Beautiful Sweden! Happy National Day!! I hope all my fellow Swedes are enjoying this holiday, most people have a day off!
These pictures are from the amazing west coast. The kids just talked about this place and want to go back and climb the rocks. I’m not saying no to that!
We are going out for dinner and concert tonight, to see Dave Matthew’s Band. So fun, except for my terrible neck pain… I hope a few drinks and good company will help me relax :)
Lina, Allan and I took a trip to Detroit today. I took lots of pictures but for some reason it’s not uploading, technical problems, not my favorite :)
So in the meantime – from the patio! This palm tree (that has another name I guess) is from Ikea and it’s an indoor plant, but it’s living life on the patio :) I should only have palms or other plants that need low maintenance. In the lawn and in the beds (rabatterna) we have a sprinkler system, which is great! Because it’s no fun to spend money on flowers and plants that are just dying in the heat, right?!
This might be a good tip for a lazy gardener, that I need to try:
My peonies! My favorite flower for many reasons. Nope, I still can’t say peonies (with my Swedish accent) without starting to laugh, haha!
Every year my penis I mean peonies, have started to bloom right after we left for Sweden. This year we’ll be here a little bit longer, so hopefully I won’t miss their prime time!!
Welcome June!! This was yesterdays’s lunch in the hot weather- Mixed greens with lots of avocado, tomatoes, cucumber, mushrooms, red onion, pine nuts, olive oil, salt and pepper – served with grilled chicken, pesto and buffalo mozzarella. Yum, a perfect summer lunch!
Now it’s time to clean up the kitchen after a late Saturday breakfast. Birmingham Fair (tivoli) is next on our schedule and the boys are excited! Oliver is done with school so he’s now in Summer break!! I still remember that feeling, the best. Eddie-Bo has two more weeks to go and after that we’ll spend the summer in Sweden, like every summer!
♥ I’m still overwhelmed by all love and support from you all. I received a lot of questions too, that I hope I can answer soon when I have time to sit down ♥
I wish you a good weekend!
Kram//Xx Cissi
Hi, can’t believe it’s the last day of May. I hope we can say in the future that May 2018 was the time when our life turned to the better again!!
Right now we are just enjoying the time being home. It’s super hot outside, so the best places to be is by the pool or indoors.
Summer, magazines and coffee, oh yeah! I also snuggle a lot with my five months old nephew Allan that is here visiting with his amazing Mom Lina. My brother couldn’t come this time. Lina used to live with us for two summers, helping us chasing Oliver when he was totally wild and gone all the time :) I love how close we all are!!
I hope you have great day!
Kram//Xx Cissi
Johan and I want to thank you all for your love, support and kindness thru all your comments and e-mails regarding my previous post. I’m overwhelmed by the response and it means a LOT. At the same time it breaks my heart to hear so many of you are going thru the same or with similar issues. I hope you all get better eventually ♥ Don’t give up!!
We are all home now and are very grateful and taking it one day at a time.
Once again THANK YOU ALL ♥
I don’t know where to start, but this week has been really hard and extremely emotional. Monday morning the kids, Lisa and I flew out to Denver, Colorado to visit Johan. He’s been going thru an intensive treatment program at Marcus Brain Health Institute, and this last week was a family week where I joined in for a lot of sessions. He’s still dealing with post concussion syndrome, and the last months have been really bad. Something needed to happen and I’m so thankful we found this new amazing place. It opened up in March and they treat vetarans and athletes with brain traumas. Johan was actually their very first athlete.
First day when we came was a great day, so nice to see each other again. Second day – terrible and we got in to a huge fight. Probably normal in most relationships, but when you have an brain injury it adds up, and it becomes SO not rational. The brain just can’t paus and take a break when it’s overloaded and can’t recover. He bounced back to a very dark and sad place. However, I’m glad it happened while we were there. The amazing top of the line team at ‘The Marcus’, handled the situation so professionally, they rescheduled his and my schedule completely the day after to treat him as best as they could. You could feel how they all genuinely cared for Johan, and also me.
He was teamed with three vetarans, and they have all become very close to each other, sharing their stories and situations. For me it was also great to get together with the other wives, same there sharing our stories along with LOTS of tears. I have not been crying this much in a very long time.
So as I said, it’s been very hard, but also GREAT! They have a really good approach where they target all different aspects of PTSD, everything from auditory processing, balance, vision and tools to deal with dark thoughts of depression and ways to learn how to calm down with meditation and mindfulness, and to be proactive to give themselves a longer fuse.
We are for the first time very hopeful for the future and Johan feels much better from when he started the treatment. It’s not gonna be easy, but now he has a plan on how to go forward and can also start to work out slowly again, we have learned how to handle different situations better, and the doctors and therapists are still there for us and will continue to follow up. I’m super proud of my husband for getting his lately lazy butt out there!!
Living with a husband with a brain injury is not easy, it’s like a rollercoaster. But I am doing my best to get us to a better place, not only for us and but also for our amazing boys that deserve the best!!
In sickness and in health ♥ I love you Hunny ♥
I think this pretty outdoor shower have made it to my blog before :) Anyhow, I think a black outdoor shower would look good by the future pool area in Sweden! Please let me know if you have seen one that I might like!
I’m going thru a really tough week. Good in many ways, but really hard and emotional. Whenever I have time and energy I’ll tell you more about it.
Right now I’m resting the brain and think about interior design. That’s therapy for me!!
Our lovely backyard that we use a lot! This time of the year is just magical. Well except for when we got home from the tournament the hot tub and pool was full of mulch (bark) due to the heavy rain earlier that day. But mostly we can relax, play and entertain out here!
Peaceful evening at our house.
I think I enjoy this even more right now, since I now most of our Swedish garden will be a mess this summer. But we will figure it out and plan what needs to be done.
And I love to see all beautiful summer pictures from Sweden, the weather has been warm and nice in May! Please keep it that way all summer!!
Now time for a little family adventure. Will tell you more another day!
Kram//Xx Cissi
A few weeks ago I got these two bedroom photos sent from my builder. This cool iron beam was found under the old walls and ceiling, a good surprise that I fell in love with. We decided to add some spotlights in it and I think it will look so cool when it’s done. And all the black windows are another love story!
Stucco (puts) on the walls. My first plan was to paint the room in a soft grey/green color, but I like them raw like this, so I decided to keep it this way for now. Need to see and touch it on site! Next on my to do list is to pick out a nice carpet. Also need to call my contractor to see how everything is going back home!
