Newsletter 2005

The big event this year is that we actually started building our garage. Accidentally a greenhouse, a little hill, a big sandbox, a lot of stone pavement and new outer doors just happened to be fixed at the same time. With the help of Axel, Johan and several friends and a big building company Cacke has spent the most part of his spare time this year in building the garage. The digging started end of May and the last nail was banged into the roof mid september. We used up two tonnes of cement just for gluing the building stones of the walls. Now, we just have to do the small final things, like adding roof tiles, doors, windows.......

The garden has been embellished with a hill that goes all the way to heaven. It is approximately 5 feet high and perfect for biking down or going down in a car. If you go down the wrong way you go into our green house which actually is green. The cucumbers loved it, but all the other things we planted objected strongly to being put into the earth in the midddle of June instead of the beginning of May and promptly died. If you go down the hill the other way you go into the big sandbox. The combination of water and sand is irresistible for small and big children (like Kersti) resulting in a lot of canals and dams with plenty of water in the sandbox.

The children keep growing like weeds, almost enough that the grown ups realize that we are slowly growing old. Johan is now 2 years old and he talks very much. The problem is to understand what he is saying. He can already count to 14 and he loves chocolate and ice cream. Axel is now 4 yaers old and quite philosophical. He always asks why, as he otherwise will not find out how things work. He is thoughtful of his friends, and he is already planning to have an apartment that is big enough for all of them when he moves away from home.

 

This summer we filled the car with everything that a family with children absolutely need to bring (eg feeding bottle, extra feeding bottle, spare feeding bottle and a spare for the spare feeding bottle) and then we went to Denmark where we rented a house for a week. Of course we visited Legoland. Both guys loved it and Axel asked us why we had not thought to bring him there earlier. We can really recommend Legoland, it was nice even for grown ups! The children appreciated the Lego-shaped French fries. After Legoland we went to Hamburg to visit friends. The children were so exhausted after Legoland though that they did not have energy to do almost anything at all. It was nice meeting Gunnar and Tina though, and now we also know that even long trips work. We are now planning for an even longer trip. Axel wants to visist the Canary islands.

 

Kersti went to USA to a conference in June and brought home nice tooth brushs for the children. Cacke visited China in Novemeber and brought home twice as much luggage as he had when he went there. Among other things he brought home violins for the kids and beautiful, useful house shoes. We are using the Chinese liqour he brought home to scare away unwanted guests and the black market DVDs we are laughing at a lot as the translators are often very inventive.

Our roomer Mary moved out in June to her own apartment and we got a new roomer, Becky, in August. Becky is also an American. She moved out in December.

 

This year we received three beautiful new outer doors. Two red for the back of the house and an oak door for the front. The doors are made by a carpenter to be modern copies of the old doors. Modern in this case means that the new doors keep cold and thieves on the outside and warmth and friends on the inside.

Kersti & Cacke 

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Last update: Jan. 23, 2006