An updated picture of our expanded family!
From left to right
Emmie (4)
Hayden (8)
Nick (14)
Arielle (13)
Ryan (7)

Halloween

I've been really bad at posting pictures lately. I'll try to do better..
Halloween came and went, but buckets full of candy is still here. The kids picked their costumes pretty quick. Hayden wanted to be Mario so of course Emmie wanted to be something similar, but instead of picking one of the female characters from the game, she chose Luigi. They were super cute though together. The mustaches didn't stay on very long, but it doesn't matter.

Hayden posing at the Easter egg hunt

Emmie didn't want to visit the Easter bunny as he had come during the night and taken her pacifier...

Easter at Fripp

Our friends, the Calkins came to visit us at Fripp. Sonja, Maeve, Kaleigh and Finnigan. We had our own egg hunt in the yard, and then went to the annual egg hunt at Ocean Point golf course.

Mamma, Jenny, Benjamin och jag

Emmie och Benjamin

Emmie tyckte det var jättekul att leka med Benjamin när han satt i lek grejen.

Hayden och Benjamin

Kusinen Benjamin var på besök från Sverige. Emmie ville inte vara med på bild men pojkarna klarade ju sej själva.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from us all. We had been very good this year because Santa brought tons of gifts for us.

Reptile park

We visited a very cool reptile park where you could pet most of the animals, including the snakes. Emmie loved the kangaroos and would go up behind them, push on them and say; jump, jump!

Terregal Beach

One of the beaches around the corner from us. The water was surprisingly cold. The kids didn't care though!

Taronga Zoo, Sydney

Australia

We had a fabulous vacation in Australia. We went with our friends the Toner's from Cincinnatti (Gary, Suzy, Georgia and Tommy). Gary is from the Central Coast so he took care of booking and organizing everything. We rented a house on the beach in North Avoca for the first 2 weeks, and finished our trip with 3 nights in Sydney. During the 18 days we ended up seeing and doing a lot of stuff and we had a great time.

Fripp Fest 2009

Every October there is a festival at Fripp with all sorts of fun stuff including a 5k race. We have participated the past 3 years. This year the author of Prince of Tides, Pat Conroy and his wife Cassandra King (they live on Fripp) had a booksigning. The weather was great and we got to play on the beach and ocean. Unfortunately, it was not as great of a weekend for the 77 year old man that lost his arm to an alligator while playing golf! We all got to keep our arms though.

Moose safari

10 minutes from Perstorp is a Moose safari. Or that is a very fancy word for it. Two moose families in a fenced in area. Anyway, the kids had fun running around trying to spot the moose.

Kids are swinging at Mormor and Morfars house. Petting some huge bunnies at a bird park outside Helsingborg.

European vacation

We went to Sweden and England during the last 3 weeks in June and did lots of fun stuff and visited family and friends. It's always great to catch up with everybody and the kids did amazingly well going all over the place.

First up was a visit to Helsingborg and my oldest friend Elisabeth and her family. Our kids are the same age and played very well together although they really couldn't communicate that much. This is from the playground.

Baseball End of the Year celebration

Tonight we had our end of the year celebration for baseball. Hayden has really enjoyed playing especially since Uncle Alan has been the coach. We all went to see the Gwinnett Braves play and had lots of fun.

Kindergarten graduation

Hayden graduated from Kindergarten today! It's hard to believe he's finished his first year of school already. Graduation was a big deal where all the students received their diploma in the gym, and also sang and performed for their families. Hayden was selected to stand up with 5 other students and say the Pledge of Allegiance in front of everyone. Enough to make his mom tear up...

After graduation they had a reception in their class room and they got to say good bye to their teachers, Mrs. McDuffie, Mrs. Lisa and Mrs. Jamie who all have been wonderful this year!