Wedding Number 2

The second wedding we went to this summer was Veronica and Charlie's wedding in Sweden. Again we turned it into a two week holiday to make the most of the trip.

We flew into Stockholm and went straight to Uppsala, where Veronica had her hen's do. Nina, Philip and their children were in a hotel room right next to ours. While Nina and Kerstin went out for dinner with Veronica and her

friends, the guys entertained the children.

From Uppsala we drove to a small town near Gävle, called

Skutskär. We stayed with

Kerstin's friend Malin and her family, who Kerstin had met while she was still at

school and hadn't seen for 13

years. Malin was very hospitable and the children enjoyed playing with Malin's two boys. The children had a swim in the local river, we went to IKEA (very Swedish) and to a zoo.

On our long drive up North to the wedding venue we stopped off at

a camping-ground in Hudiksvall. Here we met up with Nina,

Philip, Nick, Clare, Jana and

Julian and enjoyed a social evening outside our little hut. There was a nice beach where Yana had a swim. The water was reasonably chilli, but she didn't mind.

The remainder of the drive to Ulvon was done on Anya's first birthday, which we weren't able

to celebrate properly. We had some chocolate muffins on the boat-trip and sang "Happy

Birthday" a few times. I'm pretty

sure she didn't mind.

The island of Ulvon, where Veronica and Charlie's wedding was held, was very picturesque.

We stayed in a hut overlooking the small boats in the harbour.

The wedding itself was held on a hill with magnificent views. We all had to hike up to it, resulting in the women swapping their heels for sneakers. Lindsay and Phil were entertaining the

children with lots of rainsins and

bread sticks, so that they only

really distracted us from listening to the vows. The ceremony was very romantic, including some beautiful singing from Veronica's sister-in-law. The reception was lots of fun, especially since we managed to find a babysitter and we were able to enjoy it child-free.

After the wedding we headed back South to a small town called Jarvso. We stayed in an old (and

quite basic) cabin, which was a

little miserable in the rain. But we caught up with Nina, Phil, Nick and Clare, who were staying in a holiday house nearby and visited a wild-life park with them.

Our last days were spent in Stockholm, where

we met up with Nick and Clare again. We stayed in a hotel room, from which we had an amazing view of the cruise ships and

ferries in the harbour. Especially

at night they looked really pretty

with all their lights on. Being in the same room with the children meant that we had to spend our evenings in the bathroom, but apart from that it all worked out reasonably well.

We went into Stockholm every day: Kerstin with the children on the bus for free (because of the

buggy, as we found out from

the locals) and Lindsay on the rental bike from the hotel. We took several boat trips, walked through Gamla Stan, looked at

the sunken Vasa ship and went to the outdoor museum of

Skansen.

It wasn't a relaxing holiday (with children it never is), but nevertheless we had a very enjoyable time experiencing Swedish culture, meeting

up with friends and soaking up a

bit of sun.

Wedding Number 1

Our summer holidays this year have been largely determined for us, based on two weddings we wanted to attend. The first one was the wedding of our friends Michael and Carmen in Munich, which gave us a nice excuse to visit our friends over there.

At Gatwick airport when waiting for the flight, Anya had a little accident and of course we didn't have any spare clothes as usual. The only clothes we managed to find for her in the entire airport was an English soccer outfit. With the Soccer World Champs being on, everyone thought we were very patriotic English people who had dressed up their little "boy".

We stayed with our friends Anna and Stefan just outside Munich for a week. The girls loved playing with little Tim and Benny and we got to make use of Anna and Stefan's babysitter to go out for a drink with them.

We realised that time was far too short, when we rushed from meeting one friend to another. It was nice to meet the Mummies from Yana's old playgroup again and to notice how we all hadn't changed but our children had more than doubled in age.

Unfortunately the weather was not very good. It was raining most of the time, including during the stag and hen's dos and the wedding itself.

At least Michael and Carmen were prepared and everyone got an umbrella in one of the four theme colours. The wedding was very beautiful despite the rain. It was held in Freising, with the reception in small village nearby. The guests came from many different countries and were very interesting to talk to, the food was great, the venues were lovely and, of course, the bride was beautiful.

Unfortunately us being the only ones with children, we couldn't quite enjoy everything as much as we would have liked. The nice dinner was a little interrupted by getting the girls to go to sleep and we couldn't party as long as long as the rest of the guests.

The day after the wedding Lindsay flew back home, while Kerstin took the train up to her parents' place with the girls. She spent a little over a week there, again meeting up with lots of friends and family and this time being able to enjoy proper summer weather.