The Golden Birthday

Fourteen years and 940 posts later we are in a brand new decade celebrating the golden birthday of the boy for whom blog once started. 

"The Golden Birthday" wasn't a thing when i grew up.... but it is the birthday when your age matches the day of the month.  Mathias turns 14 on March 14th. [Johan celebrated his golden birthday three years ago].  We asked what he wanted to do to celebrate and the answer was a family ski trip.  Here we are in northern Minnesota recovering from a long day of skiing. Unfortunately, Johan broke an arm skiing. But we have been assured it is a minor break (as breaks go). He'll get a cast Monday. 

As developmental milestones come fewer and farther between, time is permanently in short supply, and inspiration possibly lacking... this might be a time as good as any to wrap up this blog.

If you have read this blog - thank you for following!

For Mathias and Johan (and myself) the blog will be archived. Perhaps in the future, the boys will be interested in looking at old photos of themselves.  Surely, Ericka and i will one day nostalgically look back on busy and hectic, but fun, years that we would want back if we only could.

Love,

Patrik 

A new decade

We attempted to ring in the 2020s with skis on our feet.  One of the local hills was open until midnight. They even had fireworks earlier in the evening. The weather turned cold and we petered out by 9 and went home.  We were sound a snooze by the time the new years bells rang. 

Christmas 2019

After a month of decorations, cooking, and preparations... Christmas came and went in a whirlwind!

Santa Claus was very kind to the boys and we enjoyed some delicious Swedish food on Christmas Eve. Christmas day was quiet and uneventful. There was even snow on the ground!

Christmas Prep

Christmas snuck up on us very quickly. Somehow we managed to make it to Ingebretsen's for a ham, meatball mix, and anchovies. The Christmas tree got chopped down (all child labor nowadays, which is quite nice!). Ericka and Johan cranked out the Rosettes and Krumkaka. The boys also put together a small village of ginger bread houses. Let's fire off those Christmas tunes now! 

Band Concerts

With brilliant timing, Johan's 5th grade band concert and Mathias' 7th grade concert... were held the same night.  I got to attend the first concert for the fifth graders.  They did a terrific job.  Johan's concert was short  We were in and out in 25 minutes! The band teacher should get some kind of medal. 

Eggs!

Johan's chickens have started laying eggs in earnest!  At first there was one layer producing not quite one egg per day.  Then another one joined in.  Today we go a whopping 4 eggs! It's definitely time start pulling together some recipes, or cultivate sales channels. If they all start laying eggs we could have 1/2 dozen per day...
And Johan is looking to add a few new ones in January so he can show them at the County Fair in June...

Halloween 2019

As the boys get older they take on more and more of the Halloween activities. I have gone from doing all of the pumpkin carving to doing mostly 'consulting' work as needed! The boys are now coming up with their own designs, transferring them to the pumpkin and doing most of the carving. It is quite nice to just sit back and watch! It also turns out chickens really like pumpkin! 

Mathias invited his friend Bode to go trick-or-treating wearing matching "morphing suits", a rather strange invention. Johan went with his friend Jack. Both came home with candy to last several months (maybe!).