Beauty and Extreme Sports

The weekend of May 1st was an unusually warm weekend for this time of year, but wonderful. May 1st is a communist holiday that everyone in Sweden has off (just gotta laugh at the differences). We were trying to get to Stockholm to go to what is called "Jesus Manifestation". It is a time when 18 thousand people gathered to have worship services and intercede on Sweden's behalf. It is funny to think about the marches and fanfare of May 1st and the communism talk with the Jesus Manifestation of May 2nd. Quite different, but very poignant. However, we did not have enough money this month to make the trip, so we went to stay at our summer home for the weekend. On Saturday we packed up some things and hiked into the woods in search of a hidden lake Andreas had found last summer while Sam and I were in the States. It was gorgeous out in the woods and we did find the lake. So we spent the day there swimming, playing, eating and sleeping.

Samuel asleep in his pappa. He looks brilliant.


I really liked this picture of the black water. It is a little scary to go into because I didn't grow up swimming in lakes and this one is sooooooo black, but it was nice. Not nearly as cold as our swim a month earlier.

The first view of the lake. It was a small lake and probably pretty deep. Just a hole cut in the hill.

Cool pic of a rock formation. If you look closely you will see that the huge rock is sitting on small ones. It makes you wonder how in the world gravity doesn't roll the boulder down the little hill. But I like how it looked and the tree that bent over it. Samuel said that the stones look like a fish.

I was really excited about this pic. I hit the light just right. Scenes like this make you realize why Sweden has so many stories about mystical forests, trolls and such. It was a beautiful forest.

The video below is Sam doing the beginning of his extreme sports. He decided that it would be fun to jump off of this little cliff into pappa'a arms. So he did it with gusto! He scared me to death, but he really trusts his pappa because he kept doing it. It makes me worry for the future. Right after I took the video he did a perfect and beautiful "swan dive" into pappa's arms. I cannot believe what this child can do.