Hello from the Arctic Circle, land of the northern lights, cold winters, and short, but mild summers!  The Land of the Midnight Sun, where the sun doesn't set for three months (May til July) or rise for another three (December until February)!

Tac B. Olssen here.  Hope this finds you all well and happy.  I am doing well: school is going along as well as can be expected, and my parents make sure I do my homework (or my chores) before I go out to play.  I'd best continue to listen to them if I know what's good for me ...  LOL

Grandmother Ilsa is here with us, surprisingly.  Figured she'd die long ago, but she has such a strong will to live!  I sometimes kid her by telling her that she might end up outliving us all! LOL  (Grandmother Ilsa has many health problems.  She is bedridden and is very, very old.  She is in her later eighties.  She is ancient!)

I am ready to feed a certain meddlesome Ragdoll cat (Gertie) to Olaf, my dachshund dog, but then Olaf might choke on all that fur! LOL  Gertie has a very bad habit of trying to escape or run away whenever we have the door open!  I can't count HOW many times I have had to retrieve her because the darned thing got outside again!  It is getting to be past annoying!!

I'm so scared a strange dog or another wild animal might get Gertie, or that a car might hit her.  If anything were to happen to her, I don't think my sister Anika (she's 9) would ever forgive me; it's her cat.

The weather is turning nice: the trees and flowers have exploded in bright, brilliant colours, and everything is blooming like crazy!  We had a very long, hard winter; I was more than ready for some warmer weather or to start to see daylight again: the darkness we had for the past several months was starting to get very old.

I can't wait until Midsommer, which is the celebration of the summer solstice.  There'll be picnics, parades, and other sorts of merriment, including fireworks!  I love it whenever we celebrate Midsommer because then I know for certain that the cold weather has finally loosened its hold on the Arctic regions where we live!

I can then spend many happy hours outside, away from my trouble-making sisters and my nosy, noisy baby brother!!

I can see my friends from school and hang out with them instead of having to babysit ... AGAIN!!

Today is Mother's Day.  I plan on making my mother something very special and to give her breakfast in bed.  We will then take her out to eat and maybe to the park near our place.  I can also volunteer to help watch Anika, Kirsten, and Oskar for her, so she doesn't have to do it.  I think mamma would appreciate that (as would poppa)!

I do not know if other countries celebrate Mother's Day, but our family does.  I do know this, though: it is celebrated in America; I have a friend (a penfriend) who lives in Chicago, Illinois, and he tells me that it is a busy day for restaurants, as everybody takes their moms out for lunch, and it takes a very long time to get waited on because the restaurants are so packed!  They also give their moms cards, flowers, or other gifts and spoil them rotten.  LOL

Well, I'd best go:  Oskar just fell down; he's now screaming his fool head off.  I'd best see to it that he's okay, or he might wake up the entire household.  That would not be a great way to start off mamma's special day!  Take care; talk to you later!

~Your friend in Sweden, Tac.  :)

~To be continued.~