Hello and boo to you! Last night our building had arranged a Halloween party for all the residents. Jim was at a dinner through work, so Thor and I went to the party alone. We normally plan Thor’s outfits for Halloween but this year I really didn’t feel like it so I just grabbed something in the last minute. He had to go as a Hawaiian Beach Boy. Before we went there I took some cute photos of him in the whole outfit, hahaha, omg, he is just so damn cute! And when I dress him up or ask him for photoshoots he just cooperate and do as I tell him, my little model pup.
We were there right when the party started at 6pm. Drinks, candy, some other snacks and craft stations for the kids. At that time it was just me and Thor and 4 families. I’m gonna be honest and say that I felt pretty misplaced but I chose to ignore it. I did get some weird looks from some of the parents and I could just tell they were judging me, especially one of the fathers who walked around holding their 4 month old baby while staring at me the whole time. I felt like that crazy dog lady who walks around with her dressed up tiny dog and feeds him small bits of carrots and talks to him like he is a human (which is true though, I do do that haha, plus I didn’t want T down on the floor with all that chocolate around and carrots could occupy him and keep him quiet). But hey, they don’t know my story, they don’t know that I’m not allowed to have a baby of my own that I can walk around with just like they are with theirs. So if the neighbors wants to judge me and now think that I’m the crazy dog lady of the building, then so be it. Plus I rather had Thor with me than sit by myself in a corner hahah.
We had a good time, Thor was popular. Eventually I could tell that Thor was getting a bit too excited with all the kids on a sugar high so I grabbed a drink and some snacks and went back home. An hour or so later Thor had to go out to potty again (he drank lots of water when we came home) so I put his little outfit on again, went potty and went back to the party. I talked to some neighbors I know, grabbed another drink and some candy and then back to enjoy it at home:)
Good Morning! Hope you had a fantastic weekend! On Wednesday last week around 1pm, Jim’s brother Ryan, his wife Annelise and their youngest baby Becket came to visit us. J was still at work so I took them around for a walk in downtown and then just hung out at home catching up. When J came home he had a birthday cake with him that we ordered a couple of days before. Both R and A turned 30 in October so we wanted to celebrate them with a fall decorated chocolate cake. After desert we walked to downtown for dinner and that’s about it for their first day.
The Fish Church in the back of our apartment was open for once. So pretty inside We found the stone with the man who Becket got his name from
On Thursday, J decided to work from home and after lunch we all took the train in to Manhattan. From Grand Central we walked on 42nd to Public Library and then up 5th Ave, they wanted to see St Patrick’s Cathedral. When J and I went inside years back you could just walk in, now it’s a tourist attraction where you have to check bags and stuff, weird. Then we walked across the city a bit to some New York pizza place, that was the number one thing R and A had asked for:) Then we walked to Times Square for a quick second, back to Rockefeller Center and the Nintendo store. Then we walked up to Central Park. I only stayed for a few minutes before I had to run back to GC to catch the 5 pm train. Man, I can be fast and I know how to get around people in the city, so I made it there in only 15 minutes (google said 25) and got a seat on the train. Shortly after we had left the station, still being inside the tunnel, the train broke down. Oh no!! I was already stretching the hours of Thor being alone at home. We had to wait to go back to station, everybody ran to the new train they had put in but I figured that would be a shit show so I ran to the next train and again was lucky to get a seat (rush hour can be a bit crazy in NYC). Once I was back in Stamford I walked/ran so fast that my legs could barely keep up with my body. I was so sore the next day haha. I wanted to hurry home to Thor before it got dark – I came home about 3 minutes before dark and poor T had been alone for almost 6 hours now (we try to take him out every 4 hours), but he was fine, no accidents. The others came home 1.5 hour later.
It’s supposed to be Times Square in the background, haha, hard to fit everything:) I always find a building I like for the day in the city:)
Walked by some of the Rockettes Christmas stage decor
And then came Friday. R and A left around 9am – they had a wedding to attend in Philadelphia, that was the whole reason why they came to visit. Our 24 hours of babysitting began. Oh man, if Thor is loud and annoying when we have guests, it is nothing in compare to when we (Jim and I) needs to have full attention on a strange mini version of humans that smells differently and makes interesting sounds (that’s how dogs see it). T had been pretty good the first two days, but that was because R and A was taking care of Becket and also paid some attention to T. Now it was only us and Thor was so jealous. We ended up taking turns, just swapping babies all day long. When B was asleep, I took Thor for a long walk to the park. Once B was awake and J had fed him, I took B for a walk in the stroller. And then back to swap for taking T out again. And the world was quiet and stress free for B’s second nap. And then we started swapping babies again or took them both out for a walk. Puh, what a day:) Becket and Thor both slept the whole night. I heard the baby making noises a couple of times at night but T was so exhausted he didn’t notice. Becket woke up at 5:30 am. We let him be but he didn’t fall back to sleep so I went to go comfort him. It didn’t work, so I ended up feeding and burping and thought maybe that would do it. But he was screaming bloody murder every time I tried to put him to sleep. I changed his diaper and then J took over and I guess it was just impossible to put him back in his bed so J ended up sitting on the floor with B sleeping in his lap. This was the only tiny bit of struggle we had and it wasn’t that bad:) At 7am I went to wake them both up and then we had about three hours of trying to keep both babies happy until Ryan and Annelise came back from Philly to pick up the baby and drive home to Cleveland.
Apparently it was fun checking ourselves out in the front phone camera:)
Taking care of Becket was kind of a piece of cake, he is a very happy and easy baby and thank god he didn’t mind Thor barking in his face haha. The hardest part of our babysitting was to calm T down which we failed at. Poor neighbors. Thor is not used to babies, especially not us taking care of them. He’s been around babies before but not for long enough to realize what they are. He was so curious (he gave B lots of kisses on his hands – we tried to have him stay away from the face), but he was also so anxious and of course jealous about his mommy and daddy paying so much attention to this new strange thing called “baby”. We really tried to make T feel that he was still important, we still love him, that he was welcome to say hi to the baby and to make him feel included, but when you only have 24 hours to do all this, it’s not easy. Swapping babies all day was the best thing we could do. We survived, we didn’t go deaf and T didn’t lose his voice completely (only a little haha). J and I was a great team I think, we both trusted each other to do a good job with the baby and we tried to communicate the whole time on what would be best in each situation, plus we had a note/schedule from Annelise to follow, so pretty easy. Victory!
And then the world was quiet again. Aaaahh. Pretty relaxed weekend after that.
My husbands surprise was to explore the world in a HOT AIR BALLOON! We had such a wonderful Saturday morning, the best surprise! Perfect day for this kind of adventure, he could not have picked a better day, we were so lucky with the weather (it rained yesterday).
I woke up from a dream around 3 am and could not fall back to sleep, so I was pretty tired, but my excitement over my surprise helped me stay awake:) The alarm went off at 4:30, I jumped into the shower, got ready, Jim took Thor out and then showered. We were out the door at 5:15. It took us about 1 hour 15 minutes to drive to location (somewhere near the Hudson Valley, New York). It was so dark outside, we realized that we are not used to drive in the dark like that. We got to this big field. Some young guy had parked there and he came up to our car asking if we were excited…well…I still didn’t know what we were going to do. More cars pulled up, we stayed warm inside the car. I kept looking out my window at the big field an the sunrise. And then after awhile I looked out J’s side and wow, there was a huge balloon being blown up next to us, hahaha. I kinda figured it was that but since J had told me to not bring a camera I wasn’t sure.
Three older couples were the first group to go up while we had to stay on ground. This balloon company goes up twice a day on weekends when weather allows. The young guy (the assistant) said that it’s better to be the second group to go up and I agree. Not only had the sun come up then and you can see all the colorful trees, but we got to see the balloon go up, chase it around, help the first group to get out and jump in, and then see them pack it all up in the end. The full experience:)
The first group was up for about an hour and we were in the young guys car driving to areas that we saw the balloon. The balloon pilot sent a location pin and we drove there. They had landed in some industrial area (the pilot has no control over where the balloon will take you, just up or down, so they end up in peoples backyards all the time). We had to help the balloon stay down in order for the first group to climb out, and then we started to climb in while the other group tried to hold us down, but the balloon kinda started to take off a bit too early and we ended up flying right into the barn we were next to (J said that a shingle of the house had come off..oops). And then quite quickly we were up in the air pretty high. 1200 feet start off with.
Wow! This was amazing! Going up and down over the fields and over big houses and barns. At one point we went up to 1500 feet and we could actually see top of the buildings on Manhattan. So peaceful. Quiet. I filmed and took pictures of course, but I also made sure to just enjoy the view and feel the fresh air.
In the end the basket was touching trees and then whoops, we went right through a tree hahaha. And then came the landing. We all bent our knees and held on. We hit the ground, up again, bounce. The second bounce I hit my knee in the basket so hard I thought I broke my leg but once we were out standing on ground it wasn’t that bad. Getting out was an adventure itself haha. The men in our group got out and tried to first move the balloon to a better place and then hold it in order for us to get out, but we ended up tipping over. I was in the tipping top (J and I was in the “back”) and I had to just hold on hahah, pretty funny view I’m told but J wasn’t fast enough to take a picture. They fold everything up, put it on the wagon behind the car and we drove off. We drove by the farmer who owned the land and he did not look happy that we had been trespassing. The pilot and the assistant had a few stories of when they have been landing on questionable places, for example where they have had a shotgun in their face and been told to get out of their land. But, that’s America for ya 😛
We were about 20 minutes away from where our cars were parked. We said goodbye and then J and I drove to a diner for breakfast. It was about 10am at this point so we were really hungry. Then 1.5 hour drive back home. The lobby people had been watching Thor so we went to pick him up and then all three of us snuggled ourselves under blankets in bed and took a two hour nap. We were so tired!
What beautiful day! And what an experience! I really have the best husband♥
Hi! I’m finishing off some stuff on the computer now before I have to get ready for bed. It’s only 8:30 pm hahah, but Jim told me we have to be out the door by 5:15 am tomorrow morning. J told me a few weeks ago to not book anything for October 19th cause he has a surprise for me. Yay! I. Love. Surprises! Most of the time it’s me surprising everyone else (like the many many times I’ve been showing up in Sweden…it’s so many times now that I can’t do it anymore cause people kinda expect it), so now when it’s a surprise for me I’m super excited. I haven’t asked anything about it, barely even thought of it cause I really don’t want to figure it out (which otherwise always happens). I’ve asked a few questions like “do I need to wear active wear or normal clothes?” and “should I bring a camera?” and all I know now is that clothes doesn’t really matter as long as I stay warm (it’s outside?) and don’t really need my regular camera but I can bring the go-pro if I want, and he has stolen my keys (my guess is that he already gave them to a neighbor cause he kept assuring me that Thor will be taken care of and I don’t have to worry about him). Right now I might have some ideas about what it is but I’m gonna stop thinking about it, brush my teeth, dry my hair (from shower earlier) and go to bed and try to get enough sleep so I can be alert for tomorrow! Wiihii!
Hello and Good Evening! Hope you guys are doing well! Let me tell you about my Sunday. I took the train in to Manhattan around noon, was there 50 minutes later. Of course there was a parade going on on Fifth Avenue (like every Sunday, drives everyone crazy except the people in the parades). I walked over to 55th street and 6th ave and stopped at Joe & the Juice. I ordered a large juice and sat down by the window and read my e-book on the tablet – Little Women, have you read it?
Closer to 2:30, I walked one block west and waited outside NY City Center. I didn’t have to wait for long before Jessicashowed up. Oh man, we haven’t seen each other in forever, not since our film premiere of Hastdans pa Hovdala. She and I were two of the four dancers who worked with The Equus Projects, who were in Sweden performing with young adults with autism. Anyway. It was so nice to see her! We had so much to talk about and update each other about. I’m so happy that I invited her to come with me to Fall for Dance.
So, Fall for Dance, program 5, started with Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal. The overall piece was good, some beautiful duets and a bit funny here and there. But, the first duet was of disappointment. The whole duet was man lifting woman and she barely touched ground. Very impressive moves but it looked bad, like if they haven’t had any rehearsals together. Next piece was the duet with Sara Mearns & Taylor Stanley. Omg, I could watch this guy dance all day every day. We all completely fell in love with his way of moving. And Sara was one reason why I wanted to go see this program but that was unfortunately a bit of disappointment as well. Her roll was of a very modern style but she is just so ballet’y (she’s a principal at NYC Ballet). I’ve seen her on stage before (also walked next to her on the street once) and I check her instagram from time to time and she inspires me a lot, so my expectations was probably too high. The piece itself felt a bit cliche but was cute. The light and sound effect was awesome, Loved it!
After intermission there was a funny piece by Monica Bill Barnes and students from the Hunter College. They had a commentator and the whole piece was more of a sketch with some moves in it. It was funny. They talked about why dancers devote their whole life to something that is so hard and demanding and that just because you are old it doesn’t have to mean that you need to retire (Monica is 46 years old and still active). After the piece, J and I looked at each other and laughed, cause we had been talking about similar thing a minute before the piece started. The last piece was with Martha Graham Dance Company. One of the original pieces, Chronicle (1936). To me, that is dance, that is art and that’s what I usually enjoy the most. It was a very typical M. Graham piece, all women and long dresses and lots of jumps. I saw the company perform right before we moved to Stamford and just like then, I got very inspired. I just love dance history and with pieces like these you can get a feel for how it was when they first started to develop modern dance.
After the show, Jess and I walked over to Hell’s Kitchen and sat down at a tapas bar. And we talked and talked. Again, I’m so happy that I invited her:) We had a great time!
We were there right when the party started at 6pm. Drinks, candy, some other snacks and craft stations for the kids. At that time it was just me and Thor and 4 families. I’m gonna be honest and say that I felt pretty misplaced but I chose to ignore it. I did get some weird looks from some of the parents and I could just tell they were judging me, especially one of the fathers who walked around holding their 4 month old baby while staring at me the whole time. I felt like that crazy dog lady who walks around with her dressed up tiny dog and feeds him small bits of carrots and talks to him like he is a human (which is true though, I do do that haha, plus I didn’t want T down on the floor with all that chocolate around and carrots could occupy him and keep him quiet). But hey, they don’t know my story, they don’t know that I’m not allowed to have a baby of my own that I can walk around with just like they are with theirs. So if the neighbors wants to judge me and now think that I’m the crazy dog lady of the building, then so be it. Plus I rather had Thor with me than sit by myself in a corner hahah. 
