Kanelbullens Dag!

October 4, 2013 - You have to love a country that has a special day dedicated to cinnamon rolls!  Kanelbullens Dag (cinnamon roll day) has been celebrated since 1999 when the Swedish Home Baking Council celebrated it's 40th anniversary.  Although, Audra's science teacher suspects it was started by 7-11 (which sells baked goods here along with the usual convenience store items).  Every bakery we approached or train station we were in on Friday smelled of cinnamon.  The cafeteria at school served all the students cinnamon rolls for snack. 

Lorene and I stopped at Saturnus Cafe, a lively place, for coffee and an enormous cinnamon roll before picking the girls up from school.

Chokladfestivalen

October 3, 2013 - Lorene and I took the commuter train out to Stockholm's trade show complex to check out the Chokladfestivalen (a no-brainer!).  A lot of beautiful, tasty chocolates and not one chocolate that can make salty licorice (salmiak lakrits) taste good!

The Birthday Party

We invited Sofia's whole class to her birthday party at Marion's Gastro Diner... a very fun, retro diner/disco bowling alley.  Shoes are self serve in cubbies on one wall.  Screens (luckily in Swedish or English) are at each lane for entering names, bumpers (nej or ja!).  The kids bowled for one hour before having burgers for lunch. 

What I learned: 

Hang out with the girls... the boys were very protective (?), attached to (?) their bowling balls and would carry them around in between their turns even though we explained that all the balls were for sharing and should stay on the rack for everyone to use.  Amazingly no one lost a toe. 

Some of the kids were upset because their score wasn't showing up... they only had a black line.  Before I could explain to them that it means a strike and is a good thing they had erased the screen and started the game over.  Kids are very comfortable with any kind of electronics!

Balls were pretty much thrown and not rolled... many ended up stuck on the wrong side of the bumpers.

We are now persona non grata and won't be booking another party at Marion's Gastro Diner for a long time! The restaurant didn't have anything but milkshakes to serve for a birthday treat so I brought two princess tortes to serve.  The waitress nicely let me know that it was not allowed (in fact, against the law) to bring in outside food and we could not serve it.  Two Swedish moms stepped in and ask to see a copy of the law.  After some searching the management says the law has been changed and we can serve the cake!  Manuela rocks and I am happy to have her and Sara on my team!

Sofia and Kristina

Gabriella

Sofia's 7th Birthday

October 3, 2013 - Sofia was extremely excited about her birthday so the pressure was on!  Breakfast by candlelight with pastries from the Riddarbageriet Bakery just down the street followed by some present opening before school, of course!  Treats at school, more presents after school, Swedish meatballs for dinner and in lieu of birthday cake... biskvis all around! 

Rice krispy treats at school

More presents to open after school!

Sofia's birthday cake choice... biskvis

Biskvi

Let me introduce you to the Swedish treat called biskvi...

The bottom is an almond macaroon cookie, topped with a mound of chocolate butter cream and coated with a chocolate ganache.  Sofia can put away an entire biskvi in one sitting... even after eating a full dinner of Swedish meatballs!

Ferry from Vaxholm

A typical fall day in Sweden on a short ferry ride from Vaxholm in the archipelago. The girls are inside trying to figure out which DVDs do not have regional coding and will play in Sweden. Someday they will remember the sights???

The new car

Yes... We are now the proud owner of a new minivan. Here it is tucked in our garage where it will be most of the time. The girls all prefer to walk now. Sofia made it very clear that she does not like the car on a little road trip on Saturday where she earned the honor of being the first to get sick within the first 100 kilometers of the new Sharan's life.