Vacation in the USA - 2012

We spent one month in the USA. It was wonderful. We missed one entire month of nearly non-stop chilly rain in Sweden. Meanwhile in the USA we had mostly hot temperatures (some days set records), my dad got evacuated from wildfires while at a conference in Colorado Springs, something called a derecho struck while we were driving home from a restaurant (nearly hurricane force winds - knocked down trees everywhere and electricity almost everywhere). So, weather is crazy! You never know what you are going to get. But we are all glad that we missed the non-summer weather of Sweden.

But that's not all that was good about the US! We spent lots of time together as a family, went to the pool almost every single day. We spent lots of time with my parents. My mom did all kinds of craft-y things with the kids. And she made them all kinds of fancy stuff, like a Victorian dollhouse, princess dresses, quilts, and all kinds of stuff. My dad did all kinds of cool Grandpa stuff with them, like swimming in a water hole in the woods, finding crabs on the beach, teaching Esther to surf. Esther took 4 swimming lessons as soon as we got to the US, and between that and then being in the pool nearly every day for a month, by the final week she had gotten quite good in the water. If she had even more practice she would be a mermaid.

We spent one week at the beach in NC, in a wonderful beach house right on the shore. It had a pool, too. It was amazing to be able to stay in a place like that. Esther loved the ocean and the waves and didn't even mind getting knocked around a bit when trying to learn to ride the waves with a raft. On a rainy day we went to an aquarium and Esther liked the little alligator.

Niklas said it was the best vacation ever and that we should do it every summer! :-)