From Wed – Fri, we went on yet another Silja Line 36-hour cruise to Helsinki. Needless to say, the usual traditions were upheld; that is, have at least four sessions in the jacuzzi, party our pants off on and off the ship, have a huge meal at Chico’s (the best place for burgers in Helsinki, possibly in all of Scandinavia), and to go wild and crazy for a full 36 hours. Everything went according to plan!
Today was the first day with just us and Dad these Summer Holidays; needless to say we spent a lot of time down by the water. Swimming, jumping, filming (with the GoPro), and having a blast in general.
There’s a pile of rocks some 50-75m out in the water that Alexander wants to swim out to. Dad told him it was OK only if we did some practice runs in more shallow water. So Alexander practiced like a madman (!); he did eleven laps of 25m for a total of 275m. Not bad at all.
Filip continued to improve on his swimming, both on and below the surface. We spent a total of four hours by the water. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it, right? 
You can find three of today’s videos below:
youtu.be/B5f5ZCDrDjU
youtu.be/_j1WMRCJdQM
youtu.be/OYceBKZEtvc
It’s a done deal; our formal vacation is on and we’ve had our first archipelago bath of the season – whoa!
Trying to sum up these summer holidays in a reasonable amount of space will be very hard In short, they’ve been fantastic! Every chance we got, we went out with Katti, our new boat. We went to visit "Saltkråkan" (recorded on the islands of Norröra and Söderöra in the Stockholm archipelago), we went to a real cirkus, we visited Norrtälje (a nice smallish town north of Stockholm), we had some nice visitors, and I did a lot of swimming in the sea.
In addition to this, dad and I built an airplane out of left-over wood pieces, and I got to practice som soccer. I also learned how to play badminton, which was cool.
One of the coolest things was to run off the docks and jump into the water with my life jacket on! I also spent a lot of time playing my with my brother; teasing him can be quite fun, specially when my mom and dad hit the roof!
Today, I wrapped up my third term at swim school. We had a few graduation tests, where we had to swim with a life jacket, and some other gadgets. It was great fun!
Everybody got a diploma, and I had earned four "shields" throughout this course (Silvergrodan, Ryggrodan, Krabban Röd, and Livbojen Röd). I had one from the previous course (Krabban Blå), so now the grand total is five.
Now we take a break for a week, and then I start my fourth term!
So I finally managed to convince mom and dad to give swim school a call again; I’ve now been to the first two classes of the season.
This is a more advanced course than the previous one, and hopefully I’ll learn some new tricks. At least one parent has to be in the water with their child, so it feels pretty safe. Last time, dad managed to let me dive in without catching me, that was excellent!
joho.se