Matildas older brother Markus turned 35 last weekend. We were fortunate to have him and some friends and family over for a small celebration with cake, cookies and presents! Markus had picked out the main birthday cake himself – a special rendition of the boring “princesscake”. Instead of the usual light green marzipan covering he wanted something cooler, and what could be better than black liquorice. Yummy!! A flavor just to my liking!
Happy birthday Markus, we love you!
Five days off from work, and wonderful spring weather. It’s been a nearly perfect weekend enjoyed with the family.
We started the weekend by sawing down a few trees that were blocking sunlight from our porch. Grandpa came over, and with the added help of Filip, it only took a few hours…
That same evening we were happy to greet the children’s cousin Joel. He just came home from a two-year-long LDS mission. He was a joy to meet and talk to again, but Clara was more interested in the nearby swing hanging from a high tree-branch.
My father has a small boat with an outboard motor. I voluntereed to launch it for the season, something which turned out to be quite the adventure in itself. I’ll be happy to expound upon this in person, but not in a public forum on the internet…
Anyway, we finally managed to get the boat in the water and had some really nice days enjoying the close-by archipelago. Last summer we rented a medium sized motorboat, but I must say that this small “rowing boat” makes for a much better experience if you want to get close to nature.
The kids rejoice after finding easter eggs hidden on a small uninhabited island.
Monday evening I went with my brother-in-laws Ulf and Espen to watch the sun set in the water. We stopped the engine and just lay and talked. Ulf tried his luck fishing, but the seagulls closeby had much better success. Seeing the birds fly up and down in the sunset really isn’t a bad way to spend a spring evening.
Espen is meditating and impressed by the stars slowly appearing in the expanse above.
We’re alive. Despite very poor blogging activity during the past months, all is well in the Malm family. I’ve been working long days and nights, Matilda has “restarted” her running career, and Filip had his fifth birthday.
But I’ve had some serious clouds temporarily block the sunny weather… A good portion of my cameragear was stolen a while back. I brought it to work for some pictures of research related stuff. It was left unattended at my office during 30 minutes of lunch. Someone broke in and snatched a computer, my collegue’s bag, and my camera 
Naturally, I was a little frustrated (to say the least). Lost all inspiration for blogging…
But all things can be turned into something positive. This gave me an excuse to update the contents of my camera bag… Got the Nikon D700 and the new 14-24, 24-70 and 70-200 zooms. So far I’m really happy with the new camera – I’ll have to update the “photgraphy” page with new comments and recommendations after a few more weeks worth of testing.
(Gustav is peeking out from his “playhouse”. It’s so much fun to press your nose against a window!)
