Sledding

Yesterday we drove out to Hornefors to visit with Eve, Hedvig, Lovisa and their parents Torgny and Maria. Odin remembered Eve well from the 5 weeks she spent with us in Raleigh. He was excited to see her, but also very excited to see the rest of the family AND...

play in the snow! Odin crawls through a tunnel made in the deep snow.
There is one hill (man-made) in Hornefors. We went up and down many times! On one ride, Mom, Dad and Odin went down together on a big sled and someone's foot drug the ground kicking snow in everyone's face. Ha! Odin recovered quickly for many more fun rides down the big hill.

Eve and Odin take a ride down.

Odin and Hedvig smile big as they ride down together.

After sledding Odin and Dad practiced riding the "kick."
Surrounded by beautiful Swedish women, Odin enjoys story-time!

Cold Sweden Fun

It is cold here in Umea, but we are still enjoying the outside. Went skiing this weekend with our friends Kenneth and Anita. Odin rode in the sled and was all warm!

We stopped at the "house boat" in the background of this picture for some coffee and grilled some sausages. The river has frozen solid across some months ago.

We went sledding on Saturday while visiting other friends, Peder, Lena, and family. Odin had a blast!

Last night while mom was working, Dad and Odin went to the downtown area and visiting the "Ice Castle" that you see in the background. It was really cool and had a slide for kids (Dad had to go down with Odin - for ... umm ... saftety. :)

We went swimming at the "Simhall" on Saturday morning and Odin had lots of fun in the warm water.

Sweden Arrival!

The long flight to Sweden from Raleigh was tough...thank god for the free drinks on SAS airlines!
I knew he shouldn't have had that last "double."

We made it to Malmo in Southern Sweden and suffered from jet-lag for several days. But we did get to see a castle and some museums over the weekend!

We also got to see Nate Osborne (left) an NCSU graduate student, play in a pub with some locals. Odin loved it and wanted to hear "more songs."

Had to wear the ear muffs because it was so loud.

Arrived to Umea in Northern Sweden on Wednesday. What snow??

Went shopping at "Jula" a hardware store and look what they had! Odin jumped right on...

Then we walked by something that Odin couldn't resist...a tree filled with chainsaws!! He couldn't decide which one he wanted.

Community Garden

This past weekend we broke ground on our 4-family community garden. Brad, Tia and Maya Herring; Ryan, Laura and Colson Combs; Hope, Luke, Delta and Demetrius (http://branchesnc.com/); and the Bulldingers (that's us!) make up the garden. Below Luke and Brad are setting the outline of the garden with Odin's help.

A huge effort went into taking down 7 pine trees so our garden will be bathed in lovely morning sun. Odin enjoyed the chainsaw work the most!

Once the outline of the garden was set and the trees were down...digging commenced! And boy did we dig, dig and dig some more! You can see Odin is working especially hard digging with his little shovel.

Demetrius, Maya and Odin work hard rolling logs to be used for the boarder of the garden.

Enjoyin' Life

Odin's a happy little guy...he loves climbing,
swinging,

hanging out with Uncle Jeff,

pretending to ride 4-Wheelers (while waiting to have a flat tire fixed Odin found his dream toy and immediately jumped on for a "ride"),

and making juice!