20-point moose

Today we walked and "spark"-ed into downtown Alfta to do just a little more shopping. Linnea LOVES riding on and pushing the spark, and Kevin's quite good at it too!

The Smith family goes "spark"-ing!

 When we got back, we started packing up for the final time. In the evening we went to Sorljusne (about an hour from Alfta) to have dinner at Monica and Veijo's house. It was so nice to see their beautiful home and finally meet Veijo. For dinner they served us an incredible roast from a 20-point moose that Veijo had shot!

Monica & Veijo & his 20-point moose

Dinner at Monica and Veijo's - a fabulous dinner with wonderful friends!
Kevin, Linnea, Ebba, Monica, Veijo, Maggan, Annali

And for dessert, we had vanilla ice cream topped with our choice of homemade hot fudge or hjorton sylt (cloudberry jam) or both! Monica and Maggan dished up 3 bowls of ice cream with hot fudge for each of the girls - they were both in 7th heaven.

"What.....can't I have a 4th bowl of ice cream?"

After dinner, the girls played with Ebba and her old toys while the rest of the adults sat and visited. Just before it was time to go, we got to meet their 2 wonderful dogs, too. Linnea and Annali were both timid at first, but they really enjoyed looking at and getting kisses from the pups.

Annali loves being held by Monica, but she's not quite sure what to think about such a big dog....

Linnea getting extra kisses

Just like riding a pony!

We had such a fantastic time with them followed by a very sad goodbye since we won't see them again before we leave.



Tomorrow we will meet up with Susanne and her family. Then we're off to Stockholm Friday before flying home Saturday morning! Keep you're fingers crossed for us that the trains are in better form than they were on our last trip to Stockholm!

Lastly, an update on the weather. It has been downright balmy lately with temperatures in the -2 to -8 C range (28 to 18 F)! Linnea told me today as she was out playing with Anna-Greta, "It's not that cold outside today, Mama!" (I looked at the thermometer, which read -6 C or 21 F!) Before this trip, I never thought any of us would think that the low 20's was "not that cold"! When we were at the amaryllis festival yesterday it was in an unheated greenhouse. It was a really strange experience to be able to see my breath but be swealtering because I have gotten used to much colder temperatures. I was so warm I even removed my coat and remained quite warm! Really, we've just learned how to dress appopriately for cold weather.