| week twenty three | a spectacular wedding, an international visitor + keeping the balance

hello, friends! i do believe that i have returned to the land of the (regular) living after an intense, wonderful, super busy two and a half weeks. whew. it has ben so much fun. but, i must say, that it feels good to get back to writing my book, nesting, enjoying the long, long days as we approach midsummer, and just being with my wife. shhh… don’t tell her, but i plan on spoiling her in one way or another in the next few days. she’s crazy busy at work + deserves some time to do whatever the hell she wants. plus, we need a little reconnection, lovey dovey time together too.

but, this post is all about what’s been happening for the past week. and, even though we had said goodbye to our first two visitors at the beginning of last week, it was only 2 days before our next international visitor made her way to uppsala to stay with us for 5 days + attend the upcoming wedding over the weekend.

first, i focused on a few moments of just being  – making sure that i had a few minutes each day to just check in with my soul. coffee. meditation. reading. i’ve got to prioritize time for these things every single day – at least 30 minutes, if nothing else. so, i did.

the weather was (and has been) crappy for a while. chilly, rainy. just yucky. and my emotions have been a little flat lately, though inside my soul has been calm. i’m not sure what that is all about, but perhaps it’s the weather and/or the mercury retrograde happening up in our universe these days. in any case, trying to balance grounding myself + running around doing errands for visitors + the wedding was my focus at the beginning of the week.
coffee-morning meditation-four-elements books-rain black-and-white-me-ego uppsala-errands

nicole, our third visitor, arrived on wednesday with a bottle of irish whiskey. woooooo! it had been 2 years since we’d all three been together, and it was so great. it’s amazing to have those friendships that stand the test of time + distance. but, now that we are back on the same side of the atlantic, it’ll be much easier to get together.

irish-whisky- nicole-lina-me

we did plenty of shopping, eating out, enjoying the sun whenever it was shining, chatting, relaxing, and preparing for the wedding. lunch-stationen-sunshine my-love-spring wine-strawberries-picnic

leaf-secret-garden picnic-me-sunshine-wine sunset-eleven-uppsala-sweden

the wedding day had arrived! my brother in law and his fiancee had planned a fantastic wedding, and invited lina and me to be toastmadams, which means that we are in charge of entertaining/running/organizing the reception time. it was such an honor! so, after some morning planning with my love to finalize the reception, and some quick dress altering by nicole, we headed to the reception place to decorate! wedding-preparations wedding-nicole-sewing

as you can see, the reception venue was ahhhh-mazing. wedding-reception-norrlands wedding-reception-hall wedding-reception-tables wedding-me

and then, it was time for the wedding to begin!!

gamla-uppsala-burial-moundswedding-vows wedding-kiss wedding-fist-bump wedding-recession-running wedding-recession wedding-church-outside wedding-kiss-outside

back to the reception venue for dinner, entertainment, partying, and dancing. what a super fun, fantastic time it was! we enjoyed every single second of it. and i think lina and i did a pretty good job being toastmadams – it was unbelievably fun for us in any case! i didn’t take any photos, didn’t even have my phone/camera anywhere around me because we were so busy. but, trust me… it was a beautiful, wonderful, super fun evening.wedding-me-and-my-love-lina wedding-dance wedding-dancing wedding-couples-me-lina

so fun that we danced until the sun came up (mind you, the sun was rising at 2 am)!wedding-sunrise-uppsala

and there you have it… my jam-packed, memorable, amazing, busy, wonderful week. and yes, i believe that i truly am ready to get back to normal life again now.

so, back to writing my book and job hunting! and here’s to wishing you a great week – whether you find yourself doing unusual + extraordinary things, or whether you find ways to make your everyday life unusual + extraordinary!

onwards + upwards! xoxo

4 thoughts on “| week twenty three | a spectacular wedding, an international visitor + keeping the balance

    1. Haha! They planned this crazy recessional to “Chariots of Fire” and did slow-motion running down the stairs. The ribbon was them “crossing the finish line”. It was so them! 😉

Share your thoughts

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.