Christmas Day 2010

I have to say I really don't like the way Blogspot allows you and then DOES NOT allow you to cut pictures, rearrange them side by side or drag them into order....so I'm sorry these pictures are totally out of order

There are a few pictures of us opening presents, while my parents were over for Christmas day dinner. There are pictures of the table, because Jonas's Mormor made the napkin ring holders and the small table runner in the middle. We ate King Crab, Dungeness crab and tri tip! I attempted quite successfully to aebleskiver a Danish dessert, all the while it poured and poured outside! Merry Christmas everyone bring on 2011!

We framed an old advertisement my Dad had made in 1973 for his first dealership Peninsula Mazda, where now his building sits with his office. I think it brought back a lot of memories for him to look at this old ad!

Mom is impossible, I found a fun red patent purse, but I don't think she actually likes it...she is THE MOST PICKY woman ever! We gave Spencer some nice wine glasses a bottle of good wine, some movie tickets among other things in the hopes that he will get a girlfriend already!

You can see Tiger under the table, he always follows me around whatever I'm doing!

I made aebleskiver for dessert!

Me and my Jonas!

Jonas cleaned the crab and cracked them so the pieces were easier to pick out the meat!

Scandinavian's Club Christmas Dinner

The whole family went to the annual Young Scandinavian's Club Christmas dinner held at the Norwegian Club's house in the city this past Saturday. We enjoyed a great meal, akvaavit, singing and a fun cozy night with 100 of the members! I think I've gone 6 years in a row now and my parents have come 3 times. I think my Dad enjoys the Danish traditions!

Today I finished my Christmas shopping, I just can't handle the crowds, the lines to pay and hunting for a parking spot at the mall. The upside is everything is one sale everywhere! It doesn't matter that it is not after the holiday yet, I guess the retailers are getting desperate to sell as much as possible before the close of the year. I got 20 extra hours this week so I will be working the next 3 days, but that is fine with me! I'd rather be earing money than spending!!

Please let this be the end of it!

Another fun filled week of sewer repair. All I can say is after spending nearly $2k on this it better be fixed for like 15 years which is what our awesome plumber Steve told us! Jonas is awesome, he dug up the pipe AGAIN because the only solution to really cleaning out the rust, and rocks and sludge that has built up in there was to cut the pipe, re jett it and pull everything out. So that is what they guys did this Sunday, and then put on a new piece of pipe with a better clean out angle as you can see by this picture.

What you don't really see is that our house sits on 100% clay, so a shovel doesn't work in wet clay, so Jonas had to dig WITH HIS HANDS! And the yard is just a mess, clay everywhere...we are just going to put some sand in and around the pipe and then cover it back up later this week and let the upcoming rain do some of the cleaning of the yard for us! But we are just so relieved this is done for now, so maybe we can enjoy our Holidays!

Grattis to the Birthday Boy!

For dinner on this very special day, The Artons and the Tegneruds went to TOWN for dinner. This is a favorite place to go! http://www.townsc.com/ we had divine steaks and of course they brought out a little strudel thingy for Jonas! Happy Birthday!

2nd Advent

Well, it's our first Christmas in our new home and we want to start traditions. One of them being a nice get together with family and friends which we did last night! Jonas is the best, he bakes! So many compliments to were given to Jonas's Swedish buns! Of course I just ordered some lucekattor buns from Copenhagen Bakery! We also had a bunch of Swedish meatballs and princekorv which disappeared! We had our good friends over and it poured rain outside, it was a cozy sunday afternoon!

The Damage

So we thought we were going to have to have a second clean out spot put in our yard so when the sewer gets backed up we have 2 spots to put a high powered hose in and/or snake and clean out the pipes. We started digging and digging, Joe our handyman came and had to jackhammer the concrete in the front because they couldn't find the pipe. ROTO ROOTER WAS WRONG ABOUT WHERE THE PIPE WAS!!! We found it and it makes about a 30degree turn in the front of our house and then over to the main city line. Long story short they found a second cleanout see picture, that was already built in but some idiot/previous home owner decided to put concrete over it! Well anyhow all is clean now, if we have any more problems, I will rip my hair out! This is a picture of the aftermath...what you can't tell from the picture is that all that dirt on the right is like a little mountain now..we will need to get rid of some of it and I think put a few pavers down around the clean out spot to connect the pathway....