October 8, 2007 - The Great Dala Horse Cookie Caper!

Last week Charlie send invitations to her granddaughters inviting them to come to her house with their dala horse aprons, their dala horse cookie cutters, a smile, their little brothers and their mommies to help her make cookies. Kemry was so excited when she got her mail that she had to immediatly call Charlie and RSVP. She also called Emmy to see if she was invited. Emmy hadn't gotten her mail yet and when she finally did and tried to call Kemry back, Kemry was taking a nap and didn't want to talk.



The little girls were at Charlie's house right at 10:00 am, ok so Kemry was a little later, they have to come further. They were asked what is the first thing a cook does and Haley had the right answer, do you know it. Wash your hands!!!



The girls had lots of fun helping Charlie roll out the dough and then cutting as many cookies as they could before we gathered up the scraps and rolled it out again. All of the granddaughters had to help roll and then they cut, sometimes with the sharp side of the cutters against their hands instead of the cookie dough. Luckily no one cut their hand. They cut and rolled and cut and rolled and just generally made a mess of Charlie's kitchen table and floor.








They weren't all dala horses, we decided to make some Halloween cookies, so the dough was colored orange and brown so we could make pumpkins, cats, witches, bats, leaves, ghosts, monster heads, and tombstones. then on to the decorating. 5 different colors of frosting and lots of sprinkles, shh don't tell Dallin and Daniel about the sprinkles, we didn't send any of those home with their mom. I'll let the pictures tell the story of the frosting.





Didn't Emmy do a great job on her dala horses? She tried so hard to get the colors on their backs and around their necks just like the real thing


Ian played with Molly the dolly and Charlie's toy cars and let the girls cook in peace. Thank goodness for small favors.



All in all we had a great time and managed to get the table cleaned up, the floor swept and all the dishes in the dishwasher. We also sent some cookies home with Jill so Dallin and Daniel could help too. I don't think that we will do this every month, but we did have a good time today.

September 17, 2007 - Back Home

We spent our last night in Sweden in Eskiltuna at Astrid's parents home. We really enjoyed visiting with them; especially Ingrid's great cooking. After dinner, they took us for a walk around town and Kalle acted as my personal tour guide.

On the 17th, everyone back home showed up to hear about the trip and get the souvenirs that we had bought for them in Gamla Stad. Paul and Zach got some cool Swedish T-shirts. Jill, Robyn and Natascha got some necklaces that Astrid helped Charlie find at the souvenir shops at the mine in Falun. Kevin and Blaine were happy with their sweatshirts.

Below, the grand daughters were thrilled with their aprons and the cookie cutters that Astrid and Dwight got them. They ran around all night playing like they were making cookies. We much preferred this to what the older boys did with their gifts.



As you can see below, Dallin and Daniel were thrilled with their viking hats, shields and weapons. The only problem is that they wanted to use their weapons on the girls or their grandpa.



Charile wonders in the background if we made a mistake getting the sword and axe.


Somehow we missed a picture of Ian with his new truck that we got him, but here is a picture of Luke with his toy partially hidden on the floor by the curtains.

Overall, everyone was ready to send us to Sweden again.

September 14, 2007



After getting instructions on how to drive to Gamla Stad (Old Town) in Stockholm for shopping.

To the right is a picture of a narrow alley going to the street with all of the souvenir shops. While we shopped, Dwight and Astrid headed for the bakery.












Afterwards, we headed for the Vasa Museum. It contained a 17th century Swedish ship that had sunk in the bay right after it was launched. In the late 60's or so, they retreived it off of the ocean floor and restored it.

We found it to be pretty interesting. I will refer you to Dwight's blog for a more detail discussion on the museum.



http://idiochron.org/2007/9/21/visit-of-the-parents-finale












Another picture of the ship that is housed inside the museum building.











The ship was full of very ornate cravings, all with some particular meaning.





















Originally, all of the cravings were painted. Here are some restored cravings from the ship.

















This is a picture of the water just outside of the museum in downtown Stockholm. As you can see, Stockholm is a very beautiful city.

Here is a pretty building.













The best part of the day, however, for Astrid was IKEA. Here is Astrid with a real smile and Dwight with a fake smile.

September 13, Back in Sweden

Dwight and Astrid picked up us up at the airport in the afternoon and we headed for a hostel outside of Stockholm to spend the night. The hostel is managed by their friends.

To the right is the sign at the hostel and below is a picture of it.

This hostel is more of a family camping hostel. We stayed in the building. Charlie and I were given the deluxe room. It had a queen size bed in it, while Astrid and Dwight took a regular room, which consisted of bunkbeds.

The showers and bathrooms were at the end of the hall. This was a good time to stay at the hostel as it was not crowded. In the summer they said it is full on the weekends.

To the right is a picture of Dwight and Astrid's friends giving directions to Johanna on how to get to some of the places we wanted to go to in downtown Stockholm. There friends are Ryan and Linda. Ryan is a returned Swedish missionary and Linda is Swedish. She speaks very good English with an American accent. They lived in Arizona when they were first married, but then moved back to Sweden.

Ryan and Linda have two children, both of them were really cute and full of energy. This is Ebba with a piece of red plastic in her mouth. She loved to have her picture taken.

Ebba's brother, Aidan, can be seen in this picture.

Finally, I took some pictures of a few trailers that I thought that the Parry's would enjoy. They all had small tents connected to the doors to give them some outside living space. After taking these pictures, we headed for downtown Stockholm with Dwight at the wheel and Johanna directing. Maybe the Parry's don't have to get rid of all of their tents, now that they have a trailer. We also thought that they would be delighted to know that there are trailer parks in Sweden, so that when they drive to Sweden they should take their trailer with them.

Monday-Thursday, Sept 12-13

Well, I am finally back to telling about the rest of our trip. As our previous email stated, we stayed with Dan White Spunner near Nenagh, Tipperary.

Dan's wife, Joan, died last November, and Dan was nice enough to take us to the old cemetery where she was buried. The location is by a decommissioned church shown below. The church is now owned by a famous movie actor who plans on selling it. No one lives there now.

Below is a picture of Joan's headstone. Dan has taken it upon himself to take care of the graveyard. He hires someone to come in and mow the grass, etc. Without Dan's efforts, the cemetery would probably be very over grown.

The White Spunner's are descendants of Benjamin White and Elizabeth Spunner. We are descendants of their daughter, Elizabeth White. One of their sons was named Thomas Spunner White. Later in his life, he changed his name to Thomas Spunner White Spunner when he inherited the Spunner estate. All of the White Spunner's come through this line. There are descendants in Ireland, England and the United States.

The church where Benjamin White and Elizabeth Spunner were married was the Shinrone Parish Church of Ireland. Many of Elizabeth Spunner's ancesters were also christened or married in this church. This church is still functioning and Dan's sister-in-law, Janet White Spunner is one of the Reverends for this church. Below is a picture of the Church.

Also shown in this picture is Charlie's back, Janet White Spunner and Dan. Below are pictures inside the Shinrone Church.

The below picture shows the back of the church. Notice that on the right side of the door is a framed marble plaque next to the book case.

The plaque is a memorial of a sister of Elizabeth White and Thomas Spunner White Spunner. Her name was Benjamina Ann White, who died in 1816. We knew about her, but never knew what became of her. She died at age 18. At the bottom of the plaque, it states that two infants are interned here. We don't know if this includes Benjamina or if two other children of Benjamin White and Elizabeth Spunner died as infants.

We also visited Milltown House, which is the old Spunner/White Spunner estate. This house is really something. While it is somewhat worn out inside, it must have been magnificent in the 1700 and 1800s.

Behind the house, there is a courtyard. The courtyard is in the middle of a square of buildings, composed of the house, shops, servants quarters, carriage house, etc. Below are pictures of the courtyard.

Inside the house, there are a lot of antiques. Below is a sample of the beautiful craftsmanship around the top of each wall in one of the rooms. We have a lot of other pictures of antiques, etc. that we are not posting on the blog because this is getting pretty lengthy.

Dan's brother, Richard (Janet White Spunner's husband), has been in a rest home with alzheimer's disease for a few years now. He is the present owner of Milltown. When he dies, it will pass on to his nephew, Barney White Spunner, who is a general in the British Army.

One of Dan's daughters, Katie, lives near Dan. Below is a picture of Katie, her daughter, Clarissa, Charlie and Dan. They have a beautiful home on a hill over looking Lough Derg, one of three lakes that the River Shannon flows through.

The next two pictures were taken from Katie's front yard.

Thursday morning, we headed back to the Dublin airport to return to Stockholm, Dwight and Astrid.