Summer is finally here!

A long, but fruitful, academic year has come to a close and now my studies are no longer the first thing that comes to mind when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I spend doing before going to bed, with a break for playing with Yaminah in the afternoon. We are up in our house in Hulån, Dala-Järna, a tiny little village in the province of Dalarna, Sweden.

We love coming up to our house, perhaps because it is not the "real world" here. When we are here we are not working or studying (usually); we see family, friends, and relax, and although we have only been here for a few days, we are already busy relaxing. (Is that an oxymoron? :)

So far the weather has been terrible, but today the rain let up and the sun came out, so this afternoon I mowed the lawn (and actually had fun--that tells you that this is not something I do very often), trimmed around all of our bushes and trees by hand, and then retreated to taking some photos. We realized when we were in China that it is very easy to take pictures whenever one is on vacation or visiting someone else, but we realized, when we wanted to show our Chinese students, that we had almost no pictures of our own town, city, house, or apartment. So today I took a few pictures. Call them "images of summer;" it is a welcome summer, even if the cold is causing people to complain and inspiring a fire in our wood-burning stove every evening.

Tomorrow Tomas is going to build a sandbox for Yaminah, and this weekend is Sweden's big holiday, Midsummer's. I hope to write more about that later with pictures.

I wish you a very nice summer, with time for family, friends, and time for resting. I know that it is what I need! I hope that you will find time to do whatever makes you feel happy and more relaxed...or perhaps inspired. We will be travelling a lot this summer, but for the next 10 days we are just going to be here, hanging out. My goal is to make time for things I love, including reading, walking, baking, blogging, dreaming, and of course for time with family and friends. In a few weeks I will also have a chance to travel, which I also love, but for now, I just want to be right here!