We had to make our decision to move to Sweden within 24 hours, and part of me hopes that the actual move would have been a shotgun move as well. There is nothing worse than waiting, and moving forward slowly and not knowing what comes ahead. The uncertain times still continue, and truth to be told, it has been tough, especially after my husband left.

I’ve tortured my friends with updates like “we didn’t get the house we wanted, will be homeless in Sweden soon”, and complained how hard it is to leave the US, or how sad it is to give away our dog and how people who say they’ll buy your things from Craig’s List don’t show up, and how it breaks my heart to see my kids’ friends and teachers hosting them farewell parties and how much I know they will be missed and they will miss their friends.

Part of me feels like I have to dwell on the bad parts of this move too. I have to carpe the shit out of diem of the crappy days too – or how else the good moments ever felt so good, if tough times weren’t meant to feel tough too?

It’s OK if it’s tough

My mother-in-law said to me (halfly joking, I hope) that part of her is happy that we are having rough time moving out of the US, because it sure is hard for her to see us go. And I get it. We are super excited about the move, can’t wait to live in Europe, and every day I see so many things around me that make me think “thank God we are moving to Sweden.” But how would people around me feel, if I mentioned these all the time? I think it is important for our family and friends to see too the real struggles we go through too, and the reality without sugarcoating it.

We talk about things we will miss and things we won’t miss with the kids all the time. I tell them more about Europe, they are too young to remember much from when we lived there and have visited the last times. I want them soak every single thing they love about Beacon, New York, were we live, and I want them to remember the things we don’t like here either. I’ve learned so much about my children this way. If we had only focused on the positive sides and how wonderful everything will be, I would have missed a huge opportunity to teach my children about life, and I would have missed an opportunity to get to know them better.

The things we won’t miss…

In one of the pictures my youngest drew was a Walmart with its big parking lot, and McDonalds on the other side, a sushi restaurant on the other side. The Walmart and the McDonalds parking lots were empty and the sushi restaurants parking lot was full. I asked what he thought when we drew the picture, he said “I don’t like McDonalds and Walmart, and maybe other people will learn to like the sushi place more too.” It reminded me of the lunch date in the school cafeteria earlier this school year with him. It was the lunch with parents day, and I had brought in a healthy lunch for him, and the parent sitting in the same table had brought a Happy Meal for her child. The principal of the school walks by and says “lucky you, you got a Happy Meal” for the kid with french fries, soda and chicken nuggets. My son’s face was stunned. How could the principle say “lucky you,” didn’t she know McDonalds food was unhealthy? My then 8-year old whispered to me he was the lucky one to get the healthy lunch and gave me a hug.

I understand that many things frustrate the kids too, and I know they will flourish in Europe. I know this is the right decision for our family. But still, knowing all this, it’s still not easy to hug your best friends, say good byes, get rid of everything you own, give away your dog and pack up and go.

Living in the moment

I don’t allow myself to think that a week from today I will be on our stopover in Iceland soaking my tired mind and body in Blue Lagoon hot springs. It will be amazing journey. But now, I still have to scrub a New York apartment, say farewell for our family pet who can’t come to Sweden with us, sell my car and pack everything. And I am taking every moment in as it comes.

Did you notice..? I took a little unannounced blogging break. I think you took a little break too and spent some time with family.

Truth to be told, this entire beginning of the winter has been sort of crazy, ever since we found out we are moving to Sweden, and I have been trying to do even more things at the same time as usual. I have been been busy getting rid of everything we own, packing and rethinking my work life as I know it. Some of it has been easy, some of it not so much. The worst part is probably the things that are still open – we don’t have a moving date yet, and it makes it very difficult to plan and do things.

One good thing is already certain – I can keep working virtually in the US while living in Sweden. Go figure, USA is one of the only countries in the world that will tax its citizens even if they live outside the country, and they can keep working even if they don’t reside in the country anymore. This information was a huge relief for me – my work will not be as affected as I thought it would be, and I am ready for all virtual opportunities 2012 may bring.

(Picture taken in Stockholm when I visited there last time in 2010).

Sweden, we are ready for you, I hope Sweden will be ready for us soon too.

All of our children will have Finnish citizenship, so it hopefully will make our life in Europe easier. It has taken numerous hours of work and many hundred dollar bills to make all of the paperwork happen, and we are still waiting for one renewed passport to arrive and one more citizenship to be confirmed and we are all set. You never remember how much paperwork is needed when you move out of the country, and what all things should be considered. Also, it doesn’t make it easier that we are now dealing with both American and Finnish officials – and we have barely started our paperwork with the Swedish yet – that will come after we move in the country.

So pardon me – the Skimbaco journey has been and probably will continue to be on and off as our family of five is trying to make this move from New York to Stockholm. But this is what Skimbaco Lifestyle is all about – living in the moment, and exploring world, one place at the time.

We visited family in Texas during the Holidays, and got to see our extended family and friends, and eat our bellies full of Southern comfort food (I had my first ever fried pork chop, who knew you could even get pork chops fried?) and Tex-Mex (Chuy’s and Pappasitos, hello!).

It was a bitter sweet trip.. It was so wonderful to see family, and kids had a chance to see their second cousins shortly, and we saw grandparents and great-grandmother and visited the Presnal family ranch and saw the horses and enjoyed spending time with the family and what Texas is all about. But we couldn’t help but think the upcoming move to Europe, and the missed opportunities in the past and in the future of not spending enough time with the large family we have in Texas. While we love our nomadic lifestyle; the gypsy-style moving around, traveling and experiencing life like not many get to do, it does come with missed opportunities to spend time with family. It especially gets tricky when our families are on the other sides of the world, my husband’s in Texas, and mine in Finland.

For a few days, we enjoyed our family time in Texas and said our farewells to many loved ones as we are once again moving out of the country. Some of the distant family we had seen the last time on a family celebration of us moving back to the US, ten years ago. Time goes fast, and this trip was a grand reminder of that.

To me it doesn’t feel like Christmas without snow and cold, but there still isn’t snow in New York, so it wasn’t like we missed out on an amazing winter wonderland. In fact, we visited Santa’s Wonderland in College Station, and it was cold as New York and the hot cocoa and the outdoor fireplace were spot on.

Kris gave a test ride for a mechanical bull, and we all took the hayride through the Christmas lights galore of the Santa’s Wonderland. I wasn’t too big of a fan of the lights parade and the overpowering amount of Christmas lights seemed too Las Vegas to me, but I loved the Santa’s village, Texas style. Well, I liked the Texan village of cowboy hat stores, S’mores and hot dogs by the outdoor fireplace, country music playing and the true Western experience. To me it had very little to do with Christmas, there were no reindeer sightings nor rice porridge, but it was great to experience Christmas, the Texas way.

The best of it all – to spend time with loved ones, who make even me feel like Texas is home, even though I haven’t lived there for more than a few months.

After the initial shock when we told our children we are moving to Sweden, they immediately knew what to do. They know the drill, and they started getting ready for move sooner than we did. We still had our everyday work to go to, clients to take care of, blog posts to write. Life didn’t and couldn’t change in an instant. While our children still had their school play to get ready for, homework to do and their everyday chores to take care of, they were able to get started with the physical process of moving immediately.

Start Traveling With Children When They Are Young – It Will Become a Second Nature

Children are so adaptive, or maybe it is just our children, the nomads of the world, who have been dragged around the world since they were mere weeks old, and who got passports under the age of two weeks and all traveled to other countries under the age of two months.

I always say to parents, don’t wait traveling with your children until they “get older and it gets easier”. No. It gets easier when they are older because they are used to it, not because they are older. Look at two adults, one who never travels and one who travels constantly – traveling is easier for the one with traveling experience, not for the one who is older.
Age doesn’t have anything to do with it.

A few days after we told our children about the move to Sweden I walk into their room and find an enormous mess.
Toys, clothes, books… everywhere.

Before I even say a word, my oldest daughter jumps in and says “I know, I know, it’s messy. But the plastic bags are things we are throwing away, the paper bags are filled with things we can donate or sell and the plastic bins and stuff still in the closet are things we want to keep”.

A few days ago this beautiful creature looked at me with her gorgeous eyes with a look that could have killed because she was so upset we were taking her away from New York. Today she is already organizing everything she and her sister and brother own and already packing for the move.
And we don’t even know when we are moving.
And I have barely even started yet.

Nomadic life with children can be easy. Because they learn to adapt, they learn to put things in perspective (and understand why we can not move that big Barbie house and they don’t even ask if they could) and they learn to prioritize and see what’s really important in life.

I have been a fan of Briggs & Riley luggage for a while. It’s high quality luggage with lifetime guarantee – and that’s not something you see often. I’ve had several cute pink suitcases which have exploded after six to twelve months of my use, and was just tired of shopping by the looks, and wanted something that is worth buying, and was luckily introduced to Briggs & Riley.

I feel like Briggs & Riley was listening to me saying how I still liked the more feminine colors for luggage because they just launched their latest collection in the above color “Lava”. I’m hoping to get the BRX Explore 25″ Upright in “lava” so I don’t have to fight about the Briggs & Riley suitcase I have now with my husband. These amazing bags don’t come with a cheap price tag, this baby is $320. Now, with the lifetime guarantee it is way worth it and with my use it comes cheaper to buy this one bag than a new bag every year or so.

If you act fast, you will be able to score Briggs & Riley luggage for 50% off at Rue La La. I have been looking for these bags for about six months now and I’ve never seen the prices this low!

I want this:

Also thinking about this:

And I think hubby might get this from Santa:

Click to Rue La La to see all of the models.

Last week I traveled to Helsinki, Finland and to Singapore in Asia – and back to my home in New York. That’s total of 40 hours on air, if you wondered.

I participated in a very special flight by Finnish airline Finnair. It was a special Angry Birds flight from Helsinki to Singapore (an 11,5 hour flight!) and an Asian Angry Birds Challenge was played on board (I didn’t win). Yes, Angry Birds as the game! This was the same trip I also visited Angry Birds / Rovio headquarters in Finland.

The trip was amazing, I was able to see my family in Finland, and also see the first day of Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix. If you are not familiar with Formula 1 racing, it’s like champagne to Bud Light compared to Nascar. Overall the trip included some super high highlights and super low bad news I was not prepared to face at all, and combining it all, and the excitement, the jet lag, time difference and sleeping around 3 hours a night I came home entirely beat, but at the same time more excited, more thankful for what I have and more full of energy than I have been for the longest time.

I will share more photos from the trip at Skimbaco Travel, and I have any stories to share from the trip and hopefully I will get the write them all soon, but I wanted to first share what happened on my journey back home and when I got home…

44 Hour Journey from Singapore to New York

It took me 44 hours from leaving my hotel in Singapore to walk through the doors of my home. The 44 hours were nuts, but in a good way. After leaving my hotel, I carried my luggage through the streets of hot Singapore, did last minute sightseeing and eventually left my bag with my friend’s hotel concierge while going to watch Formula 1. Luckily I was able to sneak a shower at hotel’s pool area (my luggage IN the shower with me – I didn’t have anywhere else to put it!) after being outdoors in the 100F+ weather at the race before taking the train to Singapore airport around 10PM local time. After enjoying airport sushi (yum!) I took another 11,5-hour flight back to Helsinki, Finland arriving 8AM local time.

My flight to New York wasn’t outbound until 2 o’clock on the afternoon, and believe me I was temped to take a nap on the comfy couch in the lobby of Hotel GLO at the airport (love the hotel, also the one downtown Helsinki, highly recommend), or pamper myself at the Finnair Lounge Spa & Sauna, which is a must do if you ever fly via Helsinki (5 luxurious saunas and pool area looking into the airport runway & the landing aircrafts).

But instead.. I decided to take a bus to downtown Helsinki and do a two-hour walking tour around the city on my own and take pictures of my old hometown (I lived in Helsinki when I went to college) and have a cinnamon bun and a coffee in my favorite cafe for the old time’s sake. I did a lot of reflecting back in time in this trip, including seeing a friend I hadn’t seen for 14 years and talking with my family how our lives have drifted apart as I have semi-rooted myself in the US. I even walked by one of my old places where I worked while in college… I managed the computerized inventory system for Mulberry Shop, and while it may not sound anything today, but it was a Big New Thing in 1996. And well, Mulberry keeps just getting better and better.

Coming Home & Canning Life’s Good Moments, and Some Apple Jam

They say that world travel changes you, and I couldn’t agree more. Traveling and moving around has been our lifestyle the past 14 years, even though we are not very good at “vacation traveling”. Our three children were born in different countries, and the past 9 years we have lived in the United States we have lived in several different states, and our life has had this state of movement all the time, and living like on a long staycation – this is what Skimbaco lifestyle is to me.

I sure love to travel, and see different places, and open myself to new influences. It certainly is a richness in life I crave for more. And it’s about canning all of these moments and experiences in the cellars of your mind and reaching out to them when you need them the most.

What is important to note though; traveling doesn’t just change you because of the things you see, people you meet. Traveling can be very high stress, you have to be flexible (or if you are not, you can have the worst time of your life) and enjoy whatever comes along and you have to be OK with the fact that the unknown might not be what you expected. Or sometimes the things you experience can absolutely blow your mind away, and coming home to your everyday grind might be some sort of…. a hell.

Traveling changes you – because it also changes how you live your everyday life after you come home, if you let it do so.

If you truly travel, open your mind, see with your heart, and let the experience mold your mind and soul, traveling will have an impact on how you live your everyday life. This may seem too deep, and unfortunately you might not get this feeling after coming back home from a tourist trip, but from a trip where you have tested your own limits.

Needless to say, flying to Europe to Asia to Europe to North-America in less than 7 days was testing my limits just for my capability to sit still! Adding everything else to the equation – I was in sensory overload and sleep deprived to the least. Once I got home I slept 12 hours straight and when I woke up, I was like a whole new person. The trip had truly made me to reflect on my life, and mentally start writing my bucket list (MUST travel MORE), and canning life’s good moments. I felt the deepest of the deep gratitude for my husband, and children, and our family unit.

And on Sunday… I didn’t just can all of the memories from the trip but also canned some apple jam in honor of my aunt and my family in Finland. I grew up next to an apple orchard and my family still has apple trees on their yard, and my aunt had made this amazing apple jam…

Believe it or not, that’s what life is all about, doing small things in your everyday life that make you happy, like making or enjoying homemade apple jam. Sometimes we just need to go to the other side of the world to remember it.

Disclosure: Finnair paid my flights and one night stay in Singapore but I was not asked to write this post. My opinions are my own, as usual.

I have been traveling a lot this summer but I haven’t really shared many of our trips on my blogs yet. I just posted about my trip to Cape Cod. I took my kids and mother-in-law to Provincetown for a few day beach getaway to sit on the beach and relax. Read more about the trip at Skimbaco Travel, and you can also find a few pictures from the Lobster Pot restaurant at Skimbaco Food.

Here are a few pictures I Instagrammed while there. If you would like to follow my travels more closely, you can follow me on the iPhone app Instagram, you can find me with username Skimbaco.

In this week: first day of summer and first day of summer vacation for kids.
Here are some great summer survival links for mom on the go.

How to Make Your Dreams Come True at Champagne Living is a great post with tips how to live life to the fullest and how it takes small steps to ultimately achieve your dreams. Read the tips and start making your summer dreams come true stat!

The real price of quality of life is a great post on the Family on Bikes blog where Nancy writes about their family’s dream; the want of staying put after traveling around the world, but what is preventing them from living life to the fullest right now is… health insurance. I think many of us can relate.

Five Essential Summer Tasks With Kids at the Family Focus Blog has great tips how to make a summer schedule for kids.

How to Prepare Your Child (and yourself) for Sleepaway Camp at Role Mommy is a must read if your kiddo is going to a sleep away camp this summer. You’ll get simple tips plus you’ll hear the story from the other side, directly from the summer camp directors of Maine.

106.7 Lite FM presents Broadway in Bryant Park is a must read post at Prissy Reviews if you live in the NYC or are planning on visiting New York City between July 7th to August 11th. Local radio station offers free live Broadway musical performances at Bryant Park on one hour lunch performances on summer Thursdays 12:30-1:30. See the entire program by clicking the link.

JetBlue & PBS Kids Launch In-Flight Literacy Program For Traveling Kids reports Child Mode. JetBlue will give a free activity kit for kids flying with them with reading games based on PBS KIDS educational programming this summer. How cool is that?

Coffee: The World’s Greatest Addiction is a random must see video at The Luxury Spot if you are a coffeeholic like me. I blame my Finnish roots (an average Finn drinks 3 times more coffee a day than an average American). And I don’t care how hot this summer already is – I will be drinking hot coffee all summer long. Ice ain’t gonna dilute my lattes.

Skimbaco has always been about spreading the sunshine and paying it forward, but I admit, we could do better here in the blog. Introducing new feature: Links we like and bet you like them too!

Introvert? Extrovert? Who are you? asks Jessica in her post and explains the difference between the two. The definitions may surprise you, and you might even learn something new about yourself.

Stand Up Paddling in Hawaii has never been in my must-do things – because I didn’t even know what it is until reading about it at the Vacation Gals, and now I am adding it to my bucket list. You will need to read more about this vacation sport, it looks pretty difficult but I would love to experience it, and say that I’ve done some SUPin’ in Waikiki Beach.

3 Simple Stylish Summer Outfit Ideas were just what I needed from Charmed Valerie because the weather is finally getting warmer and the resort wear I have been wearing in Florida all spring long doesn’t look as good in New York. Oh, and you need to read more Valerie anyways, she is the most fashionable preggo mama I’ve ever known. If someone can look like her with a kid and while pregnant, you have no excuse.

Lessons Learned from Tim Gunn by chic Erika also includes almost the same style lesson from Tim. “Either you make an effort with your appearance or you don’t. End of story.” Read the entire post for all Tim’s lessons, and how Erika got to spend an entire day with him and even asked some tips for her upcoming wedding!

Best proposal ever is a proposal video that Bryce shared at The Luxury Spot, and you just have to watch at least the first 6 minutes of it. The.best.proposal.ever. I’m not going to give it away, because you will just have to go and watch it.

Retro Future Ads For Facebook, YouTube & Skype are a must see too! The retro Facebook ad alone is brilliant, but you must see the rest of them. Oh, and speaking of Facebook – if you like this post, give it a “like” and spread some sunshine among your friends too!

Read the Disney Dream special on Skimbaco blog network to get the scoop on the this beautiful new cruise ship with old world charm and feeling, with the newest technology and inventions.

Disney Cruise Line’s newest and the largest vessel Disney Dream was christened on Wednesday morning on January 19th, in the sunny Port Canaveral in Florida. I was one of the lucky members of media to witness the fun yet heart warming event. We were escorted through a red carpet from Disney’s own ship terminal to the dock where a large multimedia display and stage was waiting for us – and the majestic Disney Dream was docked in the front of us. This was my first real ship christening event, even though I remember fondly how we named our boats when growing up. There has always been something mystical about the sea and the sailing vessels to me, and I couldn’t believe my luck to be part of the Disney Dream Christening event. Like Christening a child – christening a boat or ship is a tradition to bless the vessel, and the ship also receives a blessing from a godmother.

The event started with special remarks with Robert A. Iger, the president and CEO of The Walt Disney Company. The stage was taken over by a large scale musical and dance performance where the making of the Disney Dream Blueprints was illustrated. The show was like directly from Disney musicals and told a story how Disney Dream was a true dream come true, and enforced Disney’s mission to make everyone believe dreams come true. In this case, Dream literally came true, and the audience couldn’t but believe.

Next the stage was taken over by Disney’s beloved pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean and Jack Sparrow and Mickey Mouse were the stars of the action packed musical performance with smoke lingering around the stage.

Gigantic inflatable champagne bottle was floating in the water in the front of the stage and Mickey Mouse was not quite ready to perform the christening and pop the bottle on the side of the ship quite yet. He told the anxious audience that the bottle had to be filled with dreams first! The Disney Dream represents not just a dream come true, but also dreams that will come true, and the show continued with more musical performances of dancers and all of the Disney princesses.

Mickey Mouse was busy introducing different “dreams” that were filling the large champagne bottle, and while the musical performances were Broadway style and Disney quality and truly amazing, I liked also the flag parade that included flags of all of the countries of the employees onboard Disney Dream, as well as the navy band playing.

One of the very touching moments was also when the crew onboard was highlighted – and they were all on the verandas of the ship waving to us on the shore. This really describes the attention to the detail Disney has; every single member of the crew is top notch, and as important piece of the puzzle making the Disney guests have an experience they will remember for ever.

When Mickey Mouse announced the bottle was ready and filled with dreams, it was time to bring on the official godmother for the ship to perform the christening together with Tom Staggs, the chairman of the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and Mickey Mouse. Fairy Godmother showed up, and the audience got its biggest laugh when Tom Staggs said they were actually thinking of another godmother for the Disney Dream, and he also thanked Fairy Godmother for getting him his job. Finally it was time to introduce the real godmother for Disney Dream, Jennifer Hudson, whose dreams had come true, and whose singing career had originally started on Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Wonder ship as a performing artist.

Jennifer Hudson performed and the entire cast of the Disney Dream Christening event joined her on the stage and then it was time to bless the ship and do the official christening. A helicopter flew in to lift the large champagne bottle for the final step of the christening. The tradition is to break a champagne bottle on the side of the ship and in Disney style it had to be bigger and better.

The helicopter flew the gigantic champagne bottle on the side of the ship, and it magically popped with confetti and sparks flying out and the ship was christened! Fireworks launched from Disney Dream’s deck in the grand finale of the christening. Disney Dream was ready to set to sail and everyone agreed with me – the event was something most of us had never experienced before.

After the official christening event we were escorted back to the terminal to wait that the beautiful Disney Dream was ready for us to get onboard. The terminal was filling up with giddy excitement and we were ready to be amazed by Disney Dream.

Make sure to subscribe Skimbaco Lifestyle, Skimbaco Travel and Skimbaco Home to get the full coverage of the Disney Dream.

Full disclosure: Disney invited me to the christening cruise and all my expenses except the spa treatments were paid. My opinions are my own.