Sunday with the Roos

Melanie, who lives on Åland, is a childhood friend of ours. Her dad and our dad drove to Alaska together and had subsequent adventures together. They would get together every year or so and hash over adventures, tell outlandish stories, try to play outrageous tricks on each other, and generally behave hilariously while both wives would stand off to the side rolling their eyes and offering support to the other in having to deal with a grown up child as a spouse. 

It was a good bonding experience for all of us kids. We planned trips to Alaska together that never materialized. Yet anyway. 

Instead, we met Mel on a little island between Sweden and Finland, where she now lives with her husband. His family is local to the area and we have looked at her pictures of life over here with delight and envy. It was so gorgeous. And Sweden!! We always wanted to see Sweden. 

Then suddenly, there we were. In Åland, which is actually not quite Swedish, but they speak Swedish. Mel living here had a lot to do with our choosing Sweden in the first place. 

Vacation is all very fine, but it is so much nicer to have an old friend to hang out with while you are vacationing. 

After Sunday morning meeting at their place, where Mel translated for us, the kids took us on a tour of the house. Ingrid and Viktor have Harry Potter decorations in there room, so I had to take a lot of pictures for my Harry Potter obsessed children.

Ingrid showing us her wand

Love the beams! And the rocking chair. And the sheepskin. 

Hanging out in the sunshiney kitchen while Mel got lunch for us. The rods above the island were traditionally used for drying bread. 

Dry bread is a big thing. 

New leaves in the entry

Bird identification books that Ingrid and Viktor pulled out to see if we could figure out what little white bird was on the sea behind our airbnb. 

A traditional oven

Lindsey showing them where Alaska was

Jakob playing under the table. 

Looking for birds

Most of the homes we visited had little lights hanging down in front of the windows--cozy lighting. 

I loved these ones with their sparkling light!

Ashley checking out the sticky putty

Lunch

Isn't the amount of sunshine terrific?

When our families got together when we were kids, the adults always played progressive rummy. All of us kids inherited a love for it, so we had to play a game together for old times sake. 

Mel was a little distracted by a lapful of kids

The music corner

Ashley hanging out

Jakob showing me his bike helmet

Buds just starting

Birds in the tree

Barn on the way to the sea

The sea is only a five-ten minute walk from Mel and Gunnar's place 

Cool fences

Tori wading in

Oh sparkling day!

Jakob trying not to let his feet get too cold

bubble boots

Our shadows

A little house by the sea

Lichen and moss

Crocuses

Pussywillows

An old barn

Their front yard

Viktor playing a piece for us

Jakob being his delightful self

Jakob played a quick piece for us on the piano, which was his first ever "performance." So we felt quite honored.

Melanie and her fabulous kids. 

We had a hoot with these guys!

Harry Potter in Swedish

Being cool dudes

They are hilarious kids!

Ingrid showed me her tickets and her play book that she got when she went to London to see the Cursed Child. 

My girls would get along with her so well! 

Ingrid and her fluffy cat

The kids running down to wave goodbye to us. 

They then went inside to tell their mother we went the wrong way. So then Mel called us and told us to turn around. 

Thank goodness for smart kids!

As we drove into town for a quick grocery run, Clover saw this bird and said "Look! A moose!" 

She tried to explain her reasoning (it was long and gangly!), but we were having none of it. It was a BIRD. 

Hilarity ensued. We yelled "Look!A moose!" at random things throughout our time in Sweden.

Clover was so glad she came.

Beautiful moon and tree

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. 

Our cool chandelier

After Mel left, we fell into bed and stayed there for about 12 hours straight. 

And our super cool wood stove in the morning sunlight. 

Things looked much brighter the next morning with a great breakfast and a whole day with Melanie and her family in the offing.