Summer Camping Adventures

My dad likes to go camping. My husband likes to go camping. Yaminah loves to go camping. And I like it too. So...for the past few years when we have come to Minnesota from Sweden for a visit, we have been going camping with Dad. This year, because Dad and Beth's basement flooded (meaning we had no place to stay at their house) we went camping twice.

Sometimes, however, camping can be a bit too much of an adventure for me. Last year when we were camping, there was an incident. I am afraid of lightning, (from another "incident" while on the Great Wall of China--that's another story) so I had told Dad and Tomas that I would only agree to go camping in a tent if everyone promised that if it started to storm, we would all go and sit in Dad's car. Well, wouldn't you know it...we were all sitting in the tent, trying to stay dry from the rain outside, when it started to storm. In the tent we had suitcases, a full, large cooler, amongst other things. I convinced everyone (including Yaminah, who thought it was a lot of fun) to move over to the CRV to wait out the storm. So there we sat, snacking and chatting and Yaminah having a great time bouncing around in the back seat, as we watched the wind pick up and pull the tent once, twice...until the wind snatched the tent and toss it away like a used glove, right before our eyes. When the storm abated a little, Dad and Tomas went out into the rain to try to salvage what they could of our camping gear.

In the end, the storm passed, leaving us with our nice, big tent ruined, but luckily for us, Dad had a spare 2-person tent along (he might call it more than that officially, but my version is, it was tiny). There I then slept with two grown men and a baby, with all the smells and sounds you might expect. Luckily, however, the next day of that camping trip the weather changed and we had a great day hiking and hanging out.

So, when we decided to go camping twice this year, I was a little nervous. Not only does one need to be aware of the dangers of storms and lightning, there is also a risk of bears (these are my concerns). Plus, how far away is the bathroom? We have a two-year-old after all, and when she has to go, one has to hurry...

But all of my fears proved unfounded this year. The weather was gorgeous (except quite cold at night on the second camping trip), and fortunately, there was no sign of bears. I wish I would have been able to sleep better though, but I was awake a lot listening to the lake, wondering if there were bears outside our door, or not sleeping because Yaminah decided to share my sleeping bag with me...but one cannot have everything!

Dad, Tomas, Yaminah and I went to Gooseberry Falls the first trip, (where the three of us swam in the pool below the waterfall--it was wonderful) and the second time we went to Split Rock, and Sarah, Scott, and David joined us as well. It was a lot of fun to have the siblings join us. Thanks to Dave, Yaminah was actually in Lake Superior (she loved it, and since then whenever she is in the bath, she says "Look, I'm swimming in Lake Su-PER-ior!") and thanks to Sarah, Yaminah tasted smores for the first time. When Dad went to bed, we stayed up and played two games of Settlers, with a roaring campfire (unfortunately a little too far away, but at least it looked nice). And luckily Sarah had brought a nice, warm blanket and we huddled together to stay warm. Isn't the purpose of camping, after all, to spend time together as a family?

Now I am looking forward to our next camping adventures!

Master Chef at the Gooseberry campsite, great spot #25

The view of Split Rock Lighthouse from our campsite

Yaminah proudly holding up her present from Grandpa. Bears are cute, on pillows...

Trying Smores!

In Lake Superior with Uncle Dave

Throwing rocks with Grandpa and Uncle Dave

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!