Fun Family Saturday

It was an early morning for the Paynes today.  The sun is shining bright by 5:00am and my Blinkies are doing a great job of helping me sleep through it, but I can't say the same for my sweet little Chase.  He is rising with the chickens and feeling the need to come down and wake me up as well.  This morning at 5:38 he asked for breakfast.  I was chatting with my sister (Dee) last night until almost 1am so a 5:30 wake up was NOT welcomed!

Moving into a new home is never easy and there's never enough time to get everything done in one day.  The boys have been really great with this whole move so we thought we would make today a fun day for them.  Smith has been begging Steve since we arrived to put his bike together so he could ride, but bikes were not top of the priority list when we were living in the dark.  Steve surprised him this morning, so I took the boys to the park while he tackled another trip to Ikea.

We live about a mile from a park which has great bike paths for the kids, so we headed out the door with bikes, helmets and water bottles.  As you can see in this picture, Chase was cruising!  Smith spent the entire two hours riding around the park, and Jake headed over to the skate ramps and hung with all the kids there.

There goes Jake in the blue sweatshirt!

The skate park was packed with kids of all ages.  Most of them had scooters and were flying up and down the ramps.   I was extremely impressed.  Chase and Smith were fascinated as well.  Look at them exploring the ramps.  Chase actually got stuck in this one.  

Everyone here is enjoying the last few weeks of beautiful weather.  Today was a picture perfect day.  The clouds were white and fluffy, the temperature was great and and the smell of charcoal burning in the park grills was everywhere.  There were families playing together, walkers and runners exercising, bikers riding, children on the playgrounds, boats sailing, and even people sun bathing.  Personally, it's too cold for me to put a bathing suit on, but in a few years I might be soaking up the sun in 60 degree weather too.  Here are some pictures of what my day looked like.

After playing on the playground we rode down closer to the water and watched the ducks.  The boys considered jumping in but then felt the temperature of the water and decided against it.... not that I was going to let them.  :)

We were all getting hungry at this point so we headed home for food.  Mommy was in a happy mood and instead of eating lunch, we had ice cream.  At that point Steve was back with more Ikea goodies and the plan was to work around the house for the remainder of the day.  We had a great surprise when the Gavins Facetimed us and the boys were able to talk to their buddies.... then Xan (Smith's bud) Facetimed, and that was super fun!  The two of them cracked each other up for about 20 minutes.  Jake and Smith were so happy to reconnect with friends again.  Smith had a smile from ear to ear for the rest of the day.  

Steve has been working really hard building furniture and now he has the pleasure of installing lights.  As I"m writing this blog, our living room is bright.  We have been living in the dark for so long that we forgot how nice it feels to have light.  I don't think Steve realized that he would become a carpenter, electrician and computer tech (that's another story for another time) when we moved here, but he is!  And a darn good one at that!

For dinner the boys wanted to have a picnic in the park.  We decided to order a pizza for them and Steve and I would take-out food from this really cool restaurant/bar that sits directly on the grass in the park.  Our plan was flawless until we opened our pizza and they gave us someone else's order.  We then went to order take out from this restaurant and was dine-in only.  So..... we grabbed a table directly next to the grass where the boys were playing soccer.  Steve and I had a drink, ordered food for the fam, watched the boys play, and enjoyed a few minutes of quiet, alone time.  When the food arrived it was really good and at that moment we decided this would be our Friday night routine.  The boys loved it because they could run around and play and we loved it too! Did I mention there is adult bocce ball connected to the restaurant.  There were so many people dressed for a casual evening out playing.  For the next few weeks (they close for the winter months) we will be at Boulebar around 6:00pm on Friday nights.  We even got a quick game of Payne Family Soccer in before we left.  Here's a picture of it during the day.  It was a bit of a different crowd at night.

The boys cruised back home on their bikes, Chase was so wiped out that he could barely keep his eyes open in the shower.  He rode up every hill without letting us help him.  Hopefully we tired him out enough tonight with his 15 mile bike ride that he won't be waking up at 5:00.

Here's a picture of us heading back home after an amazing day and evening in the park.  As Steve put it, this was our best family day in Stockholm so far!  If you're wondering what is on Chase's head, he insisted on wearing his wool hat under his helmet. 

The boys said today that they really like living in Sweden.... I happen to agree!