Nicole's Blog

I can't believe that it is November. I feel like this year has just happened so fast. I am trying to get back into the habit of writing about our life. Especially for our Swedish family and friends!!

Last weekend we went to Philadelphia for Betsy's wedding, it was great to be back in the area (it's been 3 years or so). The wedding was beautiful and a blast. We then took the train up to NYC and spend 6 hours with Ron. We went to brunch and walked the city it was great. We then continued on the train up to Boston. We spent two days there enjoying the city and relaxing. Boston is one of my very favorite cities. The day we left we did get to spend a few hours with Meri which was very nice.

Sven is back at work but I took the rest of this week off. It has been nice to just not be working and to re-focus.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Sven and I had a wonderful holiday with lots of fun surprises including a new camera. Hopefully there will be many more picture coming in 2008!

We bought a very cute house in San Anselmo, located in Marin County. You get to Marin by going across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. The house has 3 bedroom and 2 baths. It more room than Sven and I have ever had and we are very excited about not having to stuff everything into just one bedroom and a large closet!

Here are some pictures of the house. We move in next week and I'm sure we will soon have more pictures to post.

One of the fun things about the entire experience is that we bought the house using an online realtor, redfin. It was a great experience and saved us a ton of money.

Right now we plan on commuting by ferry or by bus. I'll let you know how it goes next week, but I think it is going to be pretty easy.

That's all for now ... more to come soon!

We went to Trysil for Easter to spend time with family and friends and enjoy some snow. It was great fun, although too short. I'll write more details soon.

Info about our Hawaii trip coming soon!

I'm 30! The entire thing was great. A trip to Hawaii, a suprise celebration at work, and a great dinner with my family.

For awhile I had said that for my birthday I wanted to go someplace warm. After looking at different locations, Sven (the ultimate in travel planning) came up with a trip to Hawaii. It was so great. I'll make sure to put in a new entry just on the trip.

The day we returned from Hawaii, we both went to the office. My co-worker who is currently out on maturnity leave came into the office that day to visit so we could see the new baby. I thought we were just all getting together for that, but they suprised me with lunch and a cake as well! It was so very nice.

The Friday after my birthday Chris, Kim, Sander, and my parents came over for dinner. It was actually the first time we had everyone together at our place for dinner. We had great food and a wonderful evening together. One of the best parts was Sven's wonderful chocolate desert that he made, so lovely.

Looking back so many big things happened during my 20s. The end of college, first job, second job, back to school for my master's, third job. I moved 7 times, including 4 states and another country. While many good things happened during my 20s, the best by far was meeting Sven and getting married. We have had so much fun!

With all that in mind, I am really looking forward to my 30s. Althought I could do with a bit less moving! I'm not really sure what will happen but I have no doubt it will be as eventful as the last 10 years!

On Sunday we went to see the Queen Mary 2 come into SF Bay. My mom had said there would be a lot of people but I didn't really believe her, I was so wrong! We road out bikes up to the top of Marian Headlands (man was that always such a hard ride?). We had a great spot for watching the cruise ship come into the harbor with the couple other thousand people! It was a beautiful sunny day, with highs about 65 (18c). There were a ton of boats out as well enjoying the sight. I thought it was especially amazing that so many people were out when the super bowl was going on. The ship did look very big and even bigger this morning when I looked at it from the windows on my floor at work. The only problem is that with all those people it was a mess trying to get home. We went on our bikes a back way which did work better than the cars, but we did a lot of weaving in and out of cars standing still. Finally we made it home and we had a great time although we could have done without the traffic. Such a wonderful San Francisco day!

This past weekend I surprised Sven with a trip to Yosemite. Even though he has lived in SF before he never made a trip to Yosemite, crazy. So I just had to change that. I told him two days before we left and just like his mom he guessed what I had planned. My parents let us borrow my old A4 and we left on Friday morning after quickly packing that morning. We drove the 4 hours into the mountains through small town in California. We arrived in Yosemite and it was a beautiful sunny day. We went and checked-in to our cabin in Curry Villeage, located in Yosemite Valley. I haven't been to Yosemite in about 10 years, and I had forgotten how big the rock walls really are. Sven spent a lot of time just looking up and relating to all the many articles he has read about climbing in Yosemite.


After checking-in we put on our jackets and went for a walk in the valley and went to the visitor center. We figured out some good hikes for the next few days and then walked back as the sun was setting over half dome, so pretty! We had dinner at the pizza place in Curry Villeage and then went back to our warm cabin and played cards and enjoyed some wine.


The next morning we got up late (at least for Sven) and put on our snow/hiking gear. We drove up to Badger Pass and started off on our snowshoe hike. Only problem was that there was not that much snow. I tried to snowshoe but it was really not necessary. Instead we just walked on the compact snow. I did fall once and I have a nice bruise on hip. We hiked out to Dewey Point which overlooked the Valley, it was amazing. Our 4 hours hike was great!


We went back to our cabin, had a quick nap and then got ready for dinner. We had a very special, lovely birthday dinner at the Ahwanhee. We were a bit early so we had a drink at the bar while we enjoyed a jazz band. Then we went into the amazing dinning room and enjoyed a wonderful food. We both had fish which was lovely. My highlight was the boysenberry pie, yum. We then sat by the biggest fireplace we have ever seen while we waited for the bus to take us back to our cabin. It was a wonderful dinner and evening, well worth the money!


On Sunday we packed-up and went over to camp 4 where we started our hike up the Yosemite Falls trail. There is 65 switch backs up the side of Yosemite Valley. We didn't even go all the way up, but we did get high enough up to have a spectacular view of the valley. And it was amazing that we saw no else on the entire hike up. Winter is the best time of year to go to Yosemite, it is so peaceful. After we went down the switch backs, Sven read all the different things in camp 4. I had no idea this was such important place for climbers.

We then drove out of the park with snow on the roads from the previous night. We went to go see Hetch Hetchy dam, which was fun to see after hearing so much about it. It was also beutiful. We then drove back home with a quick birthday lunch/dinner at In-N-Out Burger. It was a wonderful weekend. I think we are going to need to make a winter to trip to Yosemite a yearly event!

Labels: vacation

This year we had a wonderful Christmas up in Sebastopol with my parents, Chris, Kim, and Sander. It was so much fun to spend 3 days all together. Sander changes the dynamic and we all spent a lot of time watching him to see what he would do next. It makes you wonder what we all did before Sander. Oh wait, sleep on the coach while pretending to watch a movie! My mom has hurt her knee (something about a meniscus), so she was on crutches. Not fun for her at all. But it allowed for the rest of us to spoil her a bit and do all to the planning, shopping, cleaning, cooking, etc. I think I was moving the entire time but I also had a blast doing it! Sven went to work on Tues morning on the bus and Chris left that afternoon to head home and work, which left the rest of us in Sebastopol to hang-out. It was great to spend more time with Kim and Sander. That night we had bad wind and the lights went out which causes much havoc when there is a baby around. But all worked out just fine when the lights (heat) came back on not long later. I don't think Kim got much sleep but if she did that would be weird. Kim and Sander went home on Wed and I hung around with my parents on Thurs and Fri. On Friday evening they drove me back to the city and we met up with Sven and had a great Italian dinner just down the street. Merry Christmas everyone!

Sven finished his final day as a consultant this week! He has been consulting for almost 10 years, which is pretty amazing. He has had projects in: The Hague, Groningen (Netherlands), London, San Francisco, Milwaukee (WI), Pittsburg (PA), Winston-Salem (NC), Boston, Stevens Point (WI), Columbus (OH), Fairfax (VA), Gothenburg, Århus (Denmark), Stockholm, Los Angeles, Irvine (CA), San Diego.

On Monday he will start his new job at a start-up software company here in San Francisco (he is the 5th full-time employee). The start-up is to development a new web-based service next year in the financial services industry. I'm sure there will be more to come about this in the coming months. He seems very excited about doing something different and very, very excited about not having to travel anymore (I am too!!).