living darfur

because i love Africa and have a huge place in my heart for its people, i wanted to post this music video by Mattafix called 'Living Darfur' - it's a beautiful portrayal of the lives of the Sudanese people who are being murdered on a daily basis. if you know anything about the Darfur crisis, you should check this out.

beach, boyfriend and baby boy

i'm a little behind in posting pictures and even blogs, i think! life has been really busy lately - a week in Spain, a week with the man, and my time is all filled up. however, vacation's over (at least for uh, now....don't hate me, i'm on my way to Indonesia on Saturday) and the BF just jetted out of the country tonight (i seriously miss him already), so i'm a free woman with lots of pictures to share :)

my shimmery legs, courtesy of Hawaiian Tropic AKA the BEST smelling sunscreen ever

brad discovered this beer in Spain called Desperado - it had tequila in it, and was SO good

he gets brown as a berry in the summer. ridiculous. he took me out for paella one night, we weren't expecting the shrimp heads to still be on our shrimp.

one of my most very favorite things? big earrings. the bigger, the better. i think it's funny how these are casting a shine ON MY FACE. btw, this is how i look after 5 straight days of beachin', drinkin' and smoochin'

this was Paella Night - not a huge fan of this picture, but this is the shirt from my Carrie Underwood outfit! i wore the white shorts with it :)

two of my favorite boys - brad was sixten's FAVORITE

sixten's losing his baby face...and brad's smile is as great as ever ;)

we took this at the Texas Longhorn Restaurant in Stockholm. brad says the have some of the best ribs he's ever tasted...? we tend to avoid the Swedish food when he's here.

okay, i know this picture is super blurry, but it was also taken at 10.45 AT NIGHT. welcome to Sweden.

playing football with the littlest peanut. football's HUGE right now in Europe, by the way. Euro2008 is coming up.

love this picture :) brad is great, great, great with kids. aaaand...i love that hand. he has big, beautiful, construction-man hands and I LOVE THEM

have i mentioned how much i love these two?

sixten is 100% ALL BOY

too, too sweet.

SO. i think we're all caught up now, right? it's after midnight here and i need to get to bed, but i'll get back on track with posting. brad told me i tend to post more updates, rather than talking about topics, so maybe i'll work on blogging about things, or stuff....i don't know, we'll see.

and can i just say...i'm back in the BEST COUNTRY ON EARTH in just a month and a half. tell ya what, you never know how much you love America til you don't live there. Europe has many great things, but it doesn't come close to the good 'ol US of A :) but maybe i'm a bit biased?

back to reality...

my bags are packed, i'm in my ripped jeans and white t-shirt, the tan is bangin'....and i'm heading back to Stockholm. with the boyfriend, of course :) it's been a great trip - lots of laying out on the beach, walking around, eating ice cream and the BEST pizza in the world, and drinking ridiculous quantities of authentic Sangria. it's been a fairly uneventful vacation - last night, we (one of the guys on Brad's bike tour is here with us) tried to go to a bull fight and tickets were 65€. that is the equivalent of over $100. NO, THANK YOU. so we walked back, and me and Brad took a walk on the beach and realized that we've done quite a bit of traveling together. since we've been dating, we've been to Florida, Michigan, Georgia, Sweden, Sicily and now Spain together.

one thing i will tell you, though - i have seen MORE BOOBS on this trip than i've seen in my entire life. the beaches here are not 'nudie beaches'...they're just 'bikini tops optional'. that's definitely a weird thing to be around when you're with your boyfriend.

here's a picture of me and brad (please notice how STINKING tan he is - you oughta see the tan line on his back) -


oh, and on a completely un-related note: home in less than 2 months!! can't wait :)

made it to Spain!

yep, i'm here....me and all 25 kilos of my suitcase. just so you know, whenever you're traveling in Europe, it should be LAW that you can't bring more than, oh, i don't know...5 KILOS in your luggage.

seriously. i am not sure i have ever felt so ridiculous in my LIFE, hauling my big 'ol deluxo, king-sized suitcase through the train station and out to the airport. what makes it all so crazy is that i'm meeting up with 5 guys while i'm here (my boyfriend and his entourage of bikers, they've been biking through Europe)....can't wait to hear the beating i'll get for that.

anyway - my time is running out on the computer, but for my family and friends, i'm here, i'm safe....and i can't wait to stake my place on the sea tomorrow. it's across the street!

a fellow american in stockholm!

random story:

last night i was out with my friend, jordana, having wonderful, warm cups of hot chocolate in Gamla Stan (Stockholm's Old Town - best part of the city), and after we left the area we started walking towards the middle of the city. as we're walking, jordana gets a text from a friend of ours asking sarcastically, 'so does Condoleezza Rice really need to shut down Sankt Eriksplan? Cause i can't catch my bus now.' apparently, Condi's in town, and her arrival required that all of a plaza be shut down, thus keeping our friend from getting his bus out.

so we're laughing about it, and continue walking until i notice...there's a helicopter hovering over us. weird, haven't seen a helicopter since i've been here. we walk some more and start noticing police everywhere. again, haven't hardly seen police officers since i've been here (which is a shame cause i now have no concept of a speed limit...). we walk up to one officer and ask him what's going on, and he responds, 'i'm sorry, but i can't say.'

well, whatever. we cross the street and go up a block towards the train station. helicopter #1 is still hovering, except now, TWO helicopters have joined and they're all just hovering over us. we go to cross the street, and a police officer tells us we can't go that way. okay....so we go the other direction. nope, can't go that way, either. so we turn around to walk in the opposite direction, and we're halted there, also.

at this point, we're just standing about 100 feet from the entrance to the Sheraton hotel, and we're waiting with a group of about 15 bewildered, confused pedestrians. so we're all standing there, waiting...not sure WHY we're waiting, and the helicopters are hovering, and the police are standing guard - definitely an odd experience.

and then all of a sudden, from around the corner come four police officers on motorcycle, and behind them is two black cars (and a bus that looked like it was coming from a local nursing home outing...but that's not really relevant) and they all pull up in front of the hotel. and DUH, it all made sense then...it was Condi and her Secret Service entourage!

sure enough, we're standing there watching and a petite woman with short dark hair and a red wheeling briefcase gets out of the car and goes into the hotel. and that was it. helicopters flew off, police retreated their posts....and i got on my train and went home humming 'Proud to Be An American' :)

cause they're rock stars

for your viewing pleasure...the two little boogers that i spend many a days and nights with made a video with me. sometimes i can't get over how funny these two are.

please note -

- i cannot sing, and never have professed to

- klara LOVES herself. and i'm not quite sure where her clothes were, at this point.

- sixten's yelling 'yeah!' 'yeah!' when me and her are singing her song...i feel like he could hear the words in his little swedish head but couldn't get them out in english and could only show his excitement by yelling, 'yeah!'

i love this girl

klara and sixten (my 5 and 4 year olds) have been planning for the last week to 'have a sleepover' with me tonight cause their parents are having a big party and obviously would prefer it be child-free. they have been SO excited about spending the night with me - we're having chips and popcorn, their favorites - that everyday when i pick klara up from daycare she asks me, 'seann-i, are you 'cited for lördag?' (translate: 'seanna, are you excited for saturday?' we're working on her english, haha)

so today i have to run an errand for annelie to pick some stuff up for the party. i take klara with me to the store, and as i'm backing out of the driveway she asks to hear their new favorite song - 'summer of 69' by bryan adams. we turn it on, and the line, 'those were the best days of my life...' comes on and from the back seat i hear her sigh and say in her broken, halting English, 'Seann-i....this is MY best day of MY life.'

i about ate her up then....nothing makes your heart swell like a sweet 5 year old :)