Definitely Back in Stockholm

Pictured: Myrna insulated by fleece-lined jeans, a fleece-lined snowsuit, and a fleece-lined sleeping bag. Also note the flattened cardboard box positioned just inside the doorway. This originally housed the stroller sleeping-bag, and laid there for several days waiting to be taken down the block to the recycle station. But now it's just one more tool for keeping the slush and sand at bay.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Just about to check out of our hotel after a whirlwind trip to Seattle and San Francisco. There are a few more things to do before we board a plane (coffee figures prominently on this list), but I believe we're all set for what will hopefully be another smooth flight. It's been an incredibly busy visit to the west coast, and certainly we wish we could've stayed longer and seen more people, but it's been nice to be back.

BluRay

Yesterday I caught Myrna trying to load this cylindrical block into the DVD player.

The New Year

We're still covered under a blanket of snow, with highs hitting 20 F if we're lucky. I've been a bit stir crazy these last few days. Many places (like our favorite café) closed for the Christmas - New Year's week, and Myrna is (hopefully) getting over a nasty cold and fever, so we've been staying in mostly. But this morning we drank the last of our delicious coffee, so we had to find a new place to buy some more (as Drop Coffee was still on break). So, we bundle ourselves all up in hats, mittens, snowsuit for Myrna, legwarmers for me and head out into the beautifully sunny (and freezing cold) Stockholm. I'm all excited for Myrna to try her new sleeping bag/foot muff that attaches to her stroller (and I'm totally jealous of it too). Well, all those layers on her makes the securing of the straps a difficult process, and we miss the bus we are aiming for, and Myrna is quite vocal with her dissatisfaction at being manipulated into so many layers (not realizing just how lucky she is to be all swaddled up).

We find a great bag of beans - a favorite Ethiopian blend from Åre Roasteri. Not surprisingly, another one of our favorite cafés is still closed, and at this point I'm admitting that leaving the house was a dumb idea. We're even ready to just call this outdoor adventure a bust and head home, when we stumble upon the breakfast buffet at String Café, a place that has been on our "To Visit" list. Myrna has now woken up from her snooze and ready to help us out on our multiple plates of crepes, sandwiches and eggs, if she doesn't get distracted from people watching and trying to climb out of her high chair. We pack in the food and coffee like we're gonna hibernate for the winter, and when it comes time to bundle back up, Myrna doesn't find it so objectionable. As it was still light out when we came home, we got to check out the layer of ice and snow that once was the water surrounding our little island.

As I mentioned, Myrna has been suffering from a fierce cold that started to escalate on Tuesday (probably in protest of me going into the office for a day of work). We are so hoping that she will be mostly healthy for our travels on Wednesday. Between the cold and the wonderful new carry-on restrictions for flights to the US, we have the odds stacked up against us. Oh yeah, she's also started to walk, more than 20 steps in a row.