Another set of parents in Sweden

 After lots of planning and re-planning my American parents were able to make the long trip out to Sweden.  And even better: it was on my birthday!

 The first night we had a birthday dinner with my contact person and his family and my second host family! It was a wonderful but early night seeing as my parents were jet lagged and very tired! 

The next day we headed up to a region of Sweden called Darlana.  We stayed in a little cabin along a lake in a small cute town called Rättvik.

 Well they didn't actually serve rum...in swedish sum means rooms like rooming in a hotel...my dad thought this sign was very funny.

 We visited the original factory where Dalahorses are hand crafted.  Then we found a very nice barn that was turned into a tea shop and sat in the sun for hours there!

 Darlana is most known for having red houses with the white trim around.

 The porcupines in Sweden are deadly! Haha no, we just thought this sign was cute!

 Unfortunately for all you reading this I do not have very many pictures because I let my parents take all the pictures so I have no more.  But we were able to spend a couple nights with my first host family and a couple nights with my second host family and let my parents get to know all them a bit better.  We also had a day in Stockholm walking along the old cobblestone streets on the tourist roads. 
For Midsummer (the biggest holiday in Sweden next to Christmas) Swedes dance around a May pole and pluck flowers from their gardens to make crowns out of.  Some people dress in the traditional swedish outfits and others just come in what ever they want.  The Midsummer dinner would include different types of herring potatoes and snaps (along with songs) for those who drink.  Then around midnight (seeing as it never gets really dark out) the young single ladies would go out into the garden and pick 7 different types of flowers to put under their pillow and jump over 7 different types of fences.  Then the boy/man that they dream of that night is their one day husband!!  My parents and I were lucky enough to follow with my host family to one of their summer houses for this occasion.
From there my parents and I went up into Tumba to meet Dieter and Erika.  They are the parents that hosted my dad when he was in Germany for 6 weeks when he was about my age.  Their daughter (who is a few years younger than dad) now lives in Tumba so Dieter and Erika came up from Germany to see our family.  Last time we saw them I was 3 months old and in Dieter's arms!!! It's amazing where time goes!
And now it is time for my next adventure through all of Europe!!

What time is it? SUMMER TIME!!

 Well the month of June is a very exciting time of the year for people who live in Sweden.  It includes the national day, end of school, and the long awaited beginning of summer!

 June 6th is Sweden's national day where many people gather in the city parks, listen to music and speeches by important people, and showing off the blue and yellow colored flags!

 There were university students in the park preforming for whoever walked by and wanted to listen and be entertained during lunch or a picnic.

With the ending of school came days spent on the fields with friendly (yet competitive) class competitions and end-of-year pool parties!

 And the final day of school included receiving my (PASSING) grades, watching the class older than me graduate (which just happened to be in Uppsala Castle!!)

 The class that graduates wears suites and white dresses along with what look like Sailor hats.  After they have the speeches and the teary eyed goodbye's they get to run out of the front doors of the castle to the awaiting crowd of parents and family members who have made embarrassing posters with baby photos!

 After that each class of graduates hope in the back of a truck of tractor drawn trailer that blasts music and drives around the city.  Seeing as there are more than ten 'high school's' in Uppsala and almost every class has a float...Traffic doesn't move very quickly!

 To celebrate Alva and Emma graduating from their classes and on to a new school next year we went out to a nice dinner!

 Emma's end of the year school graduation type thing was held outside in the what was trying to be good weather!  The littlest kids at her school sang, her class, sang, little kids danced, teachers sang and it was all very nice! Emma played her violin with a friend for many of the songs!

 Afterwords her class had a picnic across the street (in the sun!!) where the teacher could say a little bit more meaningful and personalized goodbye to Emma's class.

 

Later that day I picked my parents up from the airport, 

but those adventures deserve their own blog post soon to come!!!