Graham’s brother Nathan, his partner Michelle, and their kids Jassie and Linnea came to visit us in July. Together we went on a tour of Gamla Stan and took the ferry to Djurgården to Rosendahl’s cafe. We did a little sightseeing in Södermalm, had some picnics down at the Tullinge Canoe Club, and also had a fun day at LIDA to do mini-golf and the zipline. They also did some touring on their own, and took a trip to Finland, ABBA Museum, Nobel museum, Bergianska garden.
We spent a few days down at the lake for paddling and swimming 
Nathan and I went on a little canoe tour 
We took the kids to see the heritage buildings and animals at Skansen 
Naturally we tried the stickhorse steeplechase course 
Nathan and Jassie in front of the Medborgarplats library in Södermalm 
Jassie and I did the zipline course at Lida 
It was great! 
Lida alos has mini-golf, which I tried for the first time. Here Graham and Nathan are playing 
Nathan is pretending to be furious, even though he is a very good golfer.
Linnea is named after a flower, which grows in the polar region and in the Stockholm area in particular. It was named by Carl Linneaus, the Swedish botanist/taxonomist who contributed a lot to the modern binomial naming system for living things. It is a small evergreen that grows in the moss and blooms around midsummer. It does not grow in the Lower Mainland, so we had a bit of a Linnea-hunt, including a trip to Uppsala, the home of Carl Linneaus and several botanical gardens. We found Linnea flowers on lots of prints, home décor items, and tiles on the subway, but unfortunately not any living plants. We consoled ourselves with a nice lunch/fika at classic Swedish konditori (coffee/pastry shop) Ofvandal’s. We also took a bus out to Gamla Uppsala to see the Viking-age burial mounds and the old church.
Carl Lindman’s 1296 Botanical Drawing of a Linnea plant 
Katerina Hamilton’s fun Linnea Card – our Linnea got one of these to bring home 
A short day trip to Uppsala on a sunny day 
Family portrait on a charming bridge over Fyris river 
This time with the Uppsala Cathedral in the background 
We went to Gamla Uppsala to see the burial mounds and the old church from the 1100s 
Here is the more recent bell tower fo the church, almost the same hieght and located just beside
It was a great visit, and we hope they will brave the jetlag to come back this way again soon!
