December 30th, 2006
Last update was almost 3 weeks ago, but there is a really good reason: We went to Sweden to celebrate Christmas! To be 100% accurate, most of us did. Jojo was left behind and spent Christmas together with Simba at a doggie boarding. We picked them up today and yes, they were really happy to see us! Both dogs were quite dirty, so we took them to "The Ruff House" for a bath.
Christmas in Sweden was nice as always. We left Kirkland Friday the 16th, during the more or less statewide power outage. SeaTac still had power, so the plane left only one hour late. SAS allowed us to bring an extra 19.5kg without any fee :) Andreas celebrated Christmas Eve with is parents and brother, Christina with her family. We also found some time to meet up with some friends and other parts of the family. The last week after the 24th went by really fast, all of a sudden it was time to leave. All in all it was a good time.
Coming home was kind of interesting. Since the house had been without power for 3-4 days, our great neighbors emptied the fridge and freezer for us. We also realized our skylight in the master bathroom is leaking, there are traces on the new bathroom floor. No worries though, it seems to clean up fine.
Andreas didn't really spend much time with the camera during the Sweden trip. The plan was to spend a day in Stockholm snapping away. That never happened. A handful pictures will make it to the picture page later on.
December 10th, 2006
Well, the weekend is almost over. Andreas got back from Maryland Thursday evening, last trip to east coast for a while. Friday evening was spent doing some cooking and drinking a nice bottle of wine. Yesterday was mostly about running errands and getting some more things done in the house. After that we headed over to Dorde and Jesper for a Danish Christmas dinner. Good food, good wine, good friends and Chucky was mostly smiles. Today we tried to finish off the last of the Christmas shopping, didn't really end well. Still a bunch of stuff to buy.
We took a walk this evening around the neighborhood. Americans are crazy with their Christmas decorations and lights. Some are really nice and tasteful, some just look like a blind person spent their entire Christmas bonus on lights, inflatable Santas and whatever else you can find in the "over the top Christmas lights" section. Anyway, we are trying to get into the Christmas spirit, we had "risgynsgröt" for dinner tonight! Enough leftovers so I can have some for lunch tomorrow.
November 29th, 2006
The winter is still over us. Not sure Swedes would call it winter, it's about -5C and a couple of inches of snow. However, that's enough to shut down Seattle. No training for anyone this evening. Ended up adding a few more pictures from our Vancouver trip this summer. You can find them on the "Pictures" page.
November 26th, 2006
Two updates in two days? Don't get too used to it, won't happen again! Promise! Guess what? It's snowing! Started around 3pm and been coming down all evening. Probably gotten a few inches by now. Jojo and Christina went outside to play in the snow. For some reason, Jojo never understood Christina wasn't throwing the snowballs AT him.
Andreas spent the day replacing the water heater. It was 16 years old, so it was better to replace it before it started leaking. We still have a bunch of other things to finish, next in line is to paint the doors in the kitchen. With a bit of luck it will be done during the week.
Oh, by the way. Starting to get requests for a Swedish translation of the page. We'll consider it.. :)
November 24th, 2006
Aah, four day weekend! At least for Andreas. Poor Christina is working a half day today. We had Thanksgiving dinner here last night. Ended up being eight grown-ups, one baby, two dogs and one cat. People showed up around 5pm (I know, way too late by American standards, but guess what, we are Swedish! :) ). Turkey dinner was awesome, Christina did a really good job with both the turkey and all the sides. Frank and Dagna brought a stuffed pumpkin side-dish that was really tasty as well. On top of that, there were snacks, good beer and wine, and of course, pumpkin pie! Party ended somewhere around 11.30pm or so.
If you're planning on giving any of us a Christmas gift: We have updated the wish lists! Hint! Hint! Christina asked me to add potatoes to her list, not sure why. Added pyjama instead, sounded much nicer.
November 19th, 2006
Surprise, surprise, junestam.com went live today!
November 16th, 2006
Andreas is feeling pretty silly right now. Another month and a half has passed and nothing has been done on the page... Until today! There is this long list of things that needs to be done before Christmas and the homepage ended up quite far down on it. Guess it is a question of priorities.
Thanksgiving is around the corner and Andreas is really looking forward to a long weekend (4 days). Christina is working that friday, so Andreas and Jojo has to spend it by themselves. That will probably end in a walk down to Kirkland and some coffee and / or ice cream if the weather is nice enough. Might get some time to work on the pictures for the picture page and Doggie911. Takes a fair amount of time to choose the nice ones, clean them up, resize them and finally export them from raw to jpeg.
Had a broken heating cable under the new bathroom floor. Frank and Andreas fixed this in the beginning of the week and the floor heating is now on. What can we say? Uuuuuuhhhmmm, nice......
October 3rd, 2006
Today Andreas finally got some work done on the junestam.com hompage. The domain was registered about 2 weeks ago, but work, Doggie911 and the house ended up taking all available time. Kitchen and master bath are done, except for some minor things. Pictures will be thrown up on the picture page at some point. So, with no building project going, we started planning on what to do with the living room. Seems like we can't live without some part of the house being worked on.
Doggie911 is coming along fine. Web page design is done, Christina is working on the content. Andreas whipped up a few different designs for the business cards, we just need to make a decision on which to go with. Christina's first client appointment is on Sunday, exciting!
Jojo is doing well, Tamara takes him out for adventures every day. Spoiled dog! Apparently he was attacked by bees today. That is the second time that happens, first time was during a hike along the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) last summer. No worries though, looks like he wasn't even stung.