In 2002, Lauren,
Ruben,
Matthew and Elias took a trip to Michigan to visit Lauren's parents.
During the visit, Elias made friends with a boy staying a few
houses down. His name was Samuel, and his family was from Sweden. In 2002, Lauren,
Ruben,
Matthew and Elias took a trip to Michigan to visit Lauren's parents.
During the visit, Elias made friends with a boy staying a few
houses down. His name was Samuel, and his family was from Sweden.
During a
conversation between Lauren's mom (Audrey) and Samuel's
parents, Audrey mentioned that she's always wanted to do a house swap
with someone in Europe.
Around November,
Lauren (who had kept touch with the family) got an
email asking "Was your mom really serious about doing a house swap?"
Apparently Anders (the father) needed to go return to Michigan for
another month in 2003 (he was doing a collaboration with a professor
from the University of Michigan). After some amount of coordination,
they all bought their tickets. Lauren, Ruben and Elias bought tickets
in April (Matthew was with his dad for that time of the summer).
We left Seattle on July 27 and arrived in
Karlstad on July 28 and left on August 8, 2003. The following links
describe details of our trip with pictures:
| July 28 | July 29 | July 30 | July 31 | August 1 | August 2 |
| August 3 | August 4 | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8 |