Back to my Viking Roots!

 

I, Dave, recently returned from a work trip to Sweden - the land of my father's ancestry! I hadn't been to Sweden since I went with Kerry back in 2005 so it's been awhile and I was headed to a town I had never heard of before: Karlskrona. It's a UNESCO city that's home to the Sweden's largest naval base and is also the only baroque city in the country. I don't really know what that means/entails, but I thoroughly enjoyed the city nonetheless! I only had a couple of evenings free to walk around, but the weather was perfect and the sun didn't set until 8:30pm. 

This was taken in the massive city square. At one point in time, Karlskrona was going to be the capitol of Sweden, so they made sure it had a big city square for the people to congregate. 

The only Swedish meatballs I had was this massive one made from Moose. It was delicious. 

Since the closest international airport to Karlskrona is in Denmark, I was able to enjoy a perfect evening in Copenhagen before flying home the next morning! The weather was perfect so all of the city was out and about, soaking up the sunshine. Nyhavn was packed with people. And I couldn't help but reminisce about the last time I was here in 2018 with the entire family. Such a great city! Such a great vibe when the weather is right, too! 

The beauty of going back to someplace you've been before is that you don't have to worry about seeing all the major sites to see. You can stroll through the city and just enjoy without crossing things off a to-see list. For example, the Christiansborg Palace, above, was near my hotel and I could walk by and see the famous white horses grazing (look closely) and not worry about going inside again. 

Bike culture prevails! If you're not paying attention, you will get run over! 

Circle Bridge, which looks like a sail boat. 

The View from my hotel. Danes sunbathing and jumping into the harbor after a looooong winter. 

The Cherry Blossoms were in bloom. 

The (underwhelming) Little Mermaid

And of course had to pop into the church where you can see the original Christus and the twelve apostles. 

And to top off my great day, I met up with an old friend from my freshman year at BYU, Nancy! I don't think we have seen each other since BYU. She and her husband took me to this place called Reffen, which is like a big food truck spot, without the trucks. It was right on the water and you could pick from whatever cuisine was rocking your boat that night and enjoy the ambiance, with the bon fires, music, etc. It was the perfect venue to reminisce and catch up!

And the morning I left, I made sure to get some Danish pastries to go with my European Orange Fanta!

Writing this post makes it seem like I was vacation for the week, but I swear I got a lot of work accomplished, too! 

Foster Family

 

I'm having a hard time staying up to date on my blogging because I've been sooooooo busy!  In addition to all of my normal craziness, I've added 5 more living things to take care of to my life 😏

The kids have been begging to be a "foster family" for the local animal shelter and Dave and I finally caved.  It was a process.  We had to take our two cats to the vet, get them physicals and up-to-date shots and fill out paperwork, which we turned into the shelter.  They approved us and then, about a week later, we got notified that a homeless mama cat had just given birth to four babies and asked if we would take them.  And of course, they called on the day Dave left for Sweden on a business trip (more on that in another blog post).   So, I headed to the shelter with my little carrier and came home with Mama cat Dahlia and her four one-day old babies.  I weighed them and they were each 4 ounces.  So all four of them together only weighed a single pound.

They love to be together.  You will always find them snuggled into each other and they cry the cutest little "meow" whenever they are separated from the pack.

Eyes not yet opened and can easily fit into the palm of my hand.

I picked the kitties up last Monday right after the kids left for school.  And surprised each of them when they came home from school.  Here is Ella meeting them for the first time.

They are sweet as they can be, but it has not been without it's challenges.  I weigh them daily and we supplement feed/bottle feed (you can see the "bottle"-syringe with little plastic nipple- next to Riley's hand) when it seems one may be falling behind.

And the mama cat ended up biting Lacey which resulted in a quick and nasty, painful infection.  We ended up at the Doctor and they debated sending us the ER for IV antibiotics because the infection was so bad, but they decided to put her on a heavy dose of two oral antibiotics instead with the instructions that we go to the ER if the infection got worse OR if it didn't improve within two days.  She had to miss tennis but thankfully, it improved and is now almost fully healed.  God bless the inventors of antibiotics!

And as soon as she healed, she got right back to the kitties.

Here she is spending some quality tummy time them.

Daily weight check.  

The kids have LOVED introducing them to their friends.

My four babies lined up holding our newest four babies.

On the couch, all in a row, waiting for Dad to walk in the door from his week long business trip to meet the newest (temporary) members of our family.

The kids introduced "their" kitten to Dave one by one.

You know what's great about fostering baby kittens?  It brings out the tender size of your teenage boy.

And they made for a pretty epic object lesson at my early morning seminary/bible class!

Our latest challenge is that three of the four of them have developed eye infections.  I had to bring them back to the shelter and have them show me how to soak open their crusted eyes, drain out the puss and apply antibiotic ointment to their eyeballs.  Luckily, I work in healthcare and none of this grosses me out.  And I'm happy to report, they have all responded extremely well to my twice a day treatment (God bless inventor of antibiotics again!).   So, there they are, sleeping with healthy, healed eyes, doubled in size (now 8 ounces) and almost two weeks old.  

I mean really..... how totally sweet is that? 💗😻

State Cup and Lots of LAX!

Last week, Riley's soccer team played in the State Cup.  Here they are lined up and ready to go!

Both teams getting checked in.

And they're off!

Riley ready for the corner kick.

Halftime 0-0

2nd half - back at it!

Riley in position....

Nice save!

10 minutes before the game was over, the other team scored and we ended up losing 0-1.

Tough loss.

But proud of this girl for playing 100% of the entire game and leaving it all on the field!

In addition to soccer, she participated in a 6v6 lax tournament the day after Easter. 

Here they are with Coach Glen.  They made it all the way to the Championship game, but then lost that game.  But had a lot of fun along the way of back to back games leading up to the Championship!

And they had another big win against the Spartans this past week.  They are now half-way through the season and only have one loss.

Go #34!