we were still hanging out by the splash pool at 3. Oops! We visited Karin's cafe on her last day of work, and Karin and Simone took the boys to the beach one day. We had unprecedented warm weather for weeks and weeks in May: hot and sunny days and cool evenings; a perfect welcome to Swedish summer. Sprinklers in the backyard, picnics. A day at Wanås Sculpture Park. Mountain biking through Häckaberga's nature reserve. Hanging out. Talking. Laughing. Just the things that families do when they do stuff together.

Ales Stenar: Martin, Liz, Sammy and Jakob

Simone makes salad while Liz supervises


Mom and John posing at Wanås Lake









