Third Trimester!!!

I have finally hit the last major milestone in my pregnancy, my third trimester!  Yay!!  Baby Bäckström is definitely growing big and strong...his kicking and punching is starting to get a little painful.  Luckily, he likes to sleep a lot, just like his mama!  We have started to prepare for his arrival, mostly by buying lots of little clothes, I just cannot help myself!  All things baby are just so small and adorable.

Here is our latest purchase:

Although, he might be waiting for a while.  Hannes still cannot grow a proper mustache.

We also just purchased a crib, but mostly because Ellie will be using it when she comes to visit in a few weeks!  We are so excited to finally have our first visitors!  Our place is a little cozy, but anyone is always welcome.  There are just a few other major things we need before he arrives: a dresser (for all of those little clothes), a car seat and a stroller.  

Hello, again!

So...it has been a very long time since I posted on here!  Life got busy, we moved across the World, I got pregnant.  I'm sure you can understand that it has been hectic!  However, with the quickly approaching birth of baby Bäckström, or technically baby Florida Bäckström, less than 14 weeks...yay!  I thought I should kick up this blog thing again.  Especially, since during labor/deliver/the few weeks after I will not be able to Skype/email/message/Facebook everyone who wants to know about the baby, and I'm sure me, and Hannes, and the kids.  This way I can just post updates on here and anyone who is interested in how far dilated I am or effaced or if this baby boy is a ginger or how much he weighs and etc. can just look on here and find out!  I hope no one is offended by this decision, but I know won't have the time or focus to keep everyone updated and creating one post is definitely the easiest, for me!  I am also going to try to document the rest of my pregnancy on here, just to make it easier.  This might mean taking slightly more professional pictures.  It is staying light here much longer so it should be easier to get a shot.  It is just really hard to convince my photographers to shoot at a flattering angle or to retake the picture until you can barely see my double chin or to let me know if I have one eye shut.  They are just so hard to work with!  Maybe I should start paying them...or not.  Anyway, welcome back!

Waiting...

I hate it.  I hate waiting in lines.  I hate waiting for food.  I hate waiting a week to see the next episode of a show.  I hate waiting months for the next season.  I hate waiting in traffic.  Waiting makes me feel trapped, claustrophobic, anxious.

Yet, somehow I feel like my life is paused and I am stuck waiting.

Waiting for Hannes to be ready so we can leave the house (he has to decide which of his 47 pairs of Vans to wear).  Waiting to have a baby (I have to work for 240 days first).  Waiting to be engaged (I have to wait for Hannes to be ready).  Waiting to meet my new coworkers (I have to wait until August 1st).  Waiting for our apartment (It isn't available until August 1st).  Waiting to buy things for our new apartment (Hannes says it's dumb to buy things now and then have to move them all).

I'm tired of feeling trapped and anxious and claustrophobic...I'm tired of waiting.  I'm tired of waiting to be someone's fiancee.  I'm tired of waiting to be pregnant.  I'm tired of waiting to see our new apartment.  I'm ready for something to happen.  I need this next chapter to begin, to take my mind off of all of the things that I'm waiting for and just give me something to do!

Jönköping/Huskvarna

On Wednesday we took a day trip to Jönköping...well, really Huskvarna, to see where we would be living.  We stopped by my school, which is absolutely amazing!  Went by the apartment and then drove past the school the kids will be attending.  The weather was absolutely amazing so we decided to head to the lake, get some ice cream and just look around.  The city is absolutely charming...cobblestone streets, little shops, restaurants, a pier that you can walk out into the lake on and even sandy beaches!  I am definitely looking forward to being able to hang out there next month!  The largest lake is freezing cold and not really the best for swimming, but luckily there are several much smaller lakes that are warmer and much better to take a dip in.  Our apartment looked pretty nice.  It's only two bedrooms so it's definitely going to much smaller than what we are used to, but hopefully it's only temporary.  We also found out how much we were going to be paying in rent...6,672 kronor/month!  It's a lot more than we were expecting.  Since it's so small and in a smaller city I was thinking it'd be closer to 5,000, but we had NO other options so I guess we will have to make it work!  Hannes just needs to find a job soon!

Half-Truths

When I started this blog it was full of lies.  Now, however, it is full of half-truths.  I am STILL not a wife, but I am kind of Swedish.  Well, living in Sweden at least.  I guess I can say that even though it has been about 24 hours since our arrival.  I am hoping to make the wife part true sooner rather than later.

Our trip here was very exhausting.

We arrived at the airport in St. Louis at 11:30 and arrived in Gothenburg at 10:00 the next day.  We had just about 24 hours of traveling and airports and airplanes and turbulence, oh the turbulence!  Our first flight in to Denver was very rocky and I was definitely not feeling well at all.  Luckily, we got to rest for a little over an hour before getting on our next flight to Reykjavik.  I did learn one thing...I will NEVER fly Icelandair again!  We had 10 hours of flying with them, one 7 hour flight from Denver to Reykjavik and then a 3 hour flight from Reykjavik to Stockholm and they gave us NO food, ZERO!  Not a bag of pretzels or peanuts or almonds or snack mix or anything.  We did get ONE drink and it took nearly 3 hours to get that.  Since our connecting flight in Reykjavik was tight we did not even have time to get food at the airport.  Needless to say that by the time we landed in Gothenburg, having been traveling for nearly 12 hours since our last meal, we were starving!  We did get a little lucky during our trip though.  We only had to pay $75 to get all of our bags from St. Louis to Gothenburg.  We somehow had Classic tickets with Frontier Airlines so all of our bags were free, except the one that weighed 86 pounds, that one we had to pay a $75 overweight fee.  Frontier Airlines does not have a ticketing agreement with SAS so we had to collect all of our bags and recheck them in in Stockholm.  We got lucky again because the guy working at the counter gave us all of our bags free because we were moving to Sweden!  We were expecting to pay almost $400 to check our bags, but now we have $325 more dollars to buy everything!  I do not think it is going to be much fun starting all over.  You forget about all of the little things you have to buy...silverware, pot holders, windex, dish soap, spices, toilet paper...it all adds up!  Thankfully, we have one less thing we have to buy...a gorgeous LeCrueset enameled cast iron dutch oven!  Hannes' parents got us one as a moving gift/graduation present/birthday present.  It is everything I ever wanted!  It was definitely a nice gesture and I will definitely be using it often...now I just have to find a way to ship a 10 pound dutch oven when we move back, but I guess I have a few years to figure it out.

Freaking Out!!!!

So I've done a lot of thinking hypothetically...but now things are starting to sink in and I'm freaking out!  I get a little short of breath when I think about boarding a plane with a one way ticket in my hand.  I think about my nieces (one born and one unborn) that I will not be able to see for a weekend here or there.  Then I start to look around my house and I see all of the things that I still need to get rid of!  Freaking out!  Then I realize how much I hate Craig's List and all of the idiots who really want something and they'll pick it up tomorrow and then you never hear from them again and you've turned down two people who have since either bought something else or fallen off the face of the Earth because they will no longer respond to emails!  I hate it all!  Anyone want to buy some furniture?  One thing I know for sure is moving is for the birds!  It's bad enough when you're moving to a new house, but so much worse when you're moving halfway around the world (I measured and it's exactly halfway)!  I have no idea how we're going to be completely moved out of here by this weekend, I have no idea how we're going to get everything to fit in suitcases and to the airport, I have no idea when we'll have a renter and I'm a thinker and a planner and this is all making me a little neurotic!  I cannot let go of the details and I'm feeling so overwhelmed that nothing is getting done!  It's just all going to have to work out some how...

It's Officially Official!

I got the call I've been waiting for earlier this week...our residency permits were approved!  From here on everything will be happening really fast!  I resigned my position yesterday, we have to go to DC on May 24th and we want renters in our house by June 1st!  We need to leave May 22nd to make the drive and my last day of work is May 21st.  So, everything has to be gone and we need to have things packed up and cleaned by the 20th of May...nearly one month from now!  Luckily, we have a giant garage sale on May 19th, but it's going to be cutting it really close.  Then once we return from our vacation, on June 2nd, we only have a few weeks until we become residents of another country.  Exciting stuff!  Now if only I could quit being so anxious and stop feeling like I'm constantly going to vomit!