Tivoli

A friend of me recently posted on her blog with the warning "Massive Picture Post - dial up users beware." And I thought, 'Gee. All of my posts are massive pictures posts. Maybe I should change the name of my blog to Massive Picture Post. ha ha ha'

June 6th is Sweden's National Day. Kind of like the Fourth of July, but different. There aren't a lot of celebrations or traditions - it's really only been a holiday for the past four years or so. But Dave and the kids had the day off, so we went to Tivoli. It was a beautiful day, and all started out well...

Tipton and Lilli waiting in line for the airplane ride.

Lilli was VERY excited - she loves going on all the rides.
Mommy and Lilli on the airplane ride (she is too young to ride by herself.)
Tipton on the airplane ride - he got a whole plane all to himself!
Lilli and Mommy waiting in line for the Nautilus ride. Lilli can't wait!
Lilli and Mommy on the Nautilus ride.Tipton and Daddy on the Nautilus ride.

Tipton on the pirate ship ride (this is before it started moving.)

Mommy and Lilli on the pirate ship ride (again, before it started moving.) The name of the "boat" that we're in is Little Bear.

Daddy and Tipton on the pirate ship ride - while it was going!

Mommy got to sit back, relax and let Lilli do the driving on the antique car "ride."

Daddy and Lilli in line for the Hans Christian Andersson ride.

And then, Lilli crashed. After the Hans Christine Andersson ride we stopped for a drink and a snack. Lilli was not happy. She didn't know what she wanted, but sitting still wasn't it. She threw a tantrum and fell asleep. While she was napping Daddy and Tipton went off to ride the bumper cars. Lilli was still asleep when they came back, so I scooped her up and we went on to the next ride. As I was carrying her, I noticed that she was hot, really hot. She wasn't just tired. She was sick - she had a fever. Lilli and I spent most of the rest of the day at Tivoli like this:

But we still managed to squeeze in a few more rides. Daddy took the kids on the merry-go-round (one of Lilli's favorites.)

After the merry-go-round we all went on the "Camel ride" (aka - the little rollercoaster for the little kids.) It is Tipton's favorite. Sadly, we didn't get any good pictures. Then we headed over to the little ferris wheel. Mommy likes the ferris wheel. I think I look like my sister, Christine, in this picture (not necessarily a bad thing.)

Tipton and Daddy on the ferris wheel.

The last thing we did was to let the kids play on the big playground. Tipton had a blast. Lilli just wanted to go home (poor little thing!) But she did go down the big twisty slide once, with her big brother.

It was a beautiful day and aside from Lilli getting sick halfway through the day we had a good time.

Thursday, June 5th

My friends Sam and Motoko were invited to a going away party for a friend of theirs. They were worrying about getting a babysitter for their kids. I offered to help out.

The kids get along great and play really well together. It was a beautiful day/evening and the kids spent most of it playing in the backyard. (Lilli, Tipton, Aaron, Eren, Karin, Selena) Piggy-back rides seemed to be the 'big' thing. Here Aaron is giving Eren a piggy-back ride.

Selena giving Lilli a piggy-back ride.
Karin giving Eren a ride while Selena gives Lilli a ride.
Karin giving Eren a ride.

Queueing up. Selena gives Tipton a ride.

After they'd tired of piggy-back rides they moved on to other things. The big girls played with the balls & scoops. Here's an action photo of Karin.



Tipton and Aaron played with the balls and nets. Here's an action photo of Aaron.


Good catch, Tipton!


Action photo of Eren.

Eventually the kids moved into the playroom. Selena and Karin had the younger kids sitting down at the "table" while they prepared and served them "dinner."

It was a late night, but there was no school the next day, and the kids were having a great time. My kiddos were so tired, but didn't want to stop having fun.

Tipton had such a great time. He keeps asking me if we can have everyone over again.

Tennis Anyone?

At the end of May Dave tennis racquets for Tipton and Lilli. Tipton had taken a tennis camp over the Sportlov break in February and has continued to talk about how much he liked playing tennis. I am going to sign him up for a tennis class in the fall, and will try to get him into a couple of the mini tennis camps over the summer. So it's only fitting that he gets his own racquet. And of course if Tipton has a racquet then Lilli wants to have one, too... Dave also bought about two dozen tennis balls (good thing, because there are already several up on the roof.)

Daddy playing with Tipton:


Daddy playing with Lilli (who is much better at it than we expected her to be):

Lilli and Tipton practicing against the wall (I'm sure our neighbors just LOVE us!)

Djurparken

In May Tipton's class had a trip to the zoo (djurparken) in Höör. (A little over an hours drive away.) I went along to help out. On the bus ride there Tipton and Samantha were 'buddies.'

Nami, Keisuke's mom, was my buddy. Ingrid, Tipton's teacher, assigned us all children to look after. I was responsible for Tipton, Aaron and Alper. My kids were nice enough to have been the only children in the class wearing orange. We named ourselves the Orange Team. (Alper, Aaron, Tipton)

We explored the zoo on our own for a while, then we all met for lunch and to have a guided 'tour' of the zoo. Our tour started off at the sea lions.

Next we moved on to the wolves. We had eaten lunch in front of the wolf exhibit earlier in the day. I think the wolves are the most popular exhibit at the zoo.

From there we moved on to the bears. The bears were really cool, because they were so close you could almost reach out and touch them. It's like they were waiting for us!

Our guided tour ended at the lynx exhibit. At this point everyone was hot and tired. And the lynx was waaaaaaay in the back, hiding in the grass.

At the end of the trip, we had spent just as much time playing on the playgrounds as we had spent looking at the animals. But the kids had a great time and it was a beautiful day.

Riborsborg

Towards the end of May we rode our bikes down to Riborsborg (a large area along the beach.) Earlier in the month Dave and I had taken Lilli to Riborsborg while Tipton was at a birthday party. We hadn't brought swimsuits, but we took off our shoes and walked into the water. Then Lilli wanted to splash and play in the water. So I took off her clothes and let her play in her panties. Not unusual here. Actually, maybe it is - most kids go completely naked at the beach. Anyway, so for this trip to the beach I was better prepared. Had the kids in their swimsuits, slathered on the sunscreen, had towels and changes of clothes... And the kids didn't want to go anywhere near the water. "It's too windy!" Fortunately, there is also a nice playground at Riborsborg... So we still managed to have fun.

Samba Football

Tipton took a four week Samba Football class. It wasn't quite the instructional soccer class I had envisioned, but he had a lot of fun, and he did improve his soccer skills. I took pictures on the last day. I took lots and lots of pictures, but the kids move so darned fast that almost all of the pictures were blurry (or the kids had moved out of the frame by the time I pressed the button on the camera.)

The boy in red is Aaron. He and Tipton were on the same team. Tipton is wearing orange shorts. The boy with the dark blue striped shorts is Keisuke. The tall boy in the long pants is Sho, Keisuke's older brother. He didn't take the class, but was allowed to play on the last day. (There weren't many kids there on the last day.)

Tipton runs with the ball - Go, Tipton! Go!


"Team" photo. Back row: Sho, Aaron, Tipton & the Coach. Front Row: Keisuke, Giovani & Tatsuja

Pretty Dresses and a Tattoo

Lilli is all about looking pretty.

Here is Lilli the princess, with the flower garland that Grandma Suzie brought her from Texas.

Lilli likes to play in Tipton's room. Sometimes Tipton likes her to play in his room. Sometimes he does not.

Grandma Suzie made several dresses and skirts for Lilli while she was here visiting. This is one of those dresses, modeled here in the sandbox:

And modeled here with the rainbow hat and pink mirrored sunglasses:

This is Lilli's favorite dress made by Grandma Suzie. The pink princess crown was also a gift from Grandma Suzie.

It's like a bean bag bunk bed!

Grandma Suzie recently send Lilli some very lovely dresses. We got the first dress when we got home from the Bladins Spring Festival (hence the painted pink cheeks.) Lilli refers to this dress as "the one with the blocks!"

Tipton got a dragon tattoo at the Spring Festival. I asked him to show me his best 'tough guy' face.

Speaking of tough guys... Daddy gets this face alot when he tries to eat Lilli's food.

The kids love to help me bake, especially Lilli. And of course if you're going to bake you need to be dressed properly. (She is holding a sticky rubber skeleton in her hands, the kind that sticks to the ceiling and then falls down on to unsuspecting Mommies...)

Fancy dress #2 (also known as "the dress with the balls!") Modeled here with the pink princess crown, pink sateen gloves and ballet slippers.

Tipton had to get in on the photo shoot. He was Super Kid. I just love their expressions...

And here is 'Super Kid' with his light saber.