Updated: Get out and vote! 2012 Presidential Election

Sweden is HYPED up about the election in the US.  My neighbor pulled me aside and asked if I had voted for "the good guy" and Jon is being cornered at work with his co-workers' own opinions about who should win the election.

We sent in our absentee ballots a month ago, so we already voted but we are still ready to watch the excitement and chaos on tv.  Apparently Sweden's Channel 1 will cover the event so we don't have to worry about missing any of the action.  We are headed to bed early tonight so we can wake up at 3am to catch our episode of House Hunter's International.  It should be an interesting night!!

Update:
The election coverage on Sweden's Channel 1, naturally,  is all in Swedish...not much help.  I'll be tuning into CNN international and Al Jazeera English.

Jonathan has a personal trainer

Calvin keeps us in shape!

UPDATED: Calvin's first school picture

When Calvin's forskola said that they were having picture day on Wednesday, I remembered my own first school picture -- me with a red tear-stained face in front of a backdrop of evergreen trees.  I honest-to-goodness remember the day (probably because I cried and because I was 5), but I remember what had happened.  We were all standing in line, waiting to take our pictures and the girl ahead of me started to freak out because of the bright flash-pop from the camera whenever a picture was taken.  She started crying and even though I wasn't scared, it was infectious and I couldn't stop crying myself.  I wasn't scared of the camera but it was just enough that other kids were frightened so I figured they knew something I didn't.

Fortunately when I dropped Calvin off for his picture, I noticed that they had the kids playing in a room separate from the professional photographer.  The kids would play and then would go in, one at a time, to get their pictures taken.  They were standing, posing, laughing and having fun.  I left Calvin crossing my fingers that he wouldn't be too nervous.

We just received the pictures in the mail today and while he is not smiling, he is a super cutey-pie-pants with no tears!  No crying! It was great.  He looks a little bored, if not in the middle of doing something with his hands.  Maybe the itsy-bitsy spider?  I'll never know.  Best of all, we received these pictures for free/our taxes already paid for them and instructions on how to pay for them.  Perfect!

UPDATE:

So above I mentioned that the pictures were free.  I mean, who gives the product to the customer and then says, "Here's what you owe us and we know that you'll pay it."  Well, the Swedish school picture people do.  I mean, my friends at Lifetouch, is that a model that would work in the US?  Usually you have to put in your order and pay upfront, then the product is delivered.  Right?  Or at least, they send a watermarked proof copy and you can choose to buy based on the quality of the picture.  I guess Swedish parents don't really like this model since you have to return the pictures you don't want to buy so you feel obligated to buy them all -- it's just easier that way.  Fortunately for us, we love the pictures and were going to buy them anyway. (I'm pretty sure the grandparents wouldn't want us returning these pictures!) Bankgiro is processed and paid for!

Lyckliga Halloween!

Sweden has its own holidays like "Kanelbulle Day" (cinnamon bun day) and other pastry holidays but we don't want to lose sight of our own fun American days, like Halloween.  Calvin can have the best of both worlds -- American traditions AND Swedish traditions, but it means that we have to work hard(er) at ensuring it is celebrated properly.  Halloween is still gaining popularity here in Sweden and it was difficult to find adult costumes, so we just dressed with what we had lying around the house.

Since we don't really entertain much anymore, we kind of went decoration-crazy and bought skeleton garlands, spider webs, ghosts, and skulls to really spook-it-up!  I spent an inordinate amount of time scouring Spotify for proper kid-friendly Halloween songs to create a monster mashup for our 2 hour party on Saturday.

Spider webs everywhere

We invited our friends and neighbors to join us and I had envisioned deliciously spooky spider cake balls, ghostly shaped pizzas and a punch drink that would slake any thirst.  Things started to go wrong when all of my American Halloween treat recipes required dire substitutes from our Swedish grocery stores.

First off -- cake pops/balls require lollipop sticks.  These are relatively easy to find at craft stores in Atlanta but I had no hopes of finding them in my neighborhood stores.  Fine, no problem.  Let's substitute pretzel sticks instead of lollipop sticks.  Great, right? Wrong!

Pretzel sticks snapped under the weight of the giant cake balls

The tiny pretzel sticks were no match for the weight of the dense cake balls.  Rather than continue down this path, Jon gently suggested that I just flick the chocolate over the cake balls instead of dipping them into the chocolate and just leave them in "ball"form rather than use the pretzel sticks.  The end result was more attractive and still delicious.

New cake balls -- less spooky, more edible

Jon's pizza dough came out great, so instead of creating pizzas for the party, we put out all of the toppings and had each person make their own ghostly pizza.  Some kids just ate the toppings, so it worked out for everyone.  Swedish grocery stores are lacking cranberry juice, so instead of a blood red punch, we had to settle for a blueberry base with orange and apple juice.  Thankfully the SodaStream came in handy in making it all sparkly.

We ended up with 7 kids and 12 adults so we had a full house.  Luckily, the couch was wide open for jumping!

Couch jumpers!

                                                                            

 Most of the kids were too young for any official "games" so we kind of went freestyle with it and let them just play with all of the toys and balloons.  The older kids found the castle tent downstairs and played with Jon for a while.  I enjoyed seeing the shock on Jon's face when he realized he was the only adult with 4 children -- none of whom were his own.  The adults enjoyed some Hell beer and Pistonhead (complete with glow in the dark skulls) and we all rocked out to some Thriller.

            

On our actual Halloween night (Wednesday) we ended up with 7 trick or treaters -- all of whom were very scary looking.  They were dressed in elaborate makeup and black costumes.  I didn't know what they were supposed to be but they achieved the effect of scaring me into giving them candy so they didn't egg my house (not an empty threat as it happened to one of Jon's coworkers).  They banged on our door using our creepy door knocker and just stood there with a basket.  No "trick or treat" just a blank stare that said, "give me caaaandyyy" or however you say it in Swedish.  There were no cutesy butterflies or fluffy monsters -- all of these kids (aged 5-9) looked like they had come straight from a horror movie set.

Not Swedish children but you get the idea

Now, that's the way to do it.  The few kids who went trick or treating made out like bandits.  One kid even tipped - and thereby emptying - the candy bowl into his basket for him and his 3 friends.  Well played kid, well played.

Is moving to Sweden a good idea -- from the eyes of another

I almost spit out my coffee (2nd cup, no worries really) when I saw this headline on The Local's website.  The Local is Swedish news in English, for us immigrant folk, and the subject area hit home.
Moving to Sweden: Is it the right decision?

In this article, an Irish immigrant, his Swedish wife and their newborn son make the agonizing decision to move to Sweden.  Not surprisingly, Sweden's generous parental leave policies, subsidized child care options and health care structure factored strongly into their decision.  Also not surprising, was his comments on the difficulty to find housing and a job as a non-Swedish speaking professional.

This article hit home for me in many ways but probably the greatest way was that at the crux of the article, he is just a parent trying to make the best decision for his family.  Isn't that what we all strive for?

What did you think of the article? Dèjá vu?