Chilren's Day at Max's School

Max school; The Child Academy recently celebrated the Children's Day which was filled with lots of fun activities (T-shirt painting, making of grasshoppers, fishing, and performance by acrobats and magician! All parents were invited and Ms. Wang, me and Emmy joined Max in the morning full of fun!

For more pictures of the fun day, click this link

Friendship

Every so often I get to share thoughts with friends who are going through difficult times and are struggeling. It always makes me sad when bad things happens to good people, and it's disheartening each time to hear of their troubles and how they're keeping their attitude up, even though I know it's tough... A special heart goes out to my friends who are trying to find themselves, get a job, get pregnant, or stay pregnant! I think of you often and every time I read my favorite book to Max each night "Oh, the Places You'll Go" I think of you and know you'll make it.

Lovisa

BISS Golf Outing in Shanghai

In matching skirts the four of us above went out on a rainy day to hit some golf balls at one of the great courses outside downtown Shanghai. Lots of fun, didn't have my best game on, but we enjoyed the event. Can't beleive how tall I look! Jessica next to me is even trying to stand on her toes...

Lovisa

Philip & Johanna Brollop - New York May 2008

We had the luck and honor of being part of Philip & Johanna's New York City wedding on May 3 earlier this month. The bride and the groom had decided to marry in the big apple with 60 of their friends attending from all over the world. In horse and carriage we were taken to their wedding ceremony site in the middle of Central Park overlooking a beautiful lake! The simple, yet memorable and personal ceremony was led by a priest flown in from Sweden who wed the happy couple while the 12-man gospel choire took stage and blew us away with their deep dark voices! It was sight and sound one would not tend to forget...!

After the breathtaking ceremony, guests walked to the Essex House hotel where New York's hottest restaurant welcomed us to a 5 course exceptionally tasty dinner! After we enjoyed the food and wine, we danced til the early hours and enjoyed the big celebrations with the bride and the groom and their many friends. It was the first wedding I have been to where true wedding crashers also managed to enjoy the party (a well dressed couple of guys from Norway, they even brought a gift to mask their entrance!)... too funny, and very memorable!

Congrats Philip & Johanna!

Best things I've ever done....

I often think of these things, how lucky I am to have found something or someone and how much more difficult my life would be without these special things.... so, i just gotta make a list of it all (or at least what comes to mind) and then look back at it 20 years from now and see if I still feel the same way about my list! Ok, so i'll put the obvious things first:

• Meet my husband


• Give birth to Max & Emmy


• Move to the US


• Move to China


• Start yoga


• spend more time with kiddos by not working for 6 months


• take trips to see the world


• Eat a little healthier, start thinking of the food I put in my mouth


• Buy a DeLonghi superautomatic espresso machine and stop supporting $tarbucks


• ship over a 2000 watt power transformer so I can use my espresso machine in China


• Baby items that goes to the top; Babybjorn sling & Stokke crib on wheels


• Give up drinking coffee (started again w/ that DeLonghi entering our house)


• help others if I can


• never stop asking why


• write


• invest in a good camera to document my children's childhood


• meet old friends and stay in touch with your past


• use sunscreen

I'll add to this list as I think of more...

goodnight/L

Emmy's turning 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How cool is it that our little girl is already turning 1 - what happened!?? It seems like it was yesterday that she entered this world and became a huge part of our family. We celebrated Emmy (a little early this year as daddy will be away on her actual birthday) in style with friends from Shanghai. Emmy got to blow out the candle (with some help from her brother, but we've been practicing blowing) on her own little cake and the strawberries were a huge success! Emmy got some nice presents, her first doll and some great books and a teddy pig (she was born during the year of the pig) and love all her presents!

The kids had a great afternoon crashing the place (as usual) which means they had a good ole time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMY, OUR LITTLE SUNSHINE GIRL!

For more pictures of the birthday, click here!

Lovisa

The day after the Earthquake

Thank you to all of you who have sent us emails asking how we've been doing after the big earthquake in China - we're doing great and luckily nothing major happened in the Shanghai region!

The deathtoll in the Chengdu province is now up to 10,000 and this is the 2nd largest Earthquake death toll since the big one in China in 1976 where over 240,000 people died (some reports even say that upwards of a million people actually past away during this time but the gov't hasn't reported this figure...). My boss at SAS told me she was 8 at that time and had to sleep in a tent until the area was livable again after the earthquake!

Anyway, life's returning to normal at least here in Shanghai and we're glad again nothing worse happened yesterday. I ran into the girl at the Swedish Chamber of Commerce who I ran down the stairs with yesterday and today we got to properly introduce ourselves to each other and talk about yesterday's panic event.

I feel like posting a family picture today as these are the people I thought of the most yesterday!

One hell of a first day at work.....!

So, a little late, I manage to squeeze myself into a very crowded subway 8 AM on my way to work this morning - my first day at SAS. I could swear that the guy, a few doors down in the same train car has his nose sticking out of the doors as he's so closely pushed towards them during the ride....I ask myself what in the world I've gotten myself into if this is what the ride will be like every morning! It's not like I h*a*v*e to work I tell myself, but I'm intrigued by the company and think of it as a great opportunity to work in this awesome country for a 12 mo period. Once at work, 10 minutes late, we go over the basics of logging into my computer and then start with the presentations about the company and the different flight products offered by SAS in the Shanghai market. All good stuff!

After lunch I check some emails on my new email address and I get ready to write some replies when I start feeling nauseous and immediately feel like I want to throw up... how weird, was it the Italian lunch??! I stand up as maybe this will make me feel better but why is the floor swinging under me and why do I feel like I'm going to faint??! I turn around to look at the others and see the girl next to me fly out of her chair looking at me with fear like "what's going on".... I turn around again to look out over Shanghai's skyline - we're on the 39th floor - and see the blind's cord swinging at a 5 inch left to right pendulum - SHIT!! The building is moving, I know it's an earthquake immediately!! GET OUT I scream and run towards the elevator. Someone is screaming to me to take the stairs and stay away from the elevator - of course, what am I thinking! A Swedish girl is running out of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce office who is on the same floor as us and I ask her if she felt anything and she says yes and that we need to get the heck out of here. We're all running towards the stairs and start hauling down the stairs - all 80 of them! I feel like it's taking forever, but we're literally throwing ourselves down the stairs and one girl is falling in front of me but another man is helping her up. Sabrina takes off her shoes to move faster and is calling what I presume is her mom to tell her what's happening. I call Magnus and tears start rolling down my face as I think I will never see him or my kids again and 9/11 is feeling so close, so real.... I swear, I haven't been that scared in a long long time. I don't know how well built the Chinese office buildings are, I don't know if they'll collapse at the smallest impact - I have no idea and all I can think is that the building will come down over us and we will be buried in dust and concrete and I will not see my family ever again. Soon I see that we're on the 6th floor, and I'm starting to think I will make it and be out in the open soon. Eventually I see the door to outside and I run as fast as I can out and away from the building as no one knows exactly what has happened. I call Magnus again to tell him I'm outside and he's relieved beyond words and starts to checks the internet to tell me there's been a large earthquake in central region of China as big as 7.8-magnitude. The impact was felt in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and even as far as in Thailand and Vietnam. After 20 minutes of calming down, I tell my boss I'm outta of here and take the first cab to Max school to pick him up and spend the rest of the day w/ the kids.

When I come home and read more about today's events I start to realize the magnitude of it all and what could have happened. As early as yesterday I was with SAS on an outing in Chongqing, the province where the earthquake hit the worse. I was there less than 24 hours ago and it's starting to sink in what could have happened if this earthquake had happened yesterday...

I'm glad I'm here and we're all OK.

Lovisa

New York - here we come!

We're so excited to head to NYC today to celebrate the love and wedding of our dear friends Philip & Johanna! It will be a wedding to remember I'm sure and although this has been the most secretive wedding I've ever encounted (granted, I haven't attended any celeb weddings!) we're pretty sure they're going to get hitched in Central Park with dinner and dance to follow all night long... Most of the details are revealed once we're there so we can't wait to experience all the fun!

And thank god for spray tanning - otherwise I'd be the palest Swede in Manhattan!!

Lovisa