Sunday, May 14, 2006

Belated Happy Birthday Eva!

My Swedish cousin, Eva celebrated her ?? birthday last Friday, May 12th. Due to various and sundry reasons, including my internet being down for about 36 hours, I never had an opportunity to post this blog until this evening.
Eva came into our lives about 13 years ago when our daughter Kristin and I rediscovered our Swedish family, while Kristin was doing a genealogy paper in school. After my maternal Swedish grandmother passed away in 1962 my family had lost touch with our relatives in Sweden. It took a lot of work to "find" my family again, but it was well worth it. Eva, married to my second cousin Bertil, was the only one of my generation who spoke fluent English, and we became very close friends right off the bat! Kristin and I first travelled to their homes near Bastad, Sweden in 1993 and we spent a magical week meeting our family and being treated like queens in their homes. Craig, Kristin and I returned for another visit in 1995, and then when Kristin went off to college, Craig and I brought my mother to visit her first cousins and their families. These were trips of a lifetime for all of us, but most especially for my Mom! She met first cousins she had only heard about as a child, and she even got to see the house where her mother was born and raised! Eva had everything to do with making those visits so special...she would organize every detail, down to where we stayed, even stocking the cupboards and refrigerator with beakfast foods and snacks! Wherever we went, she carried along her trusty red Swedish-English dictionary, so that if there was even one word that we couldn't translate, it would do it for us!!
So, Happy, Happy Birthday Eva....we ALL love you!!!


1993: Anna, Eva, Maria and Bertil. Bastad, Sweden


1993: Eva and Maria Hagbjarn. Bastad, Sweden

I have one more lovely picture of me and Eva in a forest of rhododendron, but blogger won't let me publish it, so you'll just have to use your imagination!

Happy, happy birthday dear Eva!!!

2 comments:

Eva Hagbjärn said...

Thank you, thank you!!
I got very moved over all your kind words about me.
I got tears in my eyes and
I LOVE YOU ALL TOO!!

Anonymous said...

I just can't believe how young I was =) I look so tiny in the pictures. hihi!
Be sure to come back soon and see us all again =)!!