Happy 10th Anniversary!

I know a lot of you are probably thinking, "Ellie and Mattias have only been married 5 years!" But this blog ain't about our marriage, it's actually about Ellie's previous domestic partnership- to Melissa. 10 years ago Alvin heard both Melisa and I complaining about figuring out our living situations in Davis. He had always talked about Melissa: the girl who's hair he cut and dyed, the girl who was athletic yet crafty, the person whom he thought would be a great roommate for me. Luckily, we took his advice and got an apartment together. Through four years we experienced really crazy roommates, a semi-stalker guy friend (ewww, Kevin,) engagements, and marriages.

On our last night together we had a symbolic salami splitting ceremony, which Melissa doesn't even remember. Good thing I had a camera.



Some of our best moments together:

Melissa's wedding
My bachelorette party in Las Vegas

Halloween in the Castro- those cookie and milk costumes were our best ever!


Our trip to Barcelona, where Melissa was the 1st to find out I was prego with Linus.

You can barely see him but that 2nd fat roll is actually Linus in utero.



Matt suggested a salami reuniting ceremony but I think it would be hard to eat a sutured salami...

Melissa and I work well together for many reasons. 1)We have the same sense of humor. Enough said. 2)We geniunely care for each others' happiness in a way that I have not seen in other friendships. I mean, I just scrubbed her moldy bathroom floor just because it was the thing about her apartment that upset her the most! 3)We create some serious culinary magic when we're together. Matt and Mattias support our partnership 110%.

Happy Anniversary Melissa! Here's to 10 more years of laughter, tears, and food!

Welcome Harris Family!

We are so happy that Melissa, Matt, and Finn Harris have joined the Karlssons in the Washington DC area! Originally, we were gonna tough it out here alone, but shear out of luck, coincidence, or my excellent recruiting skills, the Harris' decided to move out here so that Melissa could do her postdoc at the NIH where I work! To add to the excitement of seeing my BFF Melissa, I got to meet her newborn son for the first time!

Sadly, Linus fell asleep for the photo op.



Melissa's older brother Ivan moved out here last summer, and also works at the NIH. He and his wife Hannah came over for a little meet and greet, too.

It is beyond awesome to see our good friends as parents. At first, Melissa and I kept saying "Dude, I can't believe you're a mom." and Matt and Mattias had various discussions of how they were both now "responsible for another human being!" It was pretty unbelievable...

Finn didn't seem to mind us weirdos cooing and oohing over him either.


It's great to feel like we have our closest friends nearby, and that we can grow as families together. Linus and Finn are only 9 months apart and we are sure that they will become best little buddies. I'm looking forward to weekend trips to the zoo, work lunches with Melissa, and all the family style cooking we used to do back in the day. We're definitely on the up & up!

A Break From Routine

We're learning that little kids really thrive on routine-- they like to know when to expect food, when they get to go outside, and when it's time to sleep. Unfortunately, the routine that maximizes the amount of sleep we get and keeps Linus happy, is also the same routine that makes us feel like really boring people. While the weekends are wonderful and full of exploration, our weekdays look like this:


6:00AM Alarm rings, hit snooze
6:15 We actually wake up to get ourselves ready
6:30 Stuff our faces with food, chug coffee, feed animals
6:40 Linus wakes up. We wrestle on a diaper and get him dressed
7:05 Farfar comes to pick up Linus, and the entire Karlsson family is out the door. Mattias takes a free shuttle, Ellie hops on the Metro.
8:00-5:00 Ellie and Mattias work their little butts off.
5:30 Ellie drives to pick up little Linus and Guster at Farfar and Farmor's house.
6:00PM Ellie scraps together whatever she can find for dinner. Sometimes its hotdogs...
6:15 Mattias gets home and we all sit down for dinner. Linus throws food on the floor for Gus.
7:00PM We are usually so tired we can't move, but sometimes we get motivated and take Linus to the park.
7:45 Get Linus dressed for bedtime, and I nurse him to sleep.
8:00 Young parents are totally trashed-- sometimes we muster up the energy to go to the gym, sometimes we watch shows like "House" or (Ellie's choice) "So You Think You Can Dance."
10:00PM We get to bed and get ready to do the same thing over again tomorrow.



But this Saturday, thanks to Kerstin and Magnus, Mattias and I went out on a date. We got to feel like young people again, order a bottle of wine, and chill out on a rooftop restaurant in the warm summer air.






We sat on that roof for almost 2 hours-- laughing, remembering when we were just 15 years old. We called each other a lot of stupid names and reminisced about the life we had before Linus came along. The plan was to watch a movie, but we got there a little too late. Instead, we made a slow, drunken crawl home.

I can honestly say that we looked like were having a better time than all the other 20 somethings on that roof, who didn't have babies waiting for them at home. And when we finally did get home, we were happy to come back to our regular, routine lives.

Enjoying the Outdoors

The weather has been consistently warm now for the past month, so we've tried to enjoy every warm nonrainy day we can. Although Arlington is technically the "burbs" we can't hate on it too much because it was awesome parks. Our current favorite is Glencarlyn Park, just 10 minutes away. It includes a beautiful running stream, forest, a nature center, an off-leash dog park, and plenty of places to picnic.

Mattias got these great photos of Gus, our "All Terrain Frenchie."


He'll go the distance for any stick in the water, even dunking his head under water to get it!


Can you spot the gross water snake?


Linus riding on the back.

Then exploring the stream.

This weekend we also went to a BBQ at Matt & Andrea's house. It was a funny coincidence that Matt also got his PhD at UCSF, AND he lived in the same neighborhood as we did, but we didn't even meet them until they moved out to Arlington just 3 blocks away! Matt and Mattias discovered the coincidence when they were assigned desks next to each other at work! Anyway, we've become fast friends for 2 reasons 1)they love Gus and 2)they love Linus. Not sure if they like me or Mattias...


Andrea and I came up with the great idea of having a shared garden in their back yard! Here are 4 of the 6 heirloom tomato varieties we are growing in pots.
Here is the main garden plot. You can see: broccolini, baby beets, carrots, strawberries, cilantro, chives, onions, cabbage, and lettuce.

Here are my eggplants and peppers. Currently they are being attacked by some type of aphid :( Having a garden sure is a lot of work, but Linus and I have fun making a habit of going out there once or twice a week to week, cultivate, and best part of all- harvest!


Lastly, we are enjoying the longer days by taking Linus to the playground after dinner when we can. He is a lover of baby swings, and we discovered a nearby park that also has a water feature, so he can keep cool in the summer! Mattias got this picture of us, my favorite of the 2 of us to date.

Linus had a few visitors

Linus has to be the most popular Karlsson by far, having many visitors and dates in the past two weeks. Below is Maben, Linus' new playdate girlfriend who lives down the street. They met at the library playgroup and get along wonderfully (i.e. the don't hit each other or make each other cry, AND they can share!)

Memorial Day weekend brought friends from far and wide. Soon-to-be married Hillel and Helen were in town from San Diego for a wedding. Surprisingly, Hillel took to hanging out with Linus right away.

Then we went out for a night on the town. A lovely outdoor dinner at the Lebanese Taverna, followed by the best pear martinis ever!

The following day Peter and Patty (friends from SF) came down from Brooklyn and we met up at the National Gallery of Art. Linus checks out the ginormous mobile.

Favorite part was the giant tunnel with changing LED lights, complete with motorized pedestrian path. We could spend spend all day in that tunnel.

Then just this weekend my good friend from college came down from Manhattan to visit, since she was in town for a wedding. We walked to downtown Clarendon for a pitcher of sangria. Luckily, I was able to walk home.