One year later

We're going into Labor Day weekend, which may always remind me of that time we dragged 13 bags and 2 kids through airports in 3 countries over 6 time zones, crammed everything in my parents' car, and spent the next few days getting school physicals, buying a minivan, moving our stuff out of storage and hours away into a rental house in a new town, meeting Olivia's teacher while still a little jet-lagged, and beginning the next chapter of our lives.  I cried a lot.

A year ago the friends I was current with were from far-off places like Australia, South Africa, and England.
A year ago I had to use the GPS to find the grocery store, and I was still calling it the sat nav.
A year ago we were surrounded by boxes, only to unpack and then move again when we bought a house six months later.
A year ago we started visiting new churches, and nothing felt quite like home.

This year we are in a house we love, with wonderful neighbors.  We liked our neighbors in the rental house, too, and even our neighbor playing guitar in the apartment above us in Sweden, but ultimately we love being in a home of our own again.

This year the kids will go to the same schools they attended last year.  I haven't been able to say that for a while.  Today we went to the park with another family we met through Bowen's preschool, and tonight after Olivia met her teacher we met and hung out with other school families.  (She transferred to the new school in March when we moved, but we didn't meet anyone from there until this summer). School starts next week and the kids are excited.

This year we have found a wonderful church home and we're excited to be part of what is going on there.

This year we have met a bunch of people in our new community, and every single one of them is kind and friendly and normal.  I realize that everyone is normal until you get to know them, but the people around here are inclusive and genuinely nice.  In the expat community in Sweden we made fast friends with incredible people, but I knew that was unique and I had guarded expectations in our new town.  It takes a little longer here, but I think I'm finding my people.

This year the kids learned to swim.  Swim lessons are hard to come by in Sweden.  One of my only complaints about living abroad was that I felt like we were holding the kids back, delaying aspects of their childhood that people take for granted in the States.  But now they can ride bikes in our driveway, play soccer/t-ball/gymnastics with kids who speak English, and go to the pool.  Last year we took them to Spain, Amsterdam, Germany, France, Norway, and Sweden. This year we took them camping, kayaking, roller skating, and to a baseball game.  They got to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  They got to eat corn on the cob and pork chops fresh off the grill.

It has been a year since we left Sweden, and in some ways it feels like so long ago. We loved our time there, the people we were with, seeing so many new places and learning about other cultures. The original plan was to be in Sweden through the end of this year, and that just blows my mind right now.  Plans changed and we rolled with it, and now we're in a different great place.

Fall crafting

The view from my studio

I don't even know where to begin.  I have yet to write about the rest of our England trip in July and left off when we were getting ready to leave Sweden at the end of August, and here it's November already. People ask me how our cultural reentry went, and I think it got upstaged by moving to a new part of Virginia, which has been more challenging (making new friends, finding a new church, and remembering how to get to the stores). The kids (ages 4 and 6 now) started school and are enjoying playing soccer, riding their bikes, and running around the yard.  We're thankful to be in a house again, although the one we're renting is smaller than the one we had before Sweden, so we still have many boxes that will just stay packed for now.  We have wonderful neighbors who are quick to lend a hand (or caulk gun or set of cake pans).  We're church-shopping a few weeks at a time, which is a long process.  Steve is enjoying his new job (although learning the ins and outs of a new company is like moving to a new community as well), and we have explored the area enough that we're planning to house hunt soon.  It still feels like we're in transition (ever since we moved out of our other house near Winchester), so it will be a welcome hurdle to move again and start putting down roots again once we get our own place.

Tooth pillow

I really missed having a studio in Sweden, and even before we moved back to the States I was planning a new line of jewelry and redesigning my website.  I used Olivia's school bazaar as a deadline and that was helpful to get things going.  My studio is tiny and I don't have space for my sewing and craft stuff, and even with the change of seasons I haven't really felt like making anything, which feels really strange for me.  I usually have a list of project ideas, and in Sweden Pinterest let me craft vicariously, but when we moved back I was rusty and had to remind myself that I could go and get cheap ingredients at Michael's and actually make something.  Once the bazaar was over my creative juices started flowing and I dug out supplies to make a tooth pillow for Olivia.  She started losing teeth in Sweden, but I put this project off until I was reunited with my fabric stash and sewing machine.  Her second front tooth has been loose for months, but the day after Halloween it finally gave up the ghost.  So Olivia helped me stuff and observed me pinning and sewing with the machine and trimming corners and ironing, so it was a good sewing lesson.

Sweater pumpkin

And yesterday while she was at school I took Bowen to Goodwill in search of sweaters for pumpkins (tutorial here).  Yes, part of the adjustment back to life in these United States is having a little sidekick again.  Bowen was in preschool the same hours that Olivia was in kindergarten in Sweden (M-F 8:30-2:30), so that meant I had plenty of kidless time to do the walking group, tennis lessons, fika, grocery shopping, etc.  But here in Virginia the preschools have 3-year-olds three mornings a week.  It took me a while to realize that Bowen is pretty good at the stores so I don't have to spend my sacred kidless time on grocery shopping.  Plus he earned money raking leaves last week, so after the thrift store and craft store and Chick-fil-A he bought a mini monster truck at the dollar store.  And after we got home he helped me stuff and wrap this sweater pumpkin.

So our lives are getting back to normal, or I guess we're adjusting to the "new normal," and so far so good.
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Crab Cakes

We are moving back to the States soon, this time near Richmond, Virginia, and one of the many things I look forward to in our new city is eating Chesapeake Bay blue crabs.  I love a good crab pickin' but a more efficient way to eat them is to buy lump crab meat and make it into crab cakes.  I just got this recipe from a friend and couldn't find it online to pin, so I'm putting it here for future reference.

Maryland Crab Cakes

Back in the 1970s, there was a restaurant in Baltimore called Thompson’s Sea Girt House. This recipe is reported to come directly from their kitchen, and since the Sea Girt House has been out of business for many years, I think I’m safe in sharing it. Enjoy!

Yield: 6 crab cakes

Ingredients:
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
½ tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
Dash pepper
12-15 saltine crackers, crushed
1 pound of your favorite crab meat; lump is best but a lump/claw mixture also works well

Directions:
In a small bowl, combine egg, mayo, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and pepper. Mix well.

In a separate bowl, mix crab and crushed saltines, then add the egg mixture and turn gently, being careful not to break up the crab.

Form into cakes or balls and refrigerate at least an hour. Fry or broil up to 5 minutes on each side until golden brown. If frying, drain on paper towels.