Holidays

I promised pictures of some certain events a long time ago. That is, thedayafterThanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's! 

Thanksgiving

Believe it or not, I was working on Thanksgiving and therefore had no time or energy to prepare the meal. Sadly this was not the first time I'd worked Thanksgiving. In high school Meredith and I worked at the Bingo Casino. God holiday pay, woo hoo. We also stole some pies from our family and took them to work with us. Take that!!!

Back on track... On Friday I left work early (that's how I roll(ed)) and got to cooking! I had skyped with my dad and brother the day before and decided to make my turkey EXACTLY like they did theirs!! 

(the only small difference is that my turkey was in fact a chicken)

Basting it...

 The Turkey

Gracefully getting the turkey off the makeshift turkey roaster while trying to salvage the delicious drippings

 Timed shot of the 3.5 Thanksgiving guests

(about the darkness outside: no, it's not late at night. It is just Sweden)

Not the most appetizing plating, but it was good! 

 Starting at 9:00 and clockwise we have the

Turkey (me)

Green bean casserole (me)

Mashed potatoes (Christoffer - I'm not telling if they're real or from a mix)

Gravy (me)

Roll (me but they were frozen)

Salad (me)

Salad dressing (me)

Olives - made me nostalgic for my usual Thanksgiving

Thanks for the help cooking everyone! :-P

Oh yes and we even enjoyed some American wine! Wooo hoooo!!!!

 Christmas (in Switzerland)

Wrapping & forging mom's long-distance Christmas present to her mom with her mom's fun supply of wrapping materials.

How do you rotate pictures on here?

Omi's decor

The Christmas tree! (pre-candles)

Omi (AKA Nonna to everyone else besides me and my older brother, talk about feeling singled out) 

sitting with her beautiful and delicious Christmas Eve spread that she so lovingly cooked and put so much detail into the table decor. <3

The red balls are chocolates :)

 Featuring...  really good meat (forgot), mashed potatoes & gravy, bacon-wrapped green beans, carrots and broccoli. I documented a lot of her cooking during my stay.

This wasn't any special dinner. I repeat, just another normal dinner in my Grandma's house :)

 Featuring... her to-die-for beef wellington, some awesome thick pasta with a delicious sauce, roasted fennel, pears, parmesan and last but not least, some fancy dancy cheese sprinkled with pepper.

 The Wellington and some veggies. Exciting, I know.

 

Omi making Gnocchi!

While I colored a pretty picture! (and sort of helped her)

 

 How do you rotate!??!?!

We went sledding down the (barely) Alps.

 

 

 

 New Year's

Christoffer and I hung out with his childhood bestie and girlfriend in their awesome new house! They were the best hosts ever, keeping the drinks flowing and preparing a 3-course meal for us! Starter was something delicious with seafood in it (my memory is failing me). Main course steak with a special potato dish, cooked collards, uuhhh it was a long time ago... Dessert was if I remember correctly a raspberry mousse or something? Anyway it was delicious and really nice! We were greeted at the door with cocktails and fed plenty of beer and wine. Not to mention our midnight champagne and the after-midnight wine plus I almost died of happiness when I saw the cheese platter.

Mr. New Year's

  

Someone's champagne fell without making a sound. Can you spot the glass?

Our lovely hosts

 The classy besties..

Daycare

Some stories about a couple of the FIVE daycares above which I live... If this is too much text but you are slightly curious, then just read Daycare 3. It is the best and most "OMG!"-worthy. And I wanted to take photos to show you the scenes of crime to these stories but as there are kids playing right now I probably would have gotten accused of pedophilia.

Daycare 1:
Directly under the balcony. The kids are pretty cute for the most part. They were possessed for about a month and EVERY MORNING as a group, they (very cultlike) would yell "ey ya ey ya ey ya ey ya ey ya" over and over and over again. For the first couple weeks it was only one crazy kid. Pretty soon it spread to the whole preschool class. The leader child would start and then the rest of the kids would gradually follow and it would grow louder and louder.

Some hypotheses:

The kids seemed to yell this when one of them was on the bouncy horse. Maybe they were trying to say "yeehaw." But the rhythm wasn't quite right for that.

Maybe one of the kids IS troubled in some way and that is just "her thing." (We're pretty sure it was a girl). After a while the other kids thought it was awesome.

Maybe they are yelling "Heja!" to each other which is a way to cheer someone on when for example running a marathon, or riding a bouncy horse.

(We think it's the third one.)

Daycare 2:
I'm not really sure where this daycare is, probably far away... (under another apartment building). All I know is standing on my balcony I looked down and saw some kids running down the very long courtyard (like 4 blocks long). Just a couple tiny toddlers by themselves, wearing protective neon vests. Then a couple other kids. Then more. Then 5 more kids. Then some walking kids. "Where the hell is the teacher!!!?!??!" I wondered. I looked at the first kids and they were already a couple blocks up almost to the fountain at the end of the courtyard (nearing the street, mind you). Looked back a block the other way, THERE was one teacher, pushing a stroller and lovingly caring for a few of the toddlers. (keyword, FEW). I couldn't watch anymore. I know corporal punishment is illegal here, but is yelling so kids a mile away can hear also illegal? And why is unemployment such a problem here if these daycares have a 1:20 ratio? SORRY I promise I am not bashing Sweden. This is clearly not typical daycare protocol.

This is a dramatic shot I found online. Taken from where the front kids were, showing the peril they were headed for.

Daycare 3:
Another mysterious daycare was playing in a little sandbox mini-playground. And I was creepily creeping on them. One kid was throwing sand in another kid's face. The poor victim was powerlessly trying to cover his face and otherwise just sitting there and taking it. A daycare teacher was miraculously present (I know, right?) and started making her way toward the kids. Ooh! I thought I want to analyze how they discipline around here! How very interesting, you know? Would she avoid negative words like "no" or "don't"-? Would she opt for "we"-? Would she say please? What tone would she use? The suspense was killing me as the woman approached the children. You know what happened next?

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The daycare lady continued walking past the sand-thrower, made her way to the swings, and started swinging.


I'm not saying this is how everyone here is. Surely not. But when living above a daycare you get to see what goes on when the parents are NOT there! Most of the shit that goes down down there would not have been tolerated at the daycare where I used to work!!

(Positive Plug:) But other than that Sweden is VERY child friendly. At least I think they are, because their second biggest city is more child friendly than my hometown in KS. And daycare only costs like $150 a month. That's pretty awesome. (Unless they let kids throw sand in each other's faces, unsupervised.)

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Oh yeah! You didn't care about any of that stuff I just wrote! Sorry, it'd be a waste to erase it all now. Anyway I'll have to share pics and stories of my actual life another time.

In recent news, I found a book in the elevator! Marley och Jag. :) I applied my 24-hour rule and then quickly went back to get it before another thief did (since the owner was obviously out of the picture by then). I'll put it back after I read it.

Just too cute to leave unwanted in the dirty elevator.