A beautiful day, and we went out walking in Grimsta.

When I go walking, I walk. The kids can’t just walk. They need games, challenges, role playing, entertainment.

Taking turns picking the direction we walk, for example:

Or turning the path into an adventure trail with obstacles to jump over or crawl under:

Or balancing on fallen trees. This one was quite challenging. Ingrid had to make several attempts, first from one end and then from the other and then from the first one again:

When we got to Kanaanbadet, we grilled sausages and marshmallows. These were apparently the best thing ever.

Adrian’s fingers after drawing.

He draws a lot right now.

We’re going through all the clothes in Adrian’s dresser, sorting out the old, outgrown, unliked, worn-out ones to make more room for the clothes that Adrian actually wears. Some of his softest, most favourite t-shirts were size 4–6 years and clearly way too small to my eyes, but he still wanted to try them on to make sure. Others he discarded without a second thought.

The current favourites are long sleeve t-shirts that I recently found for him at Polarn o Pyret, after much searching. They have flat seams (important!) and are a size or two too large for him (also important!) for that perfect floppy, comfy fit.

Adrian is turning into as much of a gamer as Ingrid. Fortnite is his favourite. He’s just spent 150 kr of his savings to buy a funny skin for his character. Go figure.

Several of his classmates also play, and now they agree on a time when they all come online to play together. That often leads to a lot of shouting. They all just have to say their thing at the same time, and one raises his voice to get through the noise, and then the next boy raises his a bit more, and soon they’re all yelling. I remember Ingrid and her friends doing the same at her age, shouting so loudly that it was seriously uncomfortable for me, even though she was upstairs and I was downstairs and we had a closed door between us.

Adrian making “juicy water”. This is a mealtime drink that we came up with years ago, that’s now become a staple that we always have available. One part apple juice, 6 parts (ish) water – just enough juice to give the water some flavour, but not so much that the drink becomes sweet.

The best apple juice by far for this drink is Coop’s own label juice. Tropicana sort of works as well. Coop’s apple juice is on par with milk, eggs, butter and cheese – there should always be some in our fridge.

Somehow this drink got named josavatten, which is a total grammatical abomination, but the name stuck, so that’s what it is called.

For years, we all drank “juicy water” with dinner, daily. Then Eric got a Sodastream machine as a gift and switched to carbonated water. Ingrid then discovered the sugar-free flavourings that can be added to carbonated water and switched as well. Neither Adrian nor I like bubbles in our drinks, so we still drink our juicy water.

We’re getting ready to play Just Dance – going through the fiddly process of connecting all the controllers to the base station.

Eric and Adrian are making chewy chocolate cookies.

On Mondays, Adrian makes dinner together with me and gets to set the menu. Today he wanted to serve a three-course dinner. We made crostini with cream cheese, jacket potatoes with a sweetcorn and kidney bean filling, and oven baked apples.

Adrian cooks on Mondays. Ingrid cooks on Thursdays, but has the option to do it more often when she wants to top up her allowance, and has recently used that option once or twice a week. Wednesdays I’m often away in the evening for board games or work functions. I may have to reconsider the meal kits from Linas matkasse soon, or else there won’t be any room for me to choose what to cook!

Our last day here, and the last few hours of skiing our favourite runs one more time, before we head back home.

Weekends are the best because the slopes are so empty. And the first few hours of the day are the best because the snow is in better shape.

Kläppen in general has been quite uncrowded, actually – there’s noticeably fewer people on the slopes than in Idre for example. But there are also fewer runs to choose between, so I’m not sure which to prefer.

The snow park is Adrian’s favourite part of the slopes here.

Ingrid and Adrian both attend ski school again, and they are advancing by leaps and bounds. Ingrid is doing parallel turns now, and her group goes down red runs and even some black ones. Adrian has gone from snow ploughing straight down to making proper turns, and just generally skis a lot better. More control, better balance, more confidence.

Eric snowboards, and is struggling with the equipment this year, so he has been staying on the green runs and even took some days off to rest in between.

I started out on greens as well but Kläppen doesn’t have many so I got bored and had to branch out and explore the blue runs. By now, after some practice, I actually like them better than the greens. It’s taken several days for me to rediscover my skiing skills and to remember the helpful tricks. For example: I am a better skier with my goggles on, because I ski faster when I am wearing them. (Either I subconsciously judge speed based on how the air hits my face, or I subconsciously feel safer at higher speeds with the goggles to protect me.) Also: I ski better when I consciously get into an even rhythm for the turns, by counting or simply going “turn, turn, turn, turn” in my head.

Too bad it will be a year before we go skiing again, and by that time my muscle memory will be all gone again.