Julia decided to leave the IMF at the beginning of the year, following a management decision to downsize the organization and payout staff who volunteered to exit. We sold our house in Tauxemont, Northern Virginia, and will surely miss many wonderful neighbors and friends.

We have, since June 2008, been living in Sigtuna, Sweden's first Capital, and plan to cool off here for some time.

Sadly, our beloved Axel, Per's father, gave into a fight against cancer on May 29, three days before we landed in Stockholm. We take comfort in that he did not have to suffer long. The metastases were diagnosed in March and two months later he gave up the fight. Luckily Per had spent some time with him in Sweden during April and May. Sad as it is to lose our beloved "farfar" (grandpa), he had, at 94, lived a most full-filled and adventurous life.

We embarked on an energy draining process of demolishing our house in Sigtuna, which we bought in 1988 with a structural defect. The house stood on heavy clay and was tilting 2°. Our efforts to work on piecemeal adjustments were turning out to be a waste of time and money. The decision we took of building a new house is not only costly, the stress is unbearable. It's decisions, decisions, decisions… (More pictures)

We had 2-3 months of excellent weather in Sweden with lots of walks and wild berry and mushroom picking. We are slowly getting used to the darkness and are glad for every minute the sun shows its face.

The year was not all stress. We met friends at Ulla Odqvist's home in Strängnäs for a Swedish traditional crawfish feast; went on a boat trip to Riga with Hasse and Marysia; hosted a lunch for 15 Batswana women who visited Scandinavia on leisure during July; enjoyed official and social invitations by Botswana's Ambassador Bernadette Rathedi; and spent quality time with our daughter Anna, her husband, Eric, and their daughter Asali, who live only ten minutes walk from us.

Our grandchildren in Pittsburgh, USA, and their parents came for a short visit in August. This gave us the opportunity to see them. All three, Josefin, Julia and David (Petter and Cecilia's children) had grown a lot since we last saw them. They met their cousin, Asali, for the first time.

We continue to be involved in photography, traditional dancing (Per), and development of presentational and writing skills (Julia).

Julia is ending the year in Botswana where she will celebrate Christmas and New Year with our other grandchildren, Nyaladzi, Chedu and Tesana (Moleko and Kutlo's children) as well as her mother and other relatives and friends. Time from the house construction and bookings permitting, Per may celebrate New Year in Botswana.

May 2009 bring eternal happiness and peace to all our relatives, friends and humanity.