What's New With the Smiths?: Grisslehamn, Days 1 & 2

After we arrived in Stockholm, we spent the night (or what was left of it) back at the Aronsson's flat in Odenplan. Wednesday morning Christine went out and did a little last-minute Christmas shopping while Kevin and the girls packed everything up. Then Margareta drove us all up to Grisslehamn, about 2 hours away.

Grisslehamn is a very small coastal town on Väddö island with a ferry to Åland. It is very popular in the summer, but much of the town shuts down during the winters, though there are some year-round residents. When we arrived, it was already covered in snow, much like the rest of Sweden (this is one of only about 16 years that the whole of Sweden has experienced a white Christmas since the 1850's!).
Ruben has quite a large collection of flavorings that he has both made himself and purchased. He uses these to create his own varieties of snapps, which he did the first evening we were there. He's really rather good at it!

The next morning we hung out and played. Linnea built with Duplo and was very proud of her creation, complete with a chicken on top. How appropriate! Then we went out and played for a bit in the snow.

Linnea sitting by while Adrian reads the newspaper

"Let's see....how do I call Mormor on this thing? Maybe I'll just text her instead...."

This is how much snow we started with in Grisslehamn!

Linnea sledding down the driveway

In the afternoon we had fika, of course. And what a fika! It was more like a feast! We had pepparkakor, hestskor, chokladböllar, lussekatter, and several other treats I'd never had before. They were all delicious!