Prep for tomorrow

Just some pictures from the setup to the Auction tomorrow… we donated two pillows

Did you know that if you put shoes on a table in Sweden, it means death in family… I really hope that it is not the same here because then it might not be a fun night…

Hope that you have tickets and we will see you there tomorrow!!!! Looking forward to a fun evening!

2 years ago in Sweden

A while ago I found a harddrive with a bunch of old picture. I looked it thru and found this pictures taken 10/9/2008, about two months before we moved here. So this is how a good day can look like in southern part of Sweden. I just love the colors… something I miss with Sweden…

Result of a picture…

This is a Dalecarlian Horse or Dalahäst in Swedish…

A Dalecarlian horse or Dala horse (Swedish: Dalahäst) is a traditional carved and painted wooden statuette of a horse originating in the Swedish province of Dalarna. In the old days the Dala horse was mostly used as a toy for children; in modern times it has become a symbol of Dalarna as well as Sweden in general. Several different types of Dala horses are made, with distinguishing features common to the locality of the site where they are produced. One particular style has, however, become much more common and widespread than others. It is stoutly carved and painted bright red with details and a harness in white, green, yellow and blue.

It was in the small log cabins deep in the forests during the long winter nights in front of a log fire that the forerunner of the dala horse was born. Using simple tools, generally only a knife, woodcarvers made toys for their children. It was only natural that many of these toys were horses, because the horse was invaluable in those days—a trusty friend and worker who could pull great loads of timber from the forests during the winter months, and in the summer could be of just as much use on the farm.

The art of carving and painting the small horses quickly flourished in the 1800s, as economic hardship in the region inspired greater production of the small horses, and they became an important item of barter. Horse-making may have started as something to while away the hours during the long winter months, but soon the Dala horses were traded in exchange for household goods and their carving and painting blossomed into a full-fledged cottage industry. The rural families depended on horse production to help keep food on the table, as the skills of horse carving and painting were passed on from generation to generation.

Text: www.wikipedia.org

A friend of mine published this picture on Facebook yesterday. Can you see her underneith the horse with her Great Dane? This lead to the idea to have a…

…Country Contest. But of course if I did it it would be boring so I let the Great Danes do it… If you click on the picture you will get to their page with all instructions… The goal is to be able to show as many pictures as possible from all over the world so use your imagination and take the nearest dog and have fun! It doesn’t have to be a Great Dane or Dalmatian!!!!

Mom and I will go to a Ribboncutting with Terrell Chamber of Commerce this afternoon. I am not really sure what it is about but… it might be fun… I am looking foward to tomorrow when The Terrell Tribune will show the pictures of their photocontest in the paper… I contribute with some pictures and I wonder if any of them is in there and which ones… I will scan the pictures and tell you how to vote tomorrow!

Strange day

Yesterday mom and I went to Plano to celebrate Swedish Midsummer with SWEA. It is always a fun event.  We celebrate the harvest, at least that is where the tradition comes from, we have midsummerpole that we dance around and we eat and have fun. Shannon was with us. I took a lot of pictures but when I was going to download them from my cellphone the phone just died… so this pictures are the only I got and that is because I uploaded them on Facebook before trying to download them on the computer…

Me and Margareta

Mom and Margareta

My friend Åsa

So the rest of the pictures are gone…

On our way home we had a small car accident. We hit a rim to a tire and got a flat tire on our car…

It was another car that hit the same rim but they had a spare tire. We had no clue what to do. Since this happened on HWY 80 in Sunnyvale we had to call 911 since we had a dog and no clue what to do. First came a man from the Sheriffs department and he tried to help us finding where the sparetire was. We finally found the servicebook and then we also found the second key that we didn’t ge with the car! After a couple of minutes another man showed up from nowhere. That was the Courtesy Patrol. Never heard about it!!! What an awesome thing! He new where the sparetire was, took it down, changed tire for us in 10 minutes! And we were not even allowed to pay him!!! I have never heard about anything like that!!!

So we could take us home by our selves!!! Thanks to both men who helped us yesterday!!!

Nice and easy home I called Wild Blue about our InternetService that’s been down for a week. It was a kind of problem that we got fixed and 15 minutes later also the Internet was up and running as normal.

Sat down to upload the pictures from the cellphone that I took all day and suddenly my Black Berry just died. It was blinking red but nothing happened when I pressed the buttons. Took out the battery and put it back in again. Nope, same thing. Looked in the book and found a number that was for service. Called them and he just said – dead phone, return to store. Went online to se when the store opened today and saw that they were open until 8 pm last night. And it was only 6:45. Out in the car and off to Rockwall. Yes, the phone was dead… they gave me a new phone… all my pictures was lost but shame me… I didn’t have a memorycard. I bought a memorycard for the new phone so this won’t happen again.

Three obsticles that happened yesterday was solved soooo smooth! And to be helped by the courtesypatrol and the Officer would NEVER happen in Sweden…  So it was a pretty good day yesterday.

Maybe some of my friends will email me some pictures from the celebration yesterday and I will publish them here!!!

Swedish National Day!

We should have been to SWEA’s celebration of the Swedish National Day but we headed in to Cotton Bowl and the DogBowl event instead.  We had Saint Cox Shannon with us and after a while Daimilus Dreaming Delight and her owner Summer and Dana showd up! It was so fun to see Dream again!!! But unfortunatly I didn’t take that many pictures of Dream

Shannon and Dream recognized each other!!! Dream looked so great! And she remembered me too! That makes me happy Can you belive it is only two months difference on this two???

I am so happy it’s no me in there… it was 101 degrees so I can just believe how hot it is inside that dog!!!

Before they opened a band was playing. They were really good. Sadly I have no clue about their name… no signs at all about that

This is something you will NEVER find in Sweden, that’s for sure… there you have to pick up after your dog your self…

Shannon likes to cool off her paws in water

You can see more pictures of dogs at Saint Cox blog: http://saintcoxdogresort.wordpress.com

And for those of you who wonder how we celebrate our national day… eh… well… In Sweden you are not really allowed to be Swedish… how shall I explain this… A Swede will not be proud of their country unless the person is abroad. When the Swede is in Sweden you are almost concider rasist if you are singing the national anthem because the aliens might see it insulting… it is hard to explain.  There are some celebrations around the country where we sing songs, dresses up in our national dresses and we are proud of being Swedish but we don’t have the same celebration as on 4:th of July. No fireworks. Here in Dallas, SWEA celebrates with song and food. That event is usually really nice But in a couple of weeks we will have Midsummer and that is a bigger celebration than the National Day!!!

Swedish Traditions: Vasaloppet

Vasaloppet is a cross country skiing competition between Sälen to Mora, a distance of 90 km (55,92 miles). It takes from 4 to 10 hours (depending how good you are on skiis). This race has been done yearly, first Sunday in March since 1922 and it is done as a memory of King Gustav Vasa who fled to Norway in 1521.

Today skiiers from all over the world attnends the race as well as normal Sweds so you really don’t have to be a great skiier to race. Many famous Swedish profiles has attend Vasaloppet and it is kind of a status to be able to say “I did Vasaloppet in XXXX”.

During the race you pass small towns along the roads that is kind of a milepole. The town Evertsberg is after the half of the race and the most famous town. Vasaloppet has become a big tradition, you wake up Sunday morning, turn on the TV and eat your breakfast watching the race and then start your day! I have never been there during the race but the folkfest is really shown on TV!

Photo: Aftonbladet

The American Vasaloppet is taking place in Mora, Minnesota and is about 58 km (36 miles).

Swedish Tradition: Semlor

Once a year in February we eat Semlor… yummieee… it is a roll with almond paste and whipped cream! It is so good.

I tried to find information about the history of Semlan but it seems like there is a lot of different storys but the one i found most is that the roll was the only you were allowed to eat during the feast period and to make that more eatable they put the almondpaste and whipped cream in it…

Some people eats it with hot milk around but I personally don’t like that…

Pictures from Sweden and Norway!

Two days ago I sent an email to most of my Swedish, Norweigan and Danish friends and asked them to go out and take a picture of how it look liked outside their window. And I got pictures!!! I have to start with telling you that it is about 10 years (I think) since southern part of Sweden had snow on Christmas!!! And Shen I say Sothern Part I mean from number 5 on the map and down…

1. UPPSALA

This first two pictures are taken by my friend Kristin Alvarsson. She studies in Uppsala and took this two pictures last night outside her window

Strega lives more out on the country than Kristin does but they have snow too…

2. VETLANDA

Madde Ohlsson sent me this pictures from outside her barn! They train their horses in the snow!!!

3. TROMSÖ (NORWAY)

Aase Jakobsen, Japps breeder sent me the most magnificant pictures from the nothern part of Norway. It is the most beautiful place you can find!

4. STOCKHOLM (Capial of Sweden)

Kerstin lives in central Stockholm and I got both picture without snow, taken a couple of weeks ago, and with snow, taken yesterday

This pictures are from Lisa who works in a suburb to Stockholm, Djursholm. This is actually the neigborhood where I grew up…

5. GOTHENBURG

Sarah lives in Partille which also is a suburb to Gothenburg. She took this picture yesterday and notice… the apples on the tree… not something usual in this time of the year!

6. GARDEMOEN

Åsa lives about 1 hour north of Oslo, the capital of Norway and this is how it look likes there today. They have very cute Santas this year!

AFGHANISTAN… on the other side of the world….

Minutes before I was going to publish this I got an email…

 This is from Adam who is serving for Sweden in Afghanistan… I thought it was fun to show the weather on the other side of the world as well!

We are now expecting storms in two days… far away from snow and cold weather…

Swedish Traditions – Lucia

A tradition that originally is from Italy is Lucia. Lucia is the saint of light and she comes on December 13:th every year to bring light and love to people. We started to celebrate Lucia in the end of 1800-century in Sweden. From the beginning the 13:th of December was knowned as the longest night at the year but that has been changed to December 21:st.

Lucia is celebrated with a “Luciatåg”. One girl, often with long blond hair, is dressed up as Lucia and the rest as her followers – “tärnor”.

SWEA Dallas Luciatåg 2009

Together they walk from house to house and sing Lucia and Christmas Carols and give out “Lussekatter”.

Lussekatter

Swedish Tradition – The Nobel Prize

Since President Obama recieved the Nobel Peace Prize this year I thought I would mention a little bit more about the prize in the series of Swedish Traditions. Many Americans does not know what the prize is all about.

Mr. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. He became rich and when he died he had written a will of what he wanted all the money to do. The money should be established in a fund and be given out as a prize each year in chemistry, physics, litterature, economics, medicine and peace. Each prize consist a medal, personal diploma and a large amount of money.  The only prize that is awarded in Oslo, Norway is the Nobel Peace Prize. The rest is awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. But the both awards is on December 10:th every year.  The reason for the Peace Prize being awarded in Norway is that at the time for the first award, Sweden and Norway was one Country and at that time the Peace Prize was awarded in Norway and since tradition it is still awarded there.

The first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901.

If you would like more information visit www.nobel.se