cobblers

Kolmården

This weekend we have been at the biggest zoo/safari park in the whole of Scandinavia, wow wee I here you say! But no, it was really cool with lots of animals to see. On Saturday we went to the zoo, which has all the usual suspects, elephants (gift from the thai king to the swedish king), rhinos,

seals (who had the best view in teh whole zoo),

and monkees. The kids enjoyed all of this but I cant help feeling that the bit htey like dthe best was the play park that they have.

On Saturday night we stayed in the Wildmark Hotel, which is right in the park (big thanks to those who gave us this as a wedding present). then on Sunday we went to the safari park and tropicarium. The safari park was really excellent with lots of animals to see right up near the car. the ostrichs liked to get really close.

The bears were pretty manic, getting chased by wolves and then they had lots of lions right near the car too. Not the place to change a tyre.

Kittelfjäll ski weekend

Last weekend a big bunch of us from work went up to Kittelfjäll in the north of Sweden for a skiing/snowboarding trip. For the few of you out there who don't know where it is its up there:

Its easily the furthest north I have been, at about 1000km stright up from Uppsala. We travelled up overnight by bus. It was my first time on a sleeping bus (the seats turned into some sort of giant bunkbed in a way that appealed to the engineer in me, but not the sleeper), but it wasnt as bad as I thought it could be. It was cramped, and the roads in the north of Sweden meant that we were kept awake by being shaken about. But thats not really the buses fault. Anyway, after 12 hours we arrived at 8am in Kittelfjäll to a perfect day.

Quick breakfast an then it was up onto the slopes, first time skiing this year so it took a wee bit to come back into it but the snow was pretty easy, even if they could have used a bit more.

The saturday didnt have such good weather, but the meal at night and the pub afterwards well made up for it.

The sunday was great weather again, so we decided to splash out and go heliskiing. This is something I've wanted to do for a very, very long time and the price was right so we booked three runs.

At least half the fun was flying in the helicopter, another first time experience. The tops of theose hills look very small when your coming into land. But the skiing was first class on Marsfjället, the mountain we flew to. It was a bit hairy at times but I kept the side up and made it to the bottom in one piece.

See some more of my pictures here

See Stophe's pictures here

Last weekend

At the weekend we travelled down to Ulrikas parents house in Töreboda. As always this involves eating far, far too much good food and wine. Thats obviously when we get there!

They had some snow there so Elsa got to have a go on the snowracer. Not many hills unfortunately though.

Freakin' cold

Ok, so another post about the cold weather, but last night was the coldest ever in Uppsala. At Uppsala airport it was -33,2 degrees celcius. And at the flat this morning it was still -23.
Thank god for long johns is all I'm saying...

Yesterday Elsa and me were out having some fun on the snow racer sh egot for christmas. It was great fun riding down through the deep snow, and not bad training pulling her back up.

Snow!

We were away at the weekend.It was snowing a bit when we left and when we cam back this afternoon it seemed they had got a lot of snow!

W00t!

Signed the contract selling the flat this lunch time. We got just a little bit more than we needed to pay the deposit on the new house too :-)

Now its just the packing to be getting on with :-(

Texas hold'em

The last week I have been on a course down in Stockholm. Yesterday, after the course finished at 1pm, we went out with the course leader for a couple of pints at Duvel Cafe. It has a really good selection of Belgian beers, which proved to be pretty strong. Needless to say we were feeling the effects a wee bit  when we left at 6 o'clock. Håkan, addicted to gambling, suggested that we go to the only Casino in Stockholm on the way to the train. This was my first time in a casino and it was a bit of a bizarre experience. Especially as it was early in the evening. I managed to change my 200 kronor start amount into 550 playing blackjack. The most I got was about a thousand though. It's too easy to say just one more hand and then lose a lot, especially when your a wee bit tipsy :-)

The house is bought :-)

Today we bought a house, though still need to sign the papers (touch wood).

More pictures here

We are both pretty hyped, as you may realise this is neither of the houses that I showed earlier, but these things go fast. Top floor of 106 square metres with a basement of the same size. 4 bedrooms (room for exapnsion, who knows :-), sauna :-), garden.

No new house...yet

Well, little bit disappointed but we didn't get the house that we were hoping to buy. We made offers up to 2.6 million kronor, but that really was our limit and the other bidder was really determined to have the house. Our previously stated upper limit was 2.5 :-)

Back to the hunt...

Yahoo!

Christmas shopping finished for another year :-)