21monthsapart: July 2011

July - ah, yes – July… Another fun month

As in June, we did a few other things, but the camera only made it out for two major occasions – the renaissance festival down in Larkspur, and the annual trip to Norway and Sweden. Of course – between the two, that covered almost 3 weeks of the month.

Not captured on film –> watching the fireworks on the 4th of July, putt-putt golfing on the weekends and going swimming at Pirate’s cove.

For the last couple of years, we’d been wondering if we should take the kids to see the local renaissance festival down in Larkspur, and we decided that this year, both of them were old enough to appreciate it, and also that they’d probably have the stamina to handle the heat and crowds. And it was fun – Rachel dressed up as a princess, Daniel did his pirate thing. Sure, it was hot. And it turns out that the humor in the “Puke and Snot” show is a little more adult than we remembered, but there were jugglers and jousting and big cats and all sorts of eye-candy and/or weirdos. I’m not sure we’ll go back next year, but it was fun.

And then, of course – there was Norway and Sweden. How do you sum up 2+ full-speed weeks and do it any sort of justice? You can’t, really. We went, we had fun. Of course – there’s more to it than that. As usual, the kids were excellent travellers, and tackled the trip from Denver to Oslo like it was old hat –> which in a way it was, seeing that we took the same route there as last year – via Toronto and Copenhagen. The layover in Toronto was fairly long, but the nice people at Air Canada let us use their lounge, so we relaxed well.

As usual, we transitioned fairly quickly from Oslo to go down to Stugan – the family getaway on the coast in Sweden, just across the border from Norway. And there the days just sort of floated together in a summer ritual of crab-fishing, rock-climbing, some swimming (not so much the kids), fishing, berry-picking and playing with cousins Jacob and Leo.

We did make a small excursion from Stugan down to visit Aunt Majan and Benny – partly to see them of course, but mainly because Mormor (Eric’s grandmother) was down there as well for a few days. We had a nice visit, developed a severe envy of their gardens and really enjoyed seeing Mormor for the first time in over a year.

Since we were passing through anyway, we stopped off in Gothenburg and stayed for a night, visiting the famous entertainment park Liseberg for a day. It was a lot of fun – though certainly more than a little crowded due to a large soccer tournament being held at the same time.