Scandi-lous Sunday

It's not unusual for mothers to have dark circles under their eyes. All those late nights and early mornings. Sounds like my life right now... minus the diapers, teething pain, and ear infections.

Got home late last night from my excursion over to Minnesota so headed straight to bed. Three late nights in a row and I am on the edge of a haggard mother look. So I opted to skip blogging and get some rest – even though I was too excited to sleep.

Yesterday was our pre-trip meeting for my upcoming adventure to Scandi-hoovia! Less than a month away!

After early church, I headed over to my oldest sister Rayna's place in Hudson. Took her to lunch for Mother's Day since we called her our "Upstairs Mom" – she IS old enough to be our mom and all our bedrooms were upstairs. So it was a logical moniker.

After lunch, we found an ice cream place, quite by accident, I assure you.

Headed back to her place and my twin showed up so we could all ride over to Stillwater to the meeting together. It was a gorgeous summer-like day and the tourists – and hopa tree blooms – were out everywhere!

Nothing could compare to our excitement, though! We got a lot of travel details about the trip. You know, everything from passports to money to proper phone chargers!

Couple interesting things... Sweden is a cash-free country so credit cards are the only way to go. And we'll be there during Summer Solstice time which translates loosely to the Land of the Midnight Sun. Sunrise at 3:30 a.m. and sunset at 10 p.m. How crazy!

During our meet and greet – there'll be 35 of us traveling on this bus tour – we were also treated (using the term loosely) to Swedish food. What we know from our childhood holds true today... Swedish meatballs are a thing (and still yummy) and so is pickled herring (which only came out at Christmas at our house and I still can't grow to like). Apparently, though, the Swedes like to sneak in anchovies in food, too. I guess they are little fish like herring so I shouldn't be surprised. But I started to wonder if my DNA test was wrong!

Needless to say, Raylene and I – self-acknowledged picky eaters – figure we'll probably lose weight on this trip. And we'll need to pack some tasty protein bars or something. Ha. As Lene pointed out, "I'm going for the scenery and the experience – not necessarily the food." Uff da. This is going to be an adventure!

And in case you were wondering, thanks to the 49-year-old twins, we bring the average age of the traveling group down quite a bit. Bonus for us. We'll need to feel young one last time!