Still Cold and Dark

 February 2024

I'm writing this from the future. April 2025 to be exact. Based on the few pictures that I have, I get the feeling that it was a bit of a weird month. We were still sleeping on the floor with only the kitchen things that we brought in our suitcases. The kids continued adjusting to their new school, and we tried to find the ever-present darkness exciting rather than depressing. 

We tried princesstårta made to look like a frog, our first Kex bars, and lots of other goodies.

We checked out Exploritoriet with lots of hands-on activities and experienced the then-surprising cultural norm of walking around in our socks at such a place. 

It stayed so cold this winter that the snow pretty much stuck around until almost the end of spring. Park benches and playground equipment were fully buried which made just another fun version of the playground to enjoy.

We enjoyed walking to a nearby ice rink to play a few times and love that we can easily get there on foot and that it's completely free.

The silver lining to having only a few hours of sunlight in the winter is that it's hard to miss the sunrises and sunsets since you're definitely awake and out of the house when they happen. Andrew captured this one on his way to or from work.

I exist!

Without our haircutting stuff having arrived yet, the boys got to have their very first salon haircuts!

The kids were LOVING this little hockey game while we checked out a possible vehicle to buy.

In an effort to make some friends, I went to a Galentine's Dinner / Speed Friendship event. The food was SO good and I made a few connections as well.

We had a little bit of a scheduling miscommunication, but Andrew ended up taking the kids to their first hockey game that same night. Skellefteå won and all the kids lot it was a blast. 

This picture really cracked me up just now because I found these two goofballs playing this exact same game three days ago. I don't know why they think it's hilarious to put on as many layers of clothing as possible, but I guess it's a hit that's not going anywhere.

We loved having these missionaries here. We got to have lots of dinners and game nights with them, and Alex loved being their buddy. He still wears one of their name tags every so often.