Monday 30 July 2012

Historical Air Show

This weekend continued today in the theme of flying, with an air show at Axevalla Hed, just a few kilometers from where we are.
They were celebrating that this year it's been 100 years since the Swedish Air Force was founded, right here in Axvall. Axvall was also the base for the first Military Flight School in Sweden.




We started by watching an air display by the monoplane Bleriot XI, the oldest still functioning plane in the world. This plane is an original model, and it was one of the planes that flew across here 100 years ago!
















After that, we took a huge technical leap and got treated to another air display, but this time by two JAS 39 Gripen, the most modern of our Air Force aircraft.
























After the air displays, there were a lot of different old aircrafts represented on ground that we could go and have a closer look at. F.e a FPL Super Cub and a FPL 61 Bulldog.












Lots of people were there and the weather held up luckily, an exciting morning!

Sunday 29 July 2012

Never boring

Since we weren't that far from Mösseberg yesterday having been to the Glidermuseum, we decided to brave the rain and do a quick stop at the playground/park. It's a place we go to every year and it never gets boring!
Lucas just loves, loves, loves those moon cars and Linnea enjoys visiting the animals and the playground.
Good thing with bad weather is that you get to have it nearly all to yourself!


















At Ålleberg

Yesterday we drove to a place not very far from here where we've never been before, neither us nor Mormor and Morfar - the Glidermuseum at Ålleberg.
Ålleberg is the soaringcenter of Sweden, and the museum's mission is to exhibit the development of the soaring hobby in Sweden and show different types of soaring aircraft used through the years.
A perfect activity for a rainy day!































And... there it was...

It's almost been too good to be true, the weather since we arrived. Over a week of sunshine and lovely warmth. So no surprise really today when the rain, wind and the cold turned up.
At least we got to use our new rain jackets!







Ture Sventon

The local theater group 'Charlies Teater' is putting on another kids play in Skara this summer. Last year we went to see 'Pelle Svanslös', and this year the play is based on the first book about the private detective Ture Sventon by Åke Holmberg - "Ture Sventon, privatdetektiv".
We rode our bikes (yay, we have bikes!) to town yesterday and were lucky to have glorious weather this year too, the little back yard where the stage is set up was basking in sun.




We got front row seats:




Here you can see Ture Sventon, his friend Omar and the secretary Miss Jansson; feasting on some "temlor" (Ture Sventon can't pronounce 's', they are really called semlor), Ture Sventon's favourite treat.




Even though my kids aren't really familiar with Ture Sventon, it didn't matter. It was a captivating and exciting play, and the actors were great. We all enjoyed it a lot.
Here, after a long bad-guy chase, Ture Sventon has caught the bad guys and is flying them off to the police on a magic carpet.




After the show, all the children were invited to get their own mustaches painted on so that they would be able to be incognito as well. So of course... face paint, we're right there!









Friday 27 July 2012

Fresh paint

We have already spent a fair bit of time in the local playground in town (that's where we were heading on our bikes yesterday), that's always one of the highlights of the holiday.
This year they have special happenings twice a week, with some older school kids who's got as summer job to spend time at the playground and entertain the kids for a couple of hours.

They had games to play, the kids could make their own bracelets or necklaces and they also did face painting.
Linnea's fascination for face paint is still strong so she lined up straight away. This time she got a motif she's never had before, an aquarium!








Lucas decided to go for it too after a bit of consideration, when he saw they could do a camouflage face. It turned out pretty cool!





Lucas and some of his new found friends also made some bracelets with their name on:



Super bikers

So, while Nathan was out riding his bike, the rest of us took our new bikes out for a ride too, even Mormor! Although Lucas thought that Mormor's bike must be the oldest bike in Sweden! :)



All ready to go!


The kids did so, so well! They biked all the way into town and back, without any complaints. It really tested my nerves though teaching them road safety and road etiquette, they haven't really been biking in proper traffic before. Hopefully it'll get better with each time.









We all agreed it was a really good idea buying the bikes, and that it's super nice riding around Sweden. Especially a day as today, with the perfect weather we've had. Bliss! More of this please!

Around Kinnekulle

My cousin Johan is also a bike rider, and a very good one of those too. (He actually became Swedish Champion in his age group in Cross Country this weekend, for the second year running; and he has been undefeated this whole year.)
He came around to take Nathan for a ride this morning. When I asked how long he thought they'd be gone he said "oh, maybe about three hours" and I thought he was kidding - he was not!












About 80k, one ice cream stop and yes, three hours later they were back! Nathan had really enjoyed the ride, although he said his legs were a bit sore afterwards... But the bike worked a treat apparently!