Family Day! Another pressure filled day added to the calendar. Everyone else have the cosiest day together with their all in sync families. They all know what and how to celebrate this day in the best of ways! My family on the other hand woke up to a beautiful sunny day in a little hotel room in a small Ontario town. The reason is that this town provide skiing opportunity to southern ontarios millions of people. I wake up ready to attack this day in a energetic way, a snow shoe hike, a brunch at a well planned establishment that we are all excited to go to or just go for a long interactive hike. On this hike we would talk to each other and nobody would punch, teas or push. So, this did not happen of course. One daughter had a sleep over, another was impossible to wake up, she was snoring together with my husband that also decided that sleeping is way more important than being energetic. Luckily there is a third daughter who like me is energetic in the morning and wants to get going! We did some errands and picked up daughter from sleepover and stopped by Starbucks for husbands needs. Finally we are all together in the car all packed and ready to go. Too late to start skiing, no chance of convincing everyone that a snow shoe hike would be great. We start our drive home. Now we are hungry. Where to eat? Let's stop in the Italian Woodbridge north of Toronto for some "easy to find, great Italian spot". Marks wonderful idea sounds ok but the closer we get the more hungry everyone gets. I am loosing faith in this whole day!! Much better to just go to school and work than to be stuck with your family and forced to interact. Suddenly we pull in to a strip mall where there is a funeral going on and it feels like we are crashing a Sopranos episode. In the middle of limos, dark sunglasses and white shoes is exactly the place we have been looking for. Very authentic, great pizza and even better espresso and suddenly my family are experiencing that bliss of family cosiness i was looking for, while eating the best pizza in a very long time. After stuffing ourselves we find a perfect little hike in Edwards Garden. I feel great again even though the day started differently than I wanted it to.
Tomorrow we are back in reality and I know I will think back on this Family Day and think it was pretty good after all. It was our Family Day 2012!!

Saturday night and home alone at the kitchen counter with my iPad. Not that I want to do this every Saturday night but once in a while it is soo relaxing and cosy. I have been listening to lots of podcasts and music.
Earlier today was big Semla Saturday at Beaches Bakeshop & Cafe. It was pretty busy and a few swedes came by.
J, P, and M are up north this weekend. P raced today and did great. Tomorrow J is racing and I wish I was there. S is babysitting so that is the reason we didn't go to Collingwood. Went to my friend G's house to pick up a cook book she got me from Sweden. She went there for 2 weeks to "find back to herself". She was in big need and had a great time. G is a very good friend of mine. I am going to spend more time with friends like her this year. Ok, that's it for now! Have to read my new cookbook- cant stop myself! Tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday, which doesn't matter much to me but I am making a chili because of that. I got inspired!!

Good thing I didn't sign up to do the 100 days of blogging!
Life goes on and I just forget to stop and write a few sentences to save my thoughts of the day for the afterworld. I have diaries from way back when I was 8-10 years old. I wrote almost daily until I was 30. Then kids started to come along and other things took over my writing time. Now, almost 20 years later, I am trying to find that time again and use it for what it was intended for.
I have had some great moments lately with my kids. P is learning to play guitar and I am soo impressed by how dedicated she is and that she is teaching herself. J is working hard on being as good as she wants to be in all areas. She runs, studies, is the inspiration of the school's volleyball team. She loves it all. S is working hard on her school. She has high hopes and I am sure will make some great choices and will reach her goals and hopes!
I, on the other hand, don't know what my goals are at the moment, more than I have to start to get this day off the ground! So, go on, have fun and do the right thing!

Short post since it is late and my bed has been calling my name for a while now. Why is it so hard to go to bed sometimes? I feel that there is so much I want to do and keep updated on and that takes time. Now and then when I hear someone say something I agree with or maybe not but it is interesting anyway or if a person is really funny in a great way I think- that person would be great to sit around the dinner table with. I always think I should write down who these people are, who would sit around my dream dinner party table? Today I heard Mark Levengood be interviewed on Swedish TV by Skavlan. I think I would like to have both Skavlan and Mark around my dream dinner party table. I also would want some of my girlfriends around that table. I will revisit this subject and maybe figure out what I would serve as well. As for tonight this is it- have to sleep!!

Friday evening and suddenly I am in Collingwood. We drove up today because daughter 2 and 3 have races in the morning. They are both racing at the club where daughter number 1 had her ski accident last season. Don't feel really comfortable with the whole thing! It is chilly out there but it is nice to be up here again. I worked really hard to get everything ready for the shop since I am not there tomorrow. Quiches, salads and cakes. Lots of special orders. Did I mention dish crawl? We were part of that this past Wednesday and it was a blast. 20 people divided into 2 groups visits 4 places in the course of 2 hours. We served soups , salad and sweets. We got tons of compliments both during the evening but also on twitter during and after. Lots of fun!! A great thing to do all around. Both for attracting new customers and also for us as business owners to get together and work towards a common thing. I'll try to post the link to the pics later. Now I have to go goodnight !!

Yesterday was another busy day. DishCrawl.TO visited us at Beaches Bakeshop & Cafe' It is a great concept where 20 people, sometimes more, sign up to go on a guided tour through a neighborhood's restaurants. In our case we were the only restaurant on the tour. Courage Food, Close to the bone and Art of cheese were the other places We had two groups of 10 plus the photographer and "leader". On our menu we had 2 soup shots - Mexican Bean Soup with Salsa on a stick and Carrot Ginger with a splash of Roasted Beet Root Soup. They both looked and tasted, I hope, fantastic. We also served 2 salads, Puy Lentil with Green Beans and Feta plus Roasted Butternut Squash with Red Rice. We served them on these amazing bamboo dishes and ate with the cutest bamboo forks. For sweets we had an assortment of Tradtional Swedish stuff of course. We also gave a little care package consisting of a mini Swedish Cinnamon bun and a mini Semla bun. Everyone had a great time and if you ever have a chance to check out DishCrawl in the city where you live - do it!! It's a great way to find new places and meet new people!! A perfect thing to do on a date for example!!
Enjoy the day!

People are trying to blog a 100 days in a row. I have not blogged in a million years.....don't know why I suddenly kind of feel some little need to express myself here again.
I am still a cafe' owner, mother of three girls and married to Mark. We have been busy with life. Past year included knee injuries and reconstructive surgery after ski racing accident- not fun!, finished our house renovation- very nice and lots of fun, spent 2 weeks in Stockholm last spring- loved it and would love to make it a tradition. Over the recent holiday we went to Austria. Spent 4 days in Salzburg and the rest in Bad Gastein. It was the best family vacation and exactly what we needed. I realized that I actually really like my kids. You know how you sometimes wonder what planet they just arrived from or how you possibly could be more unsuccessful in raising responsible people. Anyway, we are in a good place at the moment and I really am trying to suck in these times. I know very soon we will all be in different places and I will wonder if my girls are ok and if they are doing the right thing. I know I will be ready when the day come to say goodbye and have fun but for now I feel like I want to stop time for a while.