Sorry for the delay in posting - we have been sort of busy...I could have made the time to send an update - but I chose sleep instead!
We are doing well here. We have finally found our permanent housing and on October 1 we will be moving into our apartment! We are VERY happy about this, as you can imagine as all of our shipped goods are arriving on the same day :) I can't wait for MY kitchen, MY bed, MY everything!!! It is a 3 bedroom apartment with 1 1/2 baths and is about 100 sq meters. This is a much bigger size than the apartment we are currently in, and it has a proper bathtub. You don't realize how nice a bathtub is to have, until you don't have one for a couple of weeks....
I am waiting for a phone call from Oliver's new school that is in the neighbourhood we will be moving to. Oliver has not started school at all yet, as he had to wait for his personnummer from the Swedish government which he now has. They are supposed to call today, hopefully we will get him registered soon as he is going a bit crazy hanging around the house all day.
Tim is settling in at work, the first week or so was a bit harried with new people starting all over the place and a project in the process of being started, etc. The company has hired a private Swedish language teacher for us. There are 7 of us in the class 2 nights per week. We found a lovely sitter for the boys, she is a University student from Germany studying primary education. She was an Au Pair in Canada and in Australia, so her English is quite good (although she thinks it is not great). She also does not charge an arm and a leg to watch the boys, the Swedes are VERY expensive. She charges 80 SEK / hour (about 12/hour CAD) while others where up to 200 SEK/hour (30/hour CAD!!!) ridiculous!
Our day typically consists of relaxing mornings until Gus goes down for a nap around 11AM. Then Oliver gets hard to work on his home-school work and I try and work on my Swedish or tidy up the house. We have to be VERY quiet, because this place is so small - Gus would wake up if we talked in normal tones. Oliver and I sometimes do some yoga- but haven't made it part of our routine yet. When Gus wakes up from his sleep, we have some lunch and go get groceries - always, our fridge is TINY and so we buy what we need for supper each day. It gets us out of the house! We try to play outside on our way to the stores. There are lots of parks nearby and a HUGE forest just behind our house. There are 4 grocery stores near us and so we change it up each day depending on where we want to walk. The Coop (said cooop, like mooo not co.op) is along a regular road, the Hemköp is very close to us but does not offer as much - it is more of a convenience store. The Willys is through the forrest which we like, but is uphill most of the way there and last is the ICA (said EEKA, not I.C.A.) which is a 25 minute walk - but a full on grocery store.
We reserve the weekends for fun family stuff like IKEA, Universeum (like Telus World of Science), hikes, and more exploring. There are plenty of things to do.
I have also found an English speaking moms group in town. It takes 30 minutes to get there on the tram, but it is totally worth it, just to visit with other moms, compare stories of living in Sweden and giving the kids a chance to play with other kids (and toys) for a couple of hours. An absolute God-send! I am grateful for it - no question. I will start Angus in a Swedish playgroup when we move (preschool starts at the age of 1 here as most parents both work here) and start looking for a job myself. You will not believe the cost for childcare here. The absolute maximum you will pay for a child is 185 CAD per month....Unbelievable! and that is if you are making over the maximum income amount. They also feed your kid, real meals too - not PB and Jam sandwiches! no more packing lunches as Oliver will also have a hot lunch every day in public school as well.
Well, pardon the ramble. It has been a long time since I gave you an update!
I am waiting for Tim to show me how to include pictures on this blog, we have taken a few since we got here :)
