Happy New Year!

We had a very nice New Year celebration here in Hudiksvall, Sweden. I helped prepare dinner since Irene requested our Teriyaki Chicken recipe. It was pretty easy but finding the ingredients was a bit harder. Normally, I just buy cooking sherry at the grocery store but I don't think they have that here so we had to go to the liquor store and tried to pick the smallest and most plain kind of sherry. Then there was the trouble of finding enough soy sauce as well. I would have bought the low-sodium kind but they only had that in a small jar so I bought the 1 liter Kikoman one instead. It was the biggest bottle they had. The rest was fairly easy but then I had Fredrik prepare most of it. I don't like grating/chopping the ginger root or pressing the garlic or trimming the chicken of the fat. It really was a team effort! Dinner came out perfect and we had about 3x as much as we needed for everyone. Irene even bought a rice cooker so we could cook the Japanese rice that I brought with me. We burned the last batch since I don't know how to cook it on the stove and they also have an induction stovetop which heats up rather quickly!

Before dinner we did take a short drive to Farfar's workshop which is by the docks and set off a big box of fireworks. They were the biggest fireworks I have ever seen up close like that! It was very big and loud but it was over very quickly. Davin told Farfar to "Do it again!" and "Do it everyday!" which everyone just laughed at. We went back after the quick show and had dinner. Then we had to wait and wait and wait for midnight. Linnea went to bed soon after dinner but Davin and Carolina who is 9 and Katrin's youngest daughter had fun playing together. Davin could never remember her name so he just called her "my girl". Oh boy. Well, at least they aren't related by blood! :)

We managed to stay up and watch the pitiful fireworks from the house. I am sure it would have been better if we went into town or something but everyone was too tired. Even Davin managed to stay awake but then he fell asleep in the "cave" in Farfar's room. It is a closet with a couch in it and we piled some pillows on to make a "cave" and that is what Davin slept in. Funny guy.

I guess I will have to blog more about today later. Fredrik wants to watch a movie!