Birthday dinner

We celebrated Linnea and her 20 years down here in Abu Dhabi as well. It was a more modest celebration, but with some of her favourites; like a Cinnabon (with candles to blow!) for dessert one evening:

... and a snazzy dinner at Asia Asia on her last evening. Sushi has always been her go-to food, so that was almost a given when she got to choose where to go. 

 

Asia Asia is always a hit, such tasty food!

We brought Will, again ha ha! Well, he is part of the family!

Linnea and I had their Lemon Pavlova for dessert, divine.

Tonight she is off back home to Sweden again after her little break. It's been so nice to have her here and fortunately it's not long before she's back for Christmas.

A special gift

For Linnea's actual birthday, Mormor and I had left some small gifts in her room for her to open, even though she had got gifts in advance. I had bought her a Swedish table flag, as every household needs a table flag for celebrations, and some silver earrings, just to have something to open on her day.

Then Mormor and I had joined forces and made Linnea her own 'Happy Birthday/Ja må du leva'-banner, similar to the one I have always had displayed every birthday. You might have spotted it hung in her room, in the previous post. 

My one Mormor once made out of my old clothes, so it carries a lot of memories with it. This one would also turn out very special... We made it out of material left over after the dress that Mormor wore for our wedding, and out of material left over from the bridesmaids dresses. And - out of some of Morfar's old shirts. ♥︎ 

It turned out so lovely!

Happy 20th!!!

Linnea's actual birthday fell on a Tuesday. She has always loved her birthdays, and had expressed that it felt a bit weird having her birthday without us for the first time. Last year she even delayed her departure to London, just to be able to celebrate at home first.

We did celebrate her with Mormor and Morfar already back in August, and had promised her to celebrate her once she got home at the end of the week, but for her actual birthday she was at school.

I had been in touch with her closest friends and sorted out a cake for her, so they surprised her with that after school (the day before). They had also decided that Agnes and Amanda were going to sleep over in Linnea's room, so that they were there for her birthday morning, which was nice.

The girls made her go to Systembolaget for her first purchase. One cider, ha ha!

Tuesday night Linnea, the girls and Hugo went down to Malmö to meet up with Lucas for a birthday dinner. She had also invited Emma and Sofie, and Emma came along with her girlfriend Frida. 

They had some Italian for dinner, and then they went and played bowling before returning to Svalöv. 
Sounds like a good birthday to me, and the text I got from Linnea the following day says it all..! Every birthday is the best ever with our girl!

Folkhögskole-room glow-up

Linnea moved from Östhem to Västhem, another part of the boarding. The whole school area is pretty and all the different houses that offer boarding are nice, but also all a bit worn down and old.

Her new room felt much bigger than the room she previously shared, with even a small little extra room attached to it! Still with the ugly red plastic floor though, ha ha, and not very cosy or inspiring... Time for a change! 
Here it is before:

After:

From another angle, before:

And after:

It's amazing what a bit of colour and greenery can do! I also loved the rug, the lights, and the chairs - my favourite part! Those were a super second hand find, 300 SEK for BOTH! Linnea wasn't convinced at first, she didn't quite have the vision, but fortunately she let herself get talked into them cause they really turned out great!

One of Mormor's handmade rugs for the little room, a battery driven lamp on timer, and a fake flower even in there. Very happy girl with her new room!

We celebrated the successful make-over with some (massive!) kebab sandwiches from the local pizzeria, om nom nom!

 

Single room shopping!

Three weeks into the term, Linnea finally found out that she was getting a single room! Hallelujah!
So one part of our Skåne-weekend was the mission to go shopping for what else she might need now, that she had a whole room to herself. I had promised her a big rug for example, as the plastic red floor in the rooms is super ugly; and some big (fake) plants.

So after our overnight in IKEA-land we picked up Linnea and continued to Helsingborg. The plan was to cover Väla Shoppingcenter, but it took us all day to browse the second hand, and furniture shops. 
All three of us stayed in a hotel in Helsingborg for the night, went to Pinchos for dinner, and the next day we returned to Väla for some "normal" shopping. There was a need for new jeans for Linnea, and some other bits and pieces. 

All in all, mission complete, and we returned to Svalöv with all our new treasures. We set Linnea up, had dinner, and then stayed in a Guesthouse nearby for the night, before we continued on to our next stop.

Starting Folkhögskola

School starts in the middle of August in Sweden. Those who were moving in were welcome on the Sunday before school start, so Linnea and I packed Mormor's car full and off we went on the long drive. It takes about four hours from Skara to Svalöv.
Linnea had got a part in a room in the Östhem part of the school, the building you see here:

It didn't exactly feel like this was a double room... More a single room where they had just put in an extra bed, desk and chair... hmmm..? Only one small wardrobe to share, one tiny shelf in the bathroom. Not a really great start to be honest. We had already put her on the waiting list for a single room, but no guarantee of course.

So we tried to make the best of it. After Linnea had unpacked a bit we went and got some more things that were lacking, her "starter pack" of food, and a fan - because the room was extremely hot.

I am hoping this will be a great year for her! It will be very exciting to hear all about it once it kicks off!

Early 20th birthday

Even though it's still months away, we decided to have a little birthday celebration in advance for Linnea at Mormor and Morfars, before she was going to her school. 

It was nice for them to get to participate in her celebrations, to see her open her gifts from them, and to have some Princess cake together.
She got some Hardanger series serving utensils (from the same series as she got for her graduation gift) and a very traditional first cookbook that all Swedes have - Rutiga Kokboken. A good setup for boarding life!

Ullared shopping raid

Linnea finally got on a flight back to Sweden, after having been bumped several days in a row. She was home in Abu Dhabi to reload a little bit, before she is now going to - live in Sweden!

She has applied to and been accepted into Fridhems Folkhögskola in Svalöv (Skåne, about 40 minutes away from Malmö), to study at 'Allmän Kurs' and get her general qualification in Swedish that she needs for higher education. 
A brand new adventure awaits, and she will be boarding at the school; which means that she took the train from Copenhagen when landing early in the morning, and I drove down to pick her up in Varberg for us to go straight to... Ullared!

I had promised her a shopping raid when she got back, to kit out her new room. 
Unfortunately, she will be in a shared room, so we couldn't get too many things as we weren't too sure how big the room was going to be. We have put her on a waiting list for a single room, but until then we concentrated on her bedding and some storage. Still came away with a completely overfull trolley!

Happy happy shopper!

I bought her a Harry Potter Lego-set as a moving in gift, which she decided to build straight away.

She came in time to spend another week with Mormor, Morfar and me in Skara, before school started. Lots of organising, packing and repacking was done.

She's home!

Linnea is back from her Au Pair-experience. She landed early Saturday morning, with a lot of luggage... unpacking took its toll!

Good to have our baby back! Now let's see where the next chapter takes her.

Orpington

It was nice to spend a few days with Linnea and her little friend again. 

Linnea made us dinner:

The weather was gorgeous, and we walked about in the neighbourhood. Someone apparently had had enough of road works..! Ha ha:

Got a cuddle with both the boy and the cat, lucky me!

Harry Potter Studio Tour

So Sunday it was time for the Harry Potter Studio Tour! They main reason I even came up to London in the first place!

The first thing Linnea said when she had decided to go to England was: “Once I live there, I want to go and do the Harry Potter-tour”. The year went on, and none of her friends were really interested in coming along; so I offered to come and join her, as I knew how much she really wanted to do this.

She was electric!

We had decided to go all out, so we had booked in a Harry Potter-themed Afternoon Tea to start our visit.

It was served in a separate part of the entrance lobby, and not only did it energise us well for the upcoming Studio Tour, it was really pretty, and delicious.

I had also splurged on the Audio Tour, so we picked up our headsets and in we went. 

This was an incredible experience! Even for someone like myself, who have read the books, but might not be a total Potter-head. 

There was SO much to look for at each location inside the tour. Here, the Gryffindor common room:

So many details, so many fun facts, so many scenes! The Grand Hall:

We took it slowly and took it all in - and took tons of photos!!

 

In Professor Trelawney's divination class:

The Gringott's Bank:

The Lestrange's vault:

Diagon Alley:

The Hogwarts Express was quite impressive to see!

Halfway through the tour we stopped for a Butterbeer (yuk…):

Then it continued outside, with a visit to nr 4 Privet Drive, where Harry lived with the Dursley family:

And we could go on the Wooden bridge, and on the Knight Bus:

It then continued back inside. All over the tour there was Visitor Hosts who were there to answer questions, and present different things. That was really super, gave an extra dimension to the visit.

One of the main attractions and a real showstopper was the model of Hogwarts. 

So hard to make it justice in the photos, it was huge! Really impressive, we hung around it for a long time.

In the end, we also spend a lot of time in the souvenir shop. I only got a Christmas decoration for my tree, but Linnea picked up both a new hoodie, and - a wand..!

  

Such a great afternoon and what a wonderful memory to cherish together!