dan collier

I’ve come across a few old photos that are so cute I have to post them. They’re taken with an old digital camera so these fairly small photos are full resolution.

First is one of Naomi, Maggie and Ella.

Next is a photo of Leah and Maggie, from 2000 as far as I can tell.

Next are two of Naomi and Ella.

And finally, a photo of Johanna in Provincetown probably from June 2000.

Below are some photos from Julafton (Christmas Eve) at Johanna’s parents’ house at Bullandö. Happy holidays!

In Sweden, to start first grade a child is generally expected to be 7 years old by January 1 of that school year. Parents with children that just make the cut-off seem as often as not to wait a year to enroll their children. So even though Jaxon went to kindergarten on Cape Cod last year, he will only be 6½ years old on the 1st of January 2009, and the bi-lingual school we wanted him to attend insisted he join the kindergarten class.

When we asked Jaxon about attending kindergarten again, he wasn’t too happy at first. But when we told him about kindergarten here – how much playtime they have and the fun things they do, he reconsidered. His comment was “Playing is what I do best!”. The academic aspect of kindergarten has been much less intense here compared to Cape Cod, but adjusting to a new primary language and new friends has kept Jax plenty busy.

Below is his class photo from this year. While he is the tallest in the class, he is far from the oldest.

I hope to eventually receive and post Naomi’s class photo, but it seems we lost the requisite forms required to appease the multiple layers of bureaucracy necessary to receive our copy of the photo.

When I first arrived in Sweden back on July 8th, the dollar (USD) was trading against the Swedish krona (SeK) lower than I had ever seen it – approximately 5.95 SeK to 1 USD. Between July and 1 week ago, the dollar climbed to a rather high (though not the highest I’ve seen) – 8.30 SeK to 1 USD. That amounts to a 28% rise in the value of the dollar over a 4 month period! The dollar is falling again now, today alone it was down here about 4.75% to 7.62 SeK to 1 USD. Below is a chart that shows the rise and fall of the dollar (made here).

In an article from today titled “European Markets Decline, and Dollar Falls Sharply“, The New York Times has some analysis on the recent slump. The article points out that today “the dollar fell to its lowest against the [Japanese] yen since August 1995″.

I don’t make any claim that I can figure out what is going on with the dollar or the krona. But if the new trend continues, one thing that does seem clear is that the falling price of oil and gas and record drop in retail prices happening in the US is not going to last for long. That is probably unfortunate, both because my States-side friends and family are going to again be paying more for less, but perhaps more importantly, it indicates the US economy hasn’t hit bottom yet.

The Swedish Krona is a fairly insignificant currency, compared to Euro or Yen or British Pounds, so it’s likely not interesting to many folks. But at this point my income is in USD while most of my expenses are in Swedish Krona, so the exchange rate is more than a casual interest. Considering I watch international exchange rates as closely as I do, I thought I’d share what is happening in my little-noticed corner of the world.

On November 22, after a light snowfall, Naomi, Jax and I took a walk in the woods in Bullandö. Here are some pictures from our outing.

The second of the photos below popped up on my screensaver the other day and I was reminded of the first photo, which was taken about 3 seconds before. In between the two, gravity attacked.

These photos are from August 2003. Jax was 15 months old.