About

Valarie Budayr

Hi, my name is Valarie, momma to 3 lovely children-Zaina, Miriam, and Omar- and wife to my wonderful husband who doesn't seem to mind a messy kitchen and tons of yarn and craft projects all over the house or my extremely large collection of books in several languages. Together we have built a life in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. There are many adventures here as we build treehouses, swim with sea turtles, travel abundantly, do many crafts and read so many books. We have a great appreciation for music and play and listen often. I'm a native of Portland Oregon and miss it everyday of my live long life. I go home often to see what the webfoots are doing. Along with loving my family I enjoy photography, knitting, cooking, gardening, and travelling. Two much loved projects are: LearnSweden, an online learning program to learn the Swedish language. www.learnsweden.com  and Jump Into A Book. A blog and website from our ever famous book club where the pages of the book we are reading com alive. www.jumpintoabook.com When I'm not in Tennessee or Portland you can find me on the island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea, in the country of Sweden. My family is Swedish and I still have strong ties to this wonderful place. Thank-you for stopping by. Please do say hello. ~ See you soon.

Per Svangren

My name is Per and I am living in Stockholm, Sweden, most time of the year, in an apartment in the centre of Stockholm, at Kungsholmen. During the summer I spend about three months on the island of Gotland, in our summer cottage in Rute on the northeast part of the island. There, I live with my family: my wife Lotta and our three children, Johannes, Rebecca and Signe aged from 25 to 15,and also our dog Diesel is a part of the family too. Work takes up a big part of my life as well as my family. As an entrepreneur I have nearly ten different companies and they all need some time to work with. Other interests include travelling, eating good food and drinking great wines. These are also parts of my life that I really enjoy.