Mormor's 85th Birthday

Corinne's step-grandmother turned 85 recently, and this past weekend we attended her birthday party at her condo in Tacoma. She is Scandinavian (Swedish or Finnish, depending on who you ask), so everyone calls her Mormor, meaning "mother's mother" or "maternal grandmother" in Swedish. (Her husband was similarly called Morfar, or "mother's father".)

Family came in from all over for the party, and most we hadn't met before. There was a large contingent from St. Louis, MO as well as Sweden. We were treated to a real Swedish smörgåsbord, complete with herring, salmon, and swedish meatballs (of course).

They even hired some professional entertainment for the evening. Stan Boreson, self-proclaimed "King of Scandinavian Humor", entertained us with his accordian and his staple of Ole and Lena jokes.

Here's one of the jokes. (Imagine a heavy Scandinavian accent):

A Swede was walking down the street and sees a Norwegian standing on the corner with a gunny sack over his shoulder.
"What's in the gunny sack?", asks the Swede.
"Chickens," replies the Norwegian.
"Chickens?"
"Yah. If you guess how many there are, I'll give you both of them."
"Okay. 5."
"Nope - you were off by 2."

You get the general idea. He was very entertaining; you could tell from his comfort in front of an audience that he had been doing this for a very long time; Stan used to host a children's show on KING-5 in Seattle.

Eivor, Kris and Kelly did a great job putting the party together. We had a great time!

- Mike (& Corinne)