Another photo post

As requested by a previous comment, I've taken some more photos.  The first one right below was taken downtown while J and I were out running some errands yesterday.  Talk about insane amounts of people out Christmas shopping.  Anyway, this is a hotel that was very neatly decorated.  I just had to get a shot of it.

The picture below is my lovely kitchen window.  I see the most "happenings" from this vantage point in our apartment.  The shot below it is if I go up to the window and look out to the left a bit.  Our building is angled that way towards the street so it's pretty difficult to see the other way up the street.

Below is if I look straight out our kitchen window.

The view below is out of one of our living room windows.

Looking the other direction from the window next to it (they both sit in the corner of the room, so one facing one direction and the other facing 90degrees in the other direction).

So these last 3 shots are like starting from left and going right when using the 2 windows.  This last shot is our "backyard".  The little deck there is for everyone in the building to use.  There are only 8 apartments I think, it's a small building, kind of like the one across the way there.

I apologize for the crappy quality of the shots - I used my new phone.  I wanted to test out the camera, but it seems you have to spend the insane amounts of money to get a decent camera equipped on a phone.  I have the brand new Samsung Galaxy SIII mini.  It was just released a couple of weeks ago from Samsung and is amazingly fast and I do love its performance.  However, it does only have a 5 megapixel camera.

Photo post

I cooked Thanksgiving dinner this weekend in Tibro, as previously mentioned.  J was a great help in the kitchen!  Without further ado, here is the result!

Salad, green beans almondine, candied carrots, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, lingon bread, turkey, cranberry sauce, and sweet potato casserole.

Dessert was a pumpkin pie I made, as well as strawberry flavored jello.  The cake is a princess cake, brought by one of J's aunts from a previous party.  Everything was tasty!

As it was December 1st, it seemed appropriate to see some snow on the ground, however little.

I love how my mother-in-law decorates her house.  Every time we are there there are new decorations out, depending on the season.  I loved all of the Christmas stars.

Everything was a success!  All the dishes turned out just as I had hoped, and everyone enjoyed the delicious food.

Holiday season

No, we ended up not going anywhere last weekend.  Today, however, we are heading to Tibro so that I can cook Thanksgiving dinner all day and have a bunch of the in-laws over for dinner at 7pm.  Yesterday I felt totally unprepared as I hadn't nailed down a menu yet.  I got that straightened out, though, and then made a grocery shopping list.  Now I have a game plan and feel much better!

By the way, happy December!  It's currently -5C (23F) outside according to my phone.  I can believe it since when I look out the window, all the cars in sight are completely frosted over.  I will say one thing - my job has become somewhat of a mini version of cold hell since it got cold this week.  The beginning of the week started off with 5 - 7 C (40s F) and that was totally fine.  But now it's been hovering around the freezing mark and that hasn't been too fun at all.  Plus with all the wind that this lovely town never seems to get rid of, I become an icicle out on my routes!  Luckily I have some more appropriate clothes being ordered for me by my boss so I can be properly attired.  Still, though, brrrr!  I'm so happy it's the weekend and I get to cook a once a year, delicious meal today!

It is Christmas season though, and I see all the cute little julstakar going up in the windows in the neighborhood.  Most homes have these in the windows under the Christmas season.  You also have many julstjärnor (Christmas stars) being hung in the windows as well.  I hope to convince J soon to get one, as I think they are so pretty!  Soon enough we'll put up our lovely fake tree, too.  Hooray for the holiday season! Come back soon, as I'm sure I will post some pictures of our delicious feast this evening!