Sunny Days

It's the third day in a row of gorgeous weather, so we are trying to walk around town as much as possible. On the walk to school, though, it was only 8 degrees...beautiful, but a bit chilly! By the afternoon it was about 22, which actually feels quite hot when you're this far north and the sun is directly overhead. I've noticed that often, here, that the sun is very intense when it's out. At home, the sun is bright and in your eyes making you squint in the early morning, and as it sets whereas here it seems to be that bright all the time unless the sky is full of clouds.

Monday morning started at about 5am. Not really my ideal wakeup time, but Anders and I happened to look out the window and the sky was so dark and clear, the stars were bright and the moon glowed. It was gorgeous! He doesn't often get to see the night sky like that, so it was particularly awesome for him -he commented on it several times throughout the day. The sun came up somewhere around 6:15 or 6:30 and the city started to come awake.

When it was time to leave for school, Jeff and I smiled at how grown up they look, leading the way. Anders likes to carry his lunchbag, whereas Torben prefers to have his hands free for other things (like picking up rocks...he has soooo many "favourite" rocks he collects each day!) so he puts his inside his backpack for the walk.

They are going to be making rockets at school this week, so they're each supposed to bring in an empty 1.5L bottle. This means we'll have to buy some pop! We really haven't had much since we've been here, but I do think we can manage to finish off a bottle of Coca Cola for the cause.

I did a little more crocheting over the weekend -the boys asked if they could sit and watch me crochet, and decided the bear Grandma sent in her package last week needed a hat like the Barbie hat, so I came up with this one. It's even got a strap to go under his chin to keep it on tightly.

I still want to try to learn to knit, though, and I realized the needles and yarn I bought are the type you'd use for mittens or slippers, and that seems a bit too much for me at this point. So I went back to the recycle shop and bought some larger needles and larger yarn. We'll see if that makes a difference in what I can come up with. Otherwise, Barbie might have a lot of little throw blankets!

Dinner on Monday was vegetarian night. Our kids weren't the only kids who weren't particularly excited about it...I heard a couple others say "just eat the potatoes, then" but really it was all very good. There were roasted tomatoes, spicy roasted carrots, turnips and beets, a salad of spinach, tomatoes, avocado and feta, another salad of spinach and roasted almonds, potatoes with Parmesan, and a warm cabbage and pea salad. Svea particularly liked the beets and carrots -and they all liked the peas. I thought all of the roasted vegetables were really good. It's amazing how that type of cooking brings out the flavour in them.

It's another sunny day, and I think I will go read a book. Jeff's sitting here on the porch reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" for his class and Svea's asleep.