July check-up!

Wohoooo! What a great running month July was! Now I'm hoping to reach my goal, 10K sub 50 minutes during "Midnattsloppet" 17 days from now... My running so far this year:

January: 50,1 km
February: 42,3 km
March: 39,7 km
April: 38,5 km
May: 61,0 km
June: 103,9 km
July: 165,6 km

Total during 2013: 501,1 km

I might, just might, reach my other goal: to run over 1000 km during 2013... We'll see...

Mediterranean climate.

The evenings are getting darker but the heat and humidity remains. I went out for a late run, after 9 pm tonight and it ended up with me stumbling around in the forest trying to see where I put my feet, I'm going to need a headlight very soon... But my oh my was it a beautiful sunset. Together with the humidity and the heat it made me feel like I was running somewhere close to the Mediterranean sea...


Now waiting for the sweat to stop poring out of me so I can take a shower and go to sleep...

Back from Värmland.

Back from a week without internet, facebook and TV. It's well needed to take vacation from media too. We had a wonderful week together with my sisters family at their summerhouse in the heart of Värmland. The weather has been amazing so we spent a lot of time on the beach, Lovisa and her cousin spent hours in the warm water, practicing swimming and having their head under the water. "Fika", sand, laughs, cardplays, bug bites, food, drinks and a bit of reading...

Andréa and H relaxes on the porch

I went running 4 times, 3 of them was early in the morning before the heat and the rest of the world woke up. Amazing nature and my reward was to jump into the 24 degrees warm lake all sweaty. Life is wonderful.

We took the girls for walks in the woods and found wild raspberries, small frogs and beautiful flowers.




But most important, we took the time to see my family.


Now we're home again, exhausted and with a lot of unpacking to do. But that has to wait until tomorrow, my bed is calling my name... Sweet dreams.

My cutest monkeys.

They're climbing all the time and everywhere. Preferably where they're not suppose to but occasionally also in parks and trees.

Summerfeet.

Masai-feet

Running-feet

Gardening-feet 

Yoga-feet

A day on the beach!

The amazing vacation weather continues and we're so grateful...

 The best thing with this beach was that it also had swings - happiness!

 Wateranimals!

 It takes a lot of energy to spend a day on the beach...

All packed to go home - bye, bye!

A rainy crowded day.

On a rainy day, like yesterday, we thought the same thought like every family with little children in the Stockholm area - let's go to "Junibacken"! Great idea! It was an adventure to say the least...

The line up was long and at 11 am it was already crowded. The girls loved to play in the playareas were they built up little houses and items from the world of Astrid Lindgren. It was way to crowded though and it amazes me how some parents just let their kids loose and allow them to jump the queue, step over smaller children, hit other children and being plain rude. It ended up with me feeling like a police watching over not only my girls but a bunch of other rascals. Another reflection is that it was quite expensive, only the entrance fee and the lunch for the family was over 1000 sek and then we did not buy any "extras".

Besides that it was great, the fairytale train taking us through the wonderful and sometimes a bit scary world of Astrid Lindgren was absolutely lovely even for a two-year-old. We also enjoyed the theater "Aja baja Alfons Åberg" and even though Andréa fell asleep (it was around naptime) Lovisa was totally amazed, sitting very still the during the whole play.

On "Lilla Gubben"

No icecream but a lot of rain...

It's exhausting to be two and watch theater during naptime...

Lovisa trying to have a catch...

After five hours when it was even more crowded than when we arrived and the sound level was so high H and I had to scream to each other it felt like a relief to leave and breath a bit of Djurgårdens fresh air. The whole family was totally exhausted after this little outing...

Busy with big things.

Andréa did her first poop on the potty today! Yay! I had such a nice picture on her, admiring her poop sitting on a chair beside the potty, but she's naked on the picture and I don't feel comfortable having it on the blog. She was so proud and mentioned it time after another.

Otherwise we've been busy with other big things like splashing in the pool:


Eating apricotcream with cold milk, brings back memories from my childhood:


And H continued to make our deck more childproof and complete:


I'm guessing it was the hottest day of the year so far and I'm actually happy that the weather forecast looks a bit cooler tomorrow...

Monkey run.

After two days in a row on the beach we changed the settings to a day filled with shopping (IKEA and Bauhaus), "fika", playing in the park and it was with very heavy steps I started to run my 8 km after putting the girls to sleep. I can't believe that I actually ran 15 km with a average pace off 5:07 min/km the other day, tonight it felt like I weighed 100 kg and every step was a major effort. I don't know if it's all the good vacation food or the fact that I sleep really bad or that I'm starting to wind down after a stressful year but my god it was a heavy run tonight. But I did it and when I got home around 10 pm H was still working on our outside deck. Now, where did he get all his energy from???

A good start.

Vacation couldn't have started better...

VACATION!!!

Last workday and 21 km running behind me - finally vacation! Actually my first real vacation for almost 4 years... May the weathergods have mercy...

The outstanding children.

Children are amazing creatures and I learn from them again and again. After the terrible evening when I was upset and they were rascals it felt a bit sad going to work in the morning without kissing them and telling them I loved them, but they looked to comfortable sleeping in their beds so I didn't want to wake them up. When I came home that afternoon I was greeted by two happy, dirty, lovely girls that was painting our driveway with adorable art. They kissed me, hugged me and I felt very blessed. The children are indeed amazing - they forget, forgive and love you unconditionally. I wonder how the world would look like if we adults had a bit of that still in us...

 Lovisas rainbow

 Lovisa painted me

 H, Lovisa and a blue banana

A useless and impatient mother - that's me.

I'm tired. It's my last week at work before vacation and it's hard to get up in the morning. It's hard to push the button to the coffee machine 05:30 am and know that I have a very long day ahead. H and the girls are already on vacation and are snoring and sleeping in our bed when I quietly leave in the morning. After a long workday the girls wants me, H wants me and I'm still very, very tired. So when the girls refused to go to sleep tonight it just burst. I screamed at them, I screamed at H and then I felt like a very useless and impatient mother. So very unnecessary. And then I thought about the young mother that was my patient today, she was 31 years old and just had a major stroke. A beautiful woman, mother of two little children is now half paralyzed. Then I wanted to scream at myself for not being more patient and stronger right now.

To enlighten you a bit more it has been a bit of a struggle to get Andréa to sleep lately and it's starting to drive me and H insane. We got her a new, bigger bed, the same type that Lovisa has. We thought it was time, she started to climb out of her crib and it didn't feel comfortable for her anymore. And she does sleep good in the new bed, she usually sleeps until 4-6 am and then she comes into our bed for a snuggle in the morning. It has actually happened that she slept the whole night through in her new bed so there's hope! But the bedtimes are quite terrible. She gets up numerous of times, fetches toys and books and does absolutely everything to avoid falling asleep.

Andréa in her new bed, finally asleep...

So tonight I just about had it. Lovisa was also being a rascal, she usually falls asleep in one minute but tonight she came up with the bright idea to toss books all over the room and I just lost it. Finally I sat down on a chair in their room explaining to them that I wouldn't move an inch until they were sleeping. When they finally fell asleep I thought an evening run would make me feel better and loose some of my frustration, and it was really great if you just forget the fact that I spitted on myself by mistake, a big slimy spit ended up on my stomach instead of the ground were I was aiming. I guess I had it coming... Goodnight.

June check-up!

Wonderful summer and my running is finally feeling easier but in the same time much more challenging... I'm slowly getting faster, stronger and raising my goals as I go.

January: 50,1 km running
February: 42,3 km running
March: 39,7 km running
April: 38,5 km running, 32,4 km cycling
May: 61,0 km running, 571,5 km cycling
June: 103,9 km running, 385,6 km cycling, 3 strength training (core)

Total running 335,6 km during 2013.

I don't believe I ever ran so much as 103,9 km in a month. I hope I can run even more in July. Right in this moment I'm trying to heal a sore throat that I really don't have time for right now, I have a vacation and lots of running ahead!