Chef Lukas

On Friday evening, we hosted Bob's teaching assistants and co-lecturer. Lukas helped get the meat ready for the oven.

Santa's Workshop?

Our garage is turning into a small Santa's Workshop for Noah's projects. No close-ups so that Christmas morning surprises are not spoiled.

The Final Push

Bob has just a few more days left in the semester and he once again employed Lukas to assist him in the grading. Lukas also spent some time fixing one of the robots, reading the wiring chart and soldering connections to make the robot work. This kind of tedious work he truly enjoys!

Advent Tradition

We first heard of this book series when we lived in Ridgecrest, California, and ever since, we have read it as part of our Advent celebration. Although the boys know the story inside and out, it is still an enjoyable time to gather on the couch, sometimes with hot chocolate, sometimes with leftover cookies, and sometimes with a bowl of ice cream to enjoy while once again follow the adventure of these brave young protagonists. Now the book opens up good and challenging conversations keeping us talking for a long time. What would you do if... is usually how it starts.

Open House

We hosted a Christmas Open House last weekend to usher in the holiday season. Noah selected the cookies we were to bake and created the spreadsheet of ingredients. My job was going shopping. The boys did most of the baking.
The invitation said 2-4 pm, at 2 pm we were all by ourselves, but by 2:15 the house was bustling with guests and the last ones did not leave until almost 6 pm. Since most of the cookie platters were empty, it was an easy cleanup.
We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know some of our neighbors and spend time with friends we have made from Navigators and CC. The Christmas season is officially here!

Glogg Glass, Sweden Style

Noah helped put out the glogg glasses for our Christmas Open House. He pulled out the glass we brought back from Germany, it sure looks similar to a glogg glass in all ways but size.
He smiled and said, 'this is a Morfar's size glogg glass.'

Ginger Bread House

One of our traditional Christmas activities is making gingerbread houses - it reminds me of growing up in Sweden and how my Dad would make glogg and roll out gingerbread houses that we would then decorate. We are not that talented and resort to the readymade Tyreso made houses. 

My job is to heat the sugar on the stove and now that the boys are older, they even put the actual house together and of course, decorate it. Some of the candy never makes it on to the house....  I guess that is part of the fun. 

Lukas made frosting for affixing the candy and since he is efficient he listened to a podcast while waiting for the egg whites to 'do their thing'