One month later...

...Stephanie is promising she's still alive and well. :o)

Sorry about the lack-of-posting here--apparently I still need practice at this keeping-in-touch thing.

Being home for a month was great! I was super-busy, which included:

1. Making (and enjoying) the traditional Swedish smörgåsbord with my dad and my brother's friends Ray and Souhir. Also a traditional and delicious Tunisian dinner at Ray's apt (Souhir is from Tunisia and she made it herself).
2. Christmas day with my mom since my dad was at work
3. Going to see The Messiah (for the second time this year... lol) with my dad, then having dinner afterwards with my busy jet-setting brother. :o)
4. Going to the Nutcracker with my dad and his new girlfriend Kelly. Also, dinner with my dad and my brother at Kelly's house.
5. Going down to LA over New Year with my dad and there meeting up with "my Uncle Ron and Aunt Gail", who are really longtime family friends and Russian prof's at UCLA. We celebrated New Year's Eve at their house with spaghetti and a 1985 made-for-TV movie called "V". lol It was quite fun.
6. Meeting up with John there (he and his brother came to the party and took me back to the condo in Pasadena afterwards) for a day, and attempting to go to my favorite Thai restaurant (it was closed). We ended up going out to other very nice restaurants, going on long walks, and generally having a good time. :o)
7. Meeting Wendy in the veryearly morning hours on New Year's Day to see the Rose Parade (!) with her and her family. This was awesome--I have rarely even seen it on TV, and we had wonderful bleacher seats, and her sister's school from Texas was playing in the Rose Bowl later in the day, and her brother's band was marching in the parade itself!
8. Swing dancing. :o) (yay for Seattle swing dancers!) This included one night going dancing with Hailey, Kyle, and his girlfriend Léa from Montréal. (who is cool, and who is first met in Switzerland last summer.)
9. Meeting up at a bowling alley and getting a chance to see a whole bunch of people (inc. Allison and Scott)
10. Finding out that Jess W. (friend from the Forest Park Animal Farm) and Chris are engaged!
11. Finding out that Jessica (my best friend) and her husband are going to have a baby in July!
12. Quality chill-time with Joo. :o) And seeing a bunch of people I haven't seen in ages, like Rachel, Trae, Bob, and Blake.
13. Getting rats (:::shudder:::) exterminated from our roof.
14. A weekend of skiing in Whistler with my dad, my bro, and Ray. That was awesome. :o)
15. Getting snow tires put on my car. Because it was SNOWING in Everett!
16. John coming to visit for a few days, which included dinner out with my dad, exploring downtown Seattle looking for a bakery, a trip to IKEA with his sister Emily and her 2-month-old son William, dinner with my mom at her new apt, meeting up with Andrew and Shane and Andrew's girlfriend Ava at their apt in Seattle, visiting John's sister Sarah's apt in Seattle and going to a party there where there were all sorts of cool people, breakfast at the 5-spot on Queen Anne with Andrew, Shane, and Ava, meeting up with Gwen at the living:room in Fremont (verycool place, and it was great to see Gwen again), dinner at 13 Coins, and many more fun things.
17. Many many trips to Scandinavian Specialties in Ballard, lol.
18. Nice long walks.
19. 3 trips to the dentist. lol nothing was wrong, but I was switching dentists. I got one of my fillings replaced, which was great because now you can't see it at all. :o)
20. Cleaning up and putting away all of the Christmas decorations, packing my bags and purchasing needed items from stores in Everett, and flying back here to Stockholm. (the flight back was nearly empty, which was awesome)

Okay, I think that's about as consise as a post I can make while trying to cover a month's worth of things. :o) Being home was great, and I had a wonderful time visiting people... all in all, a good month.

Now I'm back in Sweden. :o) And I promise I will post more frequently than once-a-month. I probably have more things to say that I've forgotten about, so I'll post more later.