It's a Cotten life: We're going on a Sisters Trip!

A while ago, all of us sisters talked about going on a trip together each year that one of us turned 40. Isn't that a lovely idea? We have never done a trip together as sisters, so we figured it was high time.

Since Clover turned 40 this year, we needed a destination.

Last October we came across some cheap tickets to Stockholm. In a flurry of back and forthing, we booked tickets that night.

There was general excitement about SWEDEN and girls trip and the like. All the husbands were a little unsure about this idea, but eventually everyone got on board. Even though my brother kept asking my sister in law if she actually really meant to go--"You're not really going to go are you?" Dork.

I was terribly, terribly thrilled about the whole thing. Until it got very close. Then I started freaking out just a wee bit more each day.

I never notice my anxiety as a rule. People tease me about being a control freak. I am not a control freak. OF COURSE NOT. However, I do notice that when I leave home and things are a little more unpredictable I start feeling a teensy bit more OCD about things.

Just a teensy bit you understand.

As we got closer to the day we left, I freaked out a little more about everything. Things at home and things in Sweden both got equal billing in my rollcall of potential calamities.

I like to think of myself as an adventurous person. However, I am pretty sure if anyone was around to listen to me prior to departure, they would not hold the same view.

Poor Justin. He had to listen and reassure and endure.

The burden of being married to a fusser.

As much as I was nervous about things, the weather was stinky. This was my drive to work two days before we left.

The day before we left...

Finally, finally, the day we left was sunny and bright. As we drove down towards the city, it began to get green. And daffodilly.

Which did wonders for all my worries. It is harder to worry about nonexistent things when the world is all green and yellow.

Leaving JFK

Landing in Sweden, the grass was green and flowers were blooming. I was already in love with this place!

Ashley, waiting for our rental van, looking fabulous despite the 30 hours of travelling.

A thingy near churches. We still aren't entirely sure what they are. Something to do with funerals we think.

This elderly woman in red was just sitting on the stonewall in the graveyard by herself.

I wonder what she was thinking or feeling

We were not really going at a sightseeing pace.

We wanted to catch the 3:00 ferry to Åland, and we were cutting extremely close.

No dillydallying.

Clover was the rental van driver, and I don't think she thought that through very carefully. There was a little bit of back seat driving happening about the speed at which she was driving, how close she was to the car ahead of us, and how many times we went around the roundabout trying to get out of the airport.

It was all hilarious for the onlookers, but it might not have been quite so funny for Clover. For some reason.

Lucky for us, we made it! The ferry left at 3, and we got there at 2:57. They still let us on.

So Clover pushing the envelope speed wise worked out well for us.

The food was great!

Heading east on the Baltic Sea

Tori, with the shirt of a certain boy she was missing

Livie

After hanging out on the deck for a good long while, we got cold and went inside. We discovered American country music being sung in Swedish.

Which delighted us no end!

So we sat down and played a quick round of cards while listening and being delighted.

Coming into harbor

We waited for them to tell us to go get our cars off, but the only announcements we heard were in Swedish. So we tentatively poked around and eventually decided to take matters into our own hands and go down to our rental van.

And it was a good thing we did because EVERYone else was already long gone.

Oopsie!

Some kind of parasite growing in the trees--perhaps mistletoe?

A little cabin we saw on our way to our airbnb.

Which we had to stop and photograph.

This is our airbnb in summer.

We knew it wasn't summer, but after 30 hours of travel, it was a little disheartening to arrive at...

...this.

See that orange cat? He was a co-habitant of the cabin with us. We knew that and had said it was okay.

What we hadn't factored in was the extensive amount of cat hair everywhere.

It had cool decor inside, bows, arrows, candle chandeliers, fireplaces, etc, but... the cat hair. The lady who lived here was on vacation in France, so the cat had had free reign in the house for a few days. Not sure if that is why, but all the clean sheets, clean towels, counters, tables, had cat hair.

We are not really cat hair people.

A stray cat hair? No big deal. If I sit on your furniture and get up looking like I just changed into a full length fur jacket, I am not thrilled, but it is your house, so whatever. But I draw the line at breathing in cat hair while resting my head on a pillow.

Also, this woman is clearly very into natural things. Makes for cool decor, but not so cool housekeeping. Rather than the smell of fake lemons, we were met with a lingering scent of incense, dirt, and cat.

Plus, there is something about being in the house of someone you don't really know. Things that wouldn't phase you at your friend's house are a little weirder/grosser when you are paying someone to stay at their house.

It was a little discouraging.

However, there was the sea, right out the big window. And there were swans on the sea.

That makes up for a lot.

This woman had a lot going on. She clearly had a lot of gardening and composting happening, beekeeping, an orangerie, ginger growing, caribou hides drying, a trampoline, a sauna, a home grown business....

She is probably quite an interesting person. We can see why housekeeping is not on the top of her list.

However, we really were most interested in her housekeeping at that moment, as narrowminded as it may be.

How the beds were arranged meant that there was no way we would be able to shut the cat our of our room. And cats on our heads while we sleep is not our personal way of expressing happiness.

So there we were feeling exhausted* and a little discouraged when our friend Mel showed up. She brought us a bulging bag of groceries for breakfast, petted the cat, discovered the cat was full of ticks (that probably were carrying Lyme's disease), put the cat food and water outside and locked the cat door.

Pretty much, she made our life much brighter in about two minutes.

She is our hero.

But you will have to wait for a picture of her because I was too exhausted to take one at that moment.

*Being exhausted always makes me a little hysterical--I laughed for a good fifteen minutes about us having to carrying an absurd five foot long cargo area divider thingy for our rental van around Sweden because the rental place said it had to stay with our van. Since there were six of us, it was completely impossible for us to use the divider thingy, so we shoved it behind my back, which was pretty uncomfortable and made me laugh even harder. Seriously, when I get way overtired, you should probably do your best to not be too near me.