Boxing Day in Småland

On Boxing Day Maria's siblings with families came to her parents' house and we celebrated Christmas together. Traditional Christmas dinner again, but now with a Finnish touch, as well as a few more presents. Three days of Christmas is a good Swedish tradition, which means you don't have to travel so often, but instead have time to be whole days with the families.
The picture features one of the meadows outside Maria's parents seen through a frozen window.

On Monday we picked up Maria's sister-kids from "fritids" (after school child care). Several different games were played during the evening, even if the nephew liked the car racing game on the computer most.

Tuesday evening we enjoyed together with Maria's brother with family. Sledge downhill and some rink skating before the kids went to bed.

The next day it was time to end the time in Småland and fill the car to go to Olle's parents again.

A rainy day

Sunday was rainy in more or less intense showers. Dressed top to toe in rain clothes we were outside for a while. The niece and a friend took two of the ponies for a ride. Unfortunately, one of the horses so badly wanted to get back into the stable, were the other horses were meanwhile, so the pony was hard to steer.
Playing some card games inside, as well as bringing the rabbits to the basement, were more tempting. In the middle of the day some rain showers were really strong, so being inside was excused.
In the afternoon we took the night train back to Umeå. Another night of sleep in the seats, but at least better than a few days earlier.

Birthday party

We woke up to some rain and didn't hurry out after breakfast. Instead we baked cinnamon rolls.
We had planned to watch Maria's nephew driving motocross, but the rainy day didn't inspired to a longer training, so we went back home instead of going watching after dropping the niece off at a birthday party.
Parts of the afternoon passed by while we prepared the dinner for the birthday party in the evening (a la family reunion). Maria's parents and uncle showed up, together with the brother with full family. Naturally the newborn (2½ weeks old) niece were in center for a while. Adorable how small the perfect fingers/nails are.

A trip to the south

Thursday evening we took the night train south. To keep the price down we had normal seat tickets all the way (not beds). Unfortunately, we got bad seats with no possibility to tilt backwards and short distance to the seats in front of us. It wasn't a beauty sleep, more a few necessary hours interrupted often.

Friday morning we arrived in Nässjö and Maria's sister picked us up. We tried to spend this sunny day outside, dressed according to the weather. In the afternoon we picked up the kids after school, while the sister prepared dinner. The niece trained some pony jumping.
In the evening we all went to Maria's uncle for a real sauna (= heated by firewood). Also Maria's brother with his two sons showed up, as well as the parents, so almost the whole family were there. The kids enjoyed playing with water, a useful trick for making them like being in the warm sauna.

Time to meet relatives

Friday afternoon (the first week) we went to Maria’s brother with family, where we also stayed over night. A dip in a nearby lake wasn’t wrong at all and fun with the two nephews all around you. A longer walk including an ice-cream break, as well as mini golf filled the next day.

You could guess it would be nice to rest in the evenings during the O-ringen week, even if it wasn't that hard work during the days (lot of time to talk to others). But if you are staying in the area just for a short time, it’s better to use the time to meet relatives. One evening we went to see Maria’s uncle (together with her parents) and another evening we met one of Maria’s cousins. The latter Maria hadn’t seen in like five years and her four-month old daughter was cute, even if she was at the time point when only her parents were allowed to hold her (or you had to stand the screams).

Tuesday afternoon we went to Maria’s sister’s home and stayed there over the next day, which was a rest day for the O-ringen runners (so they would have time to tourist in the area as well). Maria’s niece both trained horse jumping with the smallest pony and dressage with the larger pony in the afternoon. To train also the third pony, we went with trolley in the evening, which meant an hour long walk for Maria and their dog.

Like usual on Fridays at Maria’s child home, we went to Maria’s uncle for sauna in the evening.

Saturday was planned to be the day when we packed all our stuff to be able to move on to further vacation places. This wasn’t the case, since Maria and her mother went to help with the clean-up on the O-ringen camping, and Olle took care of the packing. Anyway after dinner we travelled to Olle’s parents again.

O-ringen orienteering race

On Thursday afternoon we went to the organizers’ start show of O-ringen, the largest orienteering competition in the world. Every year this competition is organized somewhere in Sweden, and this year it’s placed just half an hour drive from Maria's parents' house. Our orienteering club is one of 21 clubs helping (voluntarily) to organize the five days of running races, as well as a temporally camping site for a few thousands caravans/tents. We listened to an interesting/motivating seminar by Renata Chlumska, the first Swedish woman to climb Mount Everest. She told some fun episodes from her alone trip around USA when she paddled a kayak from Seattle to San Diego, bicycled with the kayak on a carriage (an unusual sight in the middle of the huge desserts) from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, continued kayaking around Florida to Eastport, Maine, and then bicycled back to Seattle (all in 439 days). During the evening we also went to the temporally sport shop to take the chance to buy walking shoes, some sport clothes and hiking backpacks (we found the exact brand we want), since the organizers had some discount in the shop this evening.
Maria was as young as 8 years when she completed her first O-ringen competition and there has been several more since. So for her it was obvious to help organizing one year, when you get the opportunity.
{"Orienteering require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain." "Usually, a foot-O is a timed race in which participants start at staggered intervals, are individually timed, and are expected to perform all navigation on their own. The control points are shown on the orienteering map and must be visited in the specified order. Standings are determined first by successful completion of the course, then by shortest time on course." from Wikipedia}

On Sunday was the first race day of O-ringen. We had agreed to help with the start our club was responsible for (one of nine starting places), the one for all the recreation classes (Motion). These classes have free starting time, not drawn lot of starting minute as all regular classes have. This also means the runners were not so stressed when they came to start and something needed to be checked.
Maria's father was responsible for the radio communication between our start and the competition center, while us two where placed in the information tent. The plan was that we should be able to help if Swedish wasn’t enough :-) Nowadays the punching at the control points is done electronically, and afterward you can also get a list of running times in the forest. Some runners had updated the number of the electronic card, but the secretary used a pen not suitable for the today rain (the surface of the bib, where the number should be printed, is very slippery). So the most what we did during the day was to compare with the updated start list we had printed.

The procedure was the same all the other four days of the competition, even if our duties with the card number decreased and instead we helped some runners to prohibit chafed feet (as usual when you buy new shoes or so). The runners started from 8.30 AM, so since everything should be prepared around an hour before first start, these days didn’t mean any late mornings for us.

After all runners had started (at 1.30 PM), we moved the equipment to the starting place for the next day, to get less to do early next morning. Some days we then went to the Camping site center, where we had dinner.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see the goal area during the days. So being one of the thousands organizers meant seeing less of the competition than a year when you compete yourself.

Another week in Småland

Back to Småland for a week, we spent time with family/relatives/friends. A few hours goes fast when you start talking and even easier if you start showing some photos.
We have quite many photos from our last years, sorted but too many to show at once. One good idea would had been to sort out the really good ones to show others, but that hasn't happen.

Another family dinner occurred on Saturday, to celebrate three birthdays in March-April. Most likely, it will take a few months until we will be together again.

A nice reunion

The first week back in Sweden was spent in northern Småland, the area of Sweden where Maria's parents and two siblings lives.
When we stayed a few nights at Maria's sister a lot of time was focused around horses, what else can you expect when the family has five horses on their own. This included walking the youngest horses, as well as riding them (yes, Maria tried for a short while, even if her young niece was much much better).
The following days in her parent's house were when we started to collect our belongings. Most of the fabrics (towels, linen, old clothes) as well as glasses/porcelain have been stored in their house. We just had to try to find them in the wardrobes and attic.

Old traditions as sauna on Friday evenings were also brought to live again. A nice wood-burning sauna is never wrong, you feel so clean afterward.
On the Saturday all of Maria's family had a reunion, at the same time Olof's parents showed up in order to bring us and our belongings with them later in the day. A nice big family dinner and so nice to spend time with the niece and nephews that have grown so much these two years we have been away.