“MARRIED LIFE”. For each couple’s story will be completely individual and that’s what’s makes it so special. We all find different ways to chronicle these years of our lives together in different ways. For an international couple like us from Sweden and California; our chapters of married life haven’t always fallen into the traditional categories of years but rather: how long did we live in that country/state?

The first chapter or our married tales truly began September 2012 when we were wed in the mountains of California after long-distance dating for 2 years. We stayed there a few months wrapping up Lindsay’s California life until we moved to Sweden in December and started the chapter or our Swedish Married Life adventures.  We lived there for nearly 3 years.

Life is not all we share on social media. Often it’s the small moments in between those “instagrammable” photos that are indeed the most cherished. Or what about all those moments you had before you even started using social media to share your romance? Don’t get us wrong, we love both, so we wanted to share a post all about our Married Life adventures living in Sweden, both the pretty and imperfect.

In the video and photos below you’ll get to see from start to end most of our married life spent living in Sweden. The tears of both joy and pain. The hugs of saying hello and goodbye. All the decision making and dreaming. We shared so many magical adventures together in Sweden that we plan to revamp those photos for this website to show you all the charming things we did. However, for this post, we want to show how sometimes it’s the little moments that can make life big, and usually, those littlest of moments may not even be captured anywhere more special than in our hearts to cherish forever.

WINTER 2012-2013

 Moving from California to Sweden in Winter time was quite a shock for SoCal native Lindsay. It also turned out to be the longest and coldest winter the North had seen in 40 years. It felt like entering a land of eternal winter as it lay frozen well into April (it felt like spring would never come).

SPRING 2013:

SUMMER 2013:

 We went on a 3 week trip to California end of April for a friend’s wedding and on our way back our connecting flight was delayed for 3 days in England. Lindsay had a cold and we had to lug our suitcases all over London but at least we got a nice free weekend stay in Brighton because all the hotels were booked in London due to a bank holiday weekend. When we got back to Sweden all the snow was melted and it was summer! We didn’t even experience a proper spring that year but coming back to a beautiful Swedish midsommar really made up for the 6 months of winter.

We had a wonderful first midsummer celebration together and summer though Jonas started to develop a stomach condition. We went out into the sunshine as much as we could although Jonas started working at night and we slept through much of the day. At the end of summer Lindsay’s cat of 18 years passed away in CA.

 AUTUMN 2013:

We had a rough start to our time in Sweden but as autumn began to show its colors we had saved up to move into our own apartment and went on a trip to Tallinn, Estonia to celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary. Lindsay began taking Swedish language classes and Jonas was still working at night and as the days grew darker the less we saw of the sun. For other various reasons we started to realize that maybe we as a international couple were not going to be fully happy living in Sweden forever, and on Thanksgiving 2013 we mailed in our first packet to begin the USA visa process for Jonas.

 WINTER 2013-2014:

 As winter crept in we prepared ourselves for another 6 months of ice. However, we had a surprising mild winter with little snow but lots of moody fog. We learned from the past winter to flip our sleep schedule, so instead of sleeping when Jonas got off at 6 in the morning we would stay up when he got home and go to sleep before he started work at midnight. By doing that we could then go out while the sun was shining, run errands, or even go on a little charming adventure. (Why didn’t we think of that the winter before we’ll never know!)

SPRING 2014:

 Spring came early, bearing beautiful blossoms and with them we vowed to go out and explore more of beautiful Sweden while we still lived there! We thought the visa process would only take a few months but started to realize it would be much longer. We took another trip to California that spring of 2014 since it had been 1 year since Lindsay had seen her family.

SUMMER 2014:

 We came back to glorious summertime in Sweden and while we weren’t by the water we spent much of our time working on visa papers as we waited.

AUTUMN 2014:

 As autumn drew near we knew we’d be spending 1 more holiday season in Sweden. So, for our 2 year wedding anniversary we went on a fairytale trip to Germany because why not when in Europe and it’s so close and affordable?! Jonas surprised Lindsay with a new amazing camera so we could document our adventures even better! That autumn of 2014 Lindsay decided not to return to her Swedish language classes for various reasons but instead start an online mentorship program for entrepreneurs.

 WINTER 2014-15:

 We started seeing the finish line for Jonas’ green card to be approved and felt it was time to start investing in our future dreams which was one major reason why we knew we had to move to America.  We spent our last Christmas season in Sweden by going to as many “julmarknader” as we could and spending time with family. For new year’s eve we decided to go on one last European adventure to Poland! It was the day before we left that we found out that Jonas’ entered the final phase for his green card!!! One snowy February day we went to Stockholm for Jonas’ visa interview and he was approved! We went exploring an magical island to celebrate and for that one afternoon the whole weight of the VISA process felt lifted off our shoulders.

SPRING 2015:

Lindsay had committed to be in a wedding in California for April and at first we thought we would hurry up and move before then but for various reasons we started to see that it wasn’t going to work that way. So instead, Lindsay went on a trip by herself and took a few suitcases full of our things with her which turned out to help us a lot with our later move because when she returned from CA & NC she started to get a shooting pain in her hand. It turned out to be carpal tunnel syndrome and were promised at least a 6 week wait for surgery but the problem with that was we had to move to America by then. We took some really lovely spring outings although Lindsay’s hand was always in pain. But she was able to get the procedure done sooner than expected when there was a cancellation and in 24 hours notice the deed had been done!

 SUMMER 2015:

Of course, this threw a wrench in the works for the plans we had made for our last few weeks in Sweden but Jonas put in his final notice to his job and was able to get a few weeks paid “vacation” which helped out very much. We had planned so many things thankfully were still able to do some of them like a few family trips and of course midsummer. We got to spend a lovely weekend with Jonas’ twin’s family on the West side of Sweden. When we said goodbye to Jonas’ twin’s family we didn’t think it was the last time in Sweden but on our way back to our apartment Jonas started not feeling well and came down with a terrible cold (which may have had something to do with our summer solstice candle photo shoot in the woods). Weren’t we the pair with Lindsay’s right hand still healing and Jonas with a cold and cough but somehow we still managed to pack, donate, and even do a few last photo shoots in the enchanted forest we had our hearts set on before everything happened.

We had many ups and downs during our Swedish Married life adventures but as we reflect on those 3 years we can honestly say there were a lot more good moments than bad. It was absolutely necessary for Lindsay to truly emerge in Jonas’ home country and to learn the language. We had so many wonderful adventures and memories we will always hold dear to our hearts. Saying “bye for now” to our loved ones there was heart-wrenching and as this chapter of our tales came to a close we looked with anticipation at the next adventure ahead in California.

-Lindsay & Jonas