Boxing Day 26th of December

No, it isn't a shopping day like it is in the USA.  Actually the stores are not open :-(  So we piled on our layers of clothes to go on a mini adventure during the day.  We drove to Ølberg beach to enjoy the fresh air and a tiny bit of sunshine its about 15 minutes away from our house. We have had rain everyday except one 24hr period since we arrived. (not now we've had several days with sunshine since 2014).  When we pulled up there were these crazy people undressing down to their swimsuits.  YES, its freezing outside and people with santa hats are ditching their clothes.  I guess its their annual tradition to go swimming in the North Sea on Boxing Day.  Before we left for the beach, we told the kids were were going to the beach, Rebecca responded with...oh I need to find my swim suit.  We told her it was too cold for swimming at the beach.

She looks in amazement… these people are going swimming and I'm stuck in my winter suit. 

They looked CRAZY and cold.  

Most of these people had, what we in Texas call coveralls or thick robes to throw on after they came out of the water.  But I don't recall anyone going completely into the water.  Most of the people came out of the water pretty quick and grabbed their towels/warm clothes except for one crazy guy.  I guess he was trying to skimboard.  He did a few times but gave up fairly quick.  And just for the record, they weren't all speaking Norwegian a couple were speaking English.

Marcus playing in the sand while crazy man tries to use his skimboard

After the crazies left the beach, the kids had a great time playing in the sand.  Yes, no gloves but their little hands were warm.  Mine were freezing, with gloves on.  They were starting to get a little brave running out towards the water almost getting caught a couple times.

The wave almost caught her.

After playing in the sand for a while, we went on another expedition.  There is a small harbor just to the left of the beach area.  

Marcus is walking up towards a German WWII bunker

Photo was taking from on top of the bunker

Rebecca taking a stroll

We have been back since the 26th of December.  The kids found a great trail through the bunker and under some rocks, its perfect for the kids but not so great when Mommy & Daddy are both tall.  

After the beach trip we went back home to get dressed for desserts at Besetmor's house.  Its very nice visiting with family.

Rebecca & Marcus had already been given their desserts 

Celebrating Christmas in Norway

I have spent two Christmas' here in Norway over the past 12 years Jan & I have been together and this one makes three.  There are some similarities but definitely differences.  Norwegians celebrate Christmas on the 24th where as Americans celebrate more on the 25th with a little extra on the 24th ;-).  We were invited to celebrate Christmas at Jørgen, Grete & Pia's house.  At home we are always very casual, but here in Norway we get to dress up

I wore heels but needed to keep my toes warm ;-) I love my ugg slippers

Jan's entire family was here this evening along with Grete's parents.  We had a very nice dinner of Pinnekjøtt Salted and dried, sometimes smoked, lamb ribs. These were traditionally steamed over birch branches – hence the name ("Pinnekjøtt" translates loosely to "stick meat").  In the eyes of an American, it doesn't look very appealing but it is yummy.  For the first course of dessert it was rice cream which is whipping cream, sugar, vanilla and rice porridge..its pretty tasty.  After everyone finished eating, it was time for some singing around the Christmas tree.

Even Julenisse joined everyone singing around the Christmas tree

An explanation of  Julenisse from http://www.stavanger-web.com/jul/christma.htm  Christmas Nisse (julenissen) which in most homes is more or less identical to Santa Claus. The "Julenisse" brings presents to all the nice children on Christmas Eve. He is not as shy as Santa though, since the "julenisse" delivers the presents himself. He does not come down the chimney in the middle of the night.

Next is the kids favorite time!!! These kids were super excited and couldn't wait to open their gifts.  

Little brother watching  

Big sister helping little brother

Pia & Rebecca having a tea party.  They are such sweet cousins.

Then is was time fore the main dessert course.  YUMMY!!!

It was a great time celebrating Christmas at Grete & Jørgen's house.  I think everyone was exhausted and then time for us to go home.  Santa Claus needed to visit our house and there was lots to do ;-)  

We spend some time playing with the new toys after we made it home but then it was time for the kids to get to sleep, remember the American Santa doesn't like children to see him or her ;-).  I think Santa finally finished his her  duties around 3am. but it was so worth it.  I actually think the kids slept until around 7, thank goodness.  It was full speed down the stairs to see if Santa had come down the chimney, of course he did.  They had so much fun opening their gifts.  Then it was nap time before the turkey & dressing went into the oven.  

After a busy morning

Here in Norway, the 25th of December isn't a big deal.  So it was a pretty relaxed day after the morning rush.  

I know its late but late is better than not at all.  More post to come soon...

MIA (moving in action)

Sorry, I haven't posted anything in a while.  It has been pretty busy here in NANA's land.  I will write several blogs so you aren't bored to death with one LONG post.

We packed up most of our things we had at Bestefar's house and prepared for our move into our new home.  We had a final tour of the house and hoped our container would arrive as scheduled.  It did sort of.  We had to be at the new house by 8:30a, to meet the driver with our container.  Normally it wouldn't be a big deal but its dark until about 9ish in the morning and the kids were sleeping later than they ever had in the USA.  I had everything packed in the car ready to leave…the kids were up earlier than normal, I was dressed and trying to get the kids out of their PJs and into their clothes and I hear a truck outside.   I thought to myself…hmmm today isn't trash day and Bestefar's house is at the end of a road so no big truck traffic typically.  I walked outside and IT's OUR CONTAINER on a big truck.  They had the wrong address, YIKES.  Somewhere there was some miscommunication, they had delivered our air freight container to Bestefar's house so I guess they assumed we would need the ocean container delivered to the same place.  The driver, I never got his name, was super nice and said no problem, I can take it to the new address.  But he would have to drive the truck in reverse all the way back down and it would take some time.  The road is narrow with cars parked on the sides of the road and its dark and its probably about 1/2 mile…big kudos to the driver.  So I called Jan explained to him what had happened, he said throw the kids in the car in their PJs and get to the new house.

The three of us get into the car, kids in their PJs and drive to the new house.  I passed the truck with the container parked at the neighborhood bus stop so I knew I would be there when he made it to the new house.  UGHH…talk about a stressed morning, but I was calm and knew everything would be ok.  I can only imagine what Jan was thinking was going on, he was getting bits and pieces and couldn't leave work.  I told him I had everything under control, or so I thought.  Our new street had a sharp left turn just before our house.  I had mentioned it to the truck driver and he said Ok, we will see when I get there.  Well guess what…No, he couldn't make the turn and even if he could he wouldn't be able to drop the container at the house.  Well CRAP!!!.  So he calls his people and they said they would have to take the container back to a warehouse and offload our possessions onto a truck and then bring it to us.  So, what does that mean, a couple more days, a few hours… only a couple hours.  The poor driver had to back down a long street again, but he was smiling and cheerful.  I'm glad he wasn't a grumpy person, I probably would have been.  Sorry no pics of the chaos.

Both Bestemor & Bestefar, came to help us with the move along with keeping the kids out of the way.  Luckily, we had some things to do, Bestefar was chief IKEA furniture assembler

 and I unpacked our clothes and washed our kitchen items I had purchased at IKEA.  Yes, I have been to IKEA about 8x in less than 2 weeks, its a great store.  Maybe I should have visited ours in Houston more ;-) as it is more budget friendly.

One of the many shopping trips to get stuff we needed to move in.  Thanks Grete for being my co-shopper/translator

The guys call and said they were on their way to our house.  But they had to pack everything into two trucks.  They couldn't fit everything into one box truck.

When they arrived it was felt like Grand Central Station… One more hiccup, to add to the morning chaos, the packing list the Norway team had wasn't correct.  They gave me a list and said oh this is number 6, I looked at him and said no this isn't correct.  He said yes it is… I said no this list is the items that went to storage.  He looked puzzled, I asked him to wait a moment.  I had put all my important papers into one folder which I kept with me just in case and I thankfully had remembered to bring it this morning.  I had the only copy of what items were suppose to be in the ocean container.  The men were everywhere asking where each of the 170+ boxes/packages should be placed.  Thanks to Bestemor for taking photos…while I played air traffic controller

checking my list and seeing what made it and what didn't

The kids luckily had their iPads to keep them busy.

Such sweet siblings, sharing the iPad

I guess this house wasn't made to take in an American sized sofa.  They tried getting it through the door from the mud room but it wouldn't make it.

I got out my handy mini-tape measure and it wouldn't fit through the main guest door, the poor guys had to carry it around the house to get to the sliding glass door.  But I guess they do this all the time.

While I was freezing my fingers off, the kids heard some of their toys start to make noise.  Bestemor & Bestefar said they couldn't get to the toys fast enough.  Their eyes were lighting up with such happiness.

Stacks and stacks of boxes.  What was in each box was anyones guess.  

Just a few of the MANY boxes…

Let the unwrapping begin, it was like Christmas in our house for a few days.  

Yes, this is a different outfit, same day ;-)

We have made several more trips to IKEA and other stores trying to get settled.  Then it was time to put the house settling in on hold and do some Christmas shopping and celebrating with the family.  We did get our Christmas tree decorated and some other holiday decorations put up around the house.

I was able to buy some traditional Norwegian Christmas decorations as well.  Sorry no photos taken of those, hopefully next year we can have a better mix of the American and Norwegian decorations.  Along with some new stockings, I think the old ones ended up in the storage in Houston and not in Norway.  If that's the only thing that was mis-placed I will be very lucky.  Currently, we are searching for a pair of Jan's mountain bike shoes, hopefully they will turn up somewhere.

We are steadily unpacking boxes and putting things away.  I'm hoping to have everything sorted by New Years so we can get the year off to a great start.

I have a few more posts coming so be on the look out, I know I slipped a little behind.   

Leo Lekeland - indoor play area

We went on a little adventure this afternoon…weather wasn't the greatest and I didn't want to stay in the house all day.  I packed a small lunch for the kids and we drove off to find Leo Lekeland.  Of course, I couldn't follow Google maps again…had a minor detour again.  I really don't know what's going on, usually I never get lost, NEVER.  Then I hear this little voice in the backseat, mommy did we  make a wrong turn again…ugh.  So as a woman, I found someone to ask, i was in the correct spot it was just around the corner.  We parked and made it inside…holy smokes, this place was the close to the size of a Sam's Warehouse.  It was pretty empty, maybe 15 customers including parents and babies.  Rebecca and Marcus took off before I could pay and get their armbands on them.  There were slides galore, tall ones, small ones, bumpy ones, twisted ones, and SUPER fast ones that I wouldn't let the kids go on because it was vertical.  These two kids were non-stop for two hours.  

What an amazing place for children to play!!!

These are just two small areas of this indoor playground.

Ball pits were all over and the kids had so much fun in them.

The next section we went to was an indoor tubing hill.  We did a snow tubing hill in Copper Mountain this past ski season and had a ton of fun and both kids loved it there.  So I put Marcus in a tube and pulled him up the hill. While Rebecca, little miss I can do it myself, pulled hers up to the top as well.

 

Waiting on Rebecca to pull her tube to the top.

And away they go…they have so much fun together

The entire place looked as if it was connected through these pathways.  I'm not sure but I think you could walk from one end to the other without going to the ground.  We didn't try we had too much fun going down the slides.

Marcus almost ran across this beam…thanks Ms. Cathy at Little Gym of Pearland

Rebecca had so much fun swinging from these rings.

The next play area we went to was the pirates ship.  This was amazing, the yellow gun looking things mounted on the ship, actually worked.  Yes, we loaded some nerf-like balls in the cannon and pushed a button and balls were flying in the air.  I couldn't believe it… They had them mounted on the ship then up above, I guess to have some pirate take overs and such.  The imagination is a wonderful thing and I never know what type of adventure we will be going on next with these little minds.  

We dare you to take our ship!!!  We are ready to fire!!

Firing upon the pirate ship from above

The tricycle area was next… they had passenger trikes, regular tricycles, non-pedal and arm pedal bikes.  They had fun here too.

I'm not sure how he always ends up a passenger ;-)

 The volcano slide was fantastic.  None of us ever made it to the top.  I was able to touch the platform area but lost my grip and slid down.  Marcus had a blast running up the side and then falling to the bottom.  Rebecca wanted to get to the top but if you see in the photos below it super steep and tall.  Maybe next time.

I can only imagine how fast this slide was...

Marcus trying to reach the top…

This place was fantastic and since it rains a lot here in Stavanger, we will be back.

See you later Mr. Gorilla