Back from Vacation: Dec. 23rd 2009

We are now back from Christmas vacation in Florida, and jet-lagged. We got home yesterday and napped, then were up until ten before getting Haylie to go to bed. She said "I can't sleep" for about ten minutes before finally falling asleep.

For the first 5 days, we were at Ft. Myers Beach in southwestern Florida, on the Gulf shore. We stayed at The Pink Shell, seen above.

Our room was on the sixth floor, overlooking the pool and the Gulf of Mexico. We saw dolphins going by in front at least once a day while we were there.

The pool was nice, but it was a little chilly in the air being December, so Haylie's lips were blue after a while.

We had 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a kitchen and living room. It was a nice place. It was nice to have a washer and dryer too, to do some laundry after Haylie walked into the ocean with her clothes on several times a day.

We were up at 4 AM (jet-lag), and after Haylie played with Grandma for a little while, the three of us went out for a walk on the beach after dawn and let Grandma and Grandpa sleep. It was a long walk because all the shells and sea stuff had to be inspected.

Haylie had fun chasing sea birds. This is an Ibis.

After Grandma and Grandpa got up, we walked down to the pier and had ice cream and coffee. The heron had its eye on the fish people were catching, but the little birds had their eyes on Haylie's ice cream cone.

She had mint-chocolate chip, and donated her cone to the birds.

The pool at the hotel had a waterfall over it, with a big octopus decoration on it.

We went and played mini-golf in the afternoon, at one of those adventure mini-golf places they have in Florida with the pirate ships and waterfalls and all that.

In the evening, we went for a walk down the beach to the north, where there was a nature reserve.

We saw two ospreys in their nest.

This is a smile that says, this is the second outfit I have gotten completely soaked today, and I am loving it.

It was a beautiful sunset. I took these right out front.

Friday

Friday night was my annual work Christmas party. It was at the Visby convention center, Wisby Strand, with a 3-course dinner. Same as last year. There was mingle with champagne beforehand at the newly renovated medieval building down the street from my office. I sat pretty close to the stage this year, almost in the middle of the room. I took the vegetarian option, since I am not much for pickled herring and rare steak, which it was again this year. So I got some really interesting combination of artichokes, red onions, cauliflower puree, chives, a caper, and flatbread with dill cream cheese for the appetizer. For the main course, I had some type of root vegetable mashed and formed into a cube, Quorn shaped into a form resembling chicken breasts, and carrot puree for decoration. Dessert was small dishes of flan with raspberries on the side. The flan was really good but they had what I think was muscovado sugar on top which made the top really crunchy. The mix of consistencies didn't really work for me, but apart from that it was a success. They served vodka or aquavit with the appetizer, wine with the main course, Madeira with the dessert, and avec (whisky, calvados or bailey's) with coffee. Everybody got two drink tickets besides, but I didn't use them because the dinner drinks were plenty (and I had to pick out bathroom tile today). Dinner wasn't over until 12, and I danced for a little while after that (always a live band) and left for home before 1 AM. I rode home with 2 colleagues that live down the street. Dinner always takes a long time because there is entertainment and speeches between courses, and it takes a long time to serve over 200 people. Not everybody comes, which is lucky because I am not sure there are any venues large enough to house all 400 of us.

Susanne and Hillevi, two of my former co-workers before we reorganized last winter.

Maggan, who is in my current team, and Eva, one of the company lawyers.

Benny and Zenita, two of my former co-workers from before last winter. Zenita is one of my closest work friends. She lived in Virginia for a few years.

On Friday afternoon, Haylie had her Lucia performance at daycare. She and the kids on either side of her were the ones that you could hear most. Not so much messing around as we have seen in past years at her old daycare from the other kids, but there were a lot of people watching so that may have kept the monkey business to a minimum. They all sang very nicely.

Haylie with her favorite new friend Felicia to the left.

Haylie was having dress up on Thursday as I was trying to figure out what to wear for my work Christmas party on Friday night. Before I left for the party, she told me I was good-looking on my face and that I was cool. She was jealous of my glitter eyeliner. I had done an up-do and had lots of eye make-up on, which she was very impressed with. She said, "Mamma, du är en snygging cooling." That is about the best compliment you can get from a 5 year old.