Mountain Man has come and gone

Well, Mountain Man Jonathan has come and gone and come and gone again. We were lucky to have him come and visit us in Norway after his 6 day trek up Kilimanjaro. He was truly ready for a hot shower, some home-cooked food and a real bed (pretty much in that order). We couldn't exactly top his amazing experience in Africa, but we tried to provide the above three things and show him a bit of Norway - rainy, rainy, rainy Norway. Did I mention the rain? As you might have guessed, we had crap weather and didn't get to do as much as we wanted/planned, but we tried to make the most of it and Jonathan claimed that his expectations of Norway were rain and cold - so, we certainly didn't let him down :)

So, he was here with us about 5 days and then he headed to whiskey and golf country in Scotland for 4 days and then joined us again for his final three days. He is presently on a flight from London to San Fransico and should be landing at 1530 this Monday afternoon SF time.

Here are some pics of our precious time together. Sorry Jen, I don't have a Baby Bjørn pic to share and sorry again as I think Lexi warmed up to him a bit faster :). I do wish I had a pic of them from yesterday in their aprons playing some imaginary game...they were fixing cake for the babies or something like that :). (Sorry Jonathan...couldn't resist).

Here he is on his arrival day - offloading his entire belongings in the laundry room.
After his long lie-in on the first day, we wandered around Stavanger. OK, OK...so, it wasn't all rain. Here he is in front of the Stavanger Cathedral (Domkirke).

Here is a pic of Lillian and I in Old Stavanger (Gamle Stavanger)

We spent our first weekend at the boathouse. Here are Tim and Jonathan out for a paddle trip on Friday night. Good thing they went out on Friday night as it poured down rain the rest of the weekend. No sailboat trip this weekend :(
Jonathan definitely did not exibit the same sealife phobias as Jen :). Here is Jonathan enjoying his first catch of crab.

Due to the incredible amounts of rain on Sunday, we headed to Stavanger early. Here is Tim and the girls at a Chinese restaurant buffet.

Here we are on a walk through our local forrest.

Jonathan with the Three Swords Monument (Sverd i fjell)

We also took a walk on one of our nearby beaches (Hellestøstrand).

Each year, Halliburton hosts a family evening at a local farm - Soma Gård. It has animals and plenty of things to hop and climb on. Tim signed up to bring his wife and 3 kids :) So, we picked up Jonathan from the airport from his Scotland trip and off we went to the farm. Here is the annual tractor pic.

Jonathan got tractor pulling duty

Lillian loves to swing

...and play on the playground

Lexi loves to slide

Lillian got her turn on the tractor

They didn't manage to catch a hen, but notice the nearby sign "Ikke løp etter hønene" (Don't chase after the hens) :)

Since it was supposed to rain in Stavanger (making it not so fun to hike to the waterfall), we went on the Lysefjord cruise instead. It was relatively clear in the fjord and we actually got to see Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) from the fjord level. See the square rock formation that is jutting out above Jonathan's head?

Beautiful Lysefjord

We spent our second weekend with Jonathan in Feda since some good friends had invited us to a party Saturday night. Once again, it poured (really, really pouted) down rain. So, we spent Saturday indoors at Badeland (the nearby indoor water park).

Jonathan is taking a break from the wave pool.

Lillian loved the baby slide in the kiddie pool.

Lexi and Jonathan ran a few laps to get some energy out before our car ride home to Stavanger. Sorry, we forgot our camera at the party, but our friends had set-up a party tent in the garden/yard next to their boathouse and served crab, shrimp, crawfish, fish soup, various salads, and desserts. It was a nice time and I think Jonathan enjoyed our Feda friends. (Yes Jen, he ate shrimp, crab and crawfish and yes, they played plenty of Toby and yes, Tommy was dancing and yes, it poured down rain - glad we were under a tent :) )

So, we had to say goodbye to Jonathan this morning, but we look forward to him visiting again someday when we can do Preikestolen, Månefossen, sailboating, etc. And Jonathan... Lexi said tonight "I wanted to play with Jonathan and I wanted to play with him before he went to the airport" (in her most sad, whiney voice) :)

Thanks for a great visit! Good luck in the real world next Tuesday. Just keep chanting "I love my paycheck, I love my paycheck, I love my paycheck" :)

Summer Holidays - Weeks 5 and 6

Well, this concludes our summer holidays. Tim and Lexi started back to work/barnehage this last week while Jen, Lillian and I took my birthday trip to Stockholm. This is a sad blog posting as we will be saying goodbye to Jen in just two days time. What an amazing, awesome, wonderful summer we have had. We have all enjoyed the chance to spend time together and Jen and Lillian have really bonded as Godmother/Goddaughter. I'm not sure what Lillian will think when Jen isn't around to play with her! And I'm not sure what I will do without all of the extra help!

Here are our final pics.... Lexi and Lillian at the boathouse

Lillian and her new cousin Samuel...poor Samuel isn't old enough to defend himself against a rather curious and mobile 9 month old.

The three cousins...just missing Luna (she is at ice skating camp)Lexi's first game of bowling...the shoes were soooo cute on her. Should have got a close-up! Two princesses in Stavanger As said, I treated myself (and Jen and Lillian) to a birthday trip to Stockholm on bonus points. Thanks to Tim, we also got our wonderful hotel on bonus points. We left early on Tuesday morning and came home yesterday (Friday) evening. Here is a pic of Lillian and I on the day we arrived. Here is a pic of Jen and Lillian on our "hop on, hop off" boat ride on the day we arrived. It gave us a good overview of the city and the various points of attraction.
Here is Jen in a local market...those are loads of chanterelle mushrooms to her right Lillian loved her stroller Here we are the the gates to The Royal Palace Here is one of The Palace Guards. Jen wasn't allowed to stand any closer, but the Guard was talking to Lillian
Here I am in Gamla Stan (old town) Stockholm has zillions of museums. We only visited one as we were keen to explore outdoors. We went to the Vasa Musuem to see the Vasa sailship which was built and set sail on its maiden voyage in 1628. It sailed for about 30 minutes (4265 feet - less than a mile) before capsizing with a strong wind as the gun ports filled with water and the ship sank. It was salvaged in 1956 and it took 17 years to conserve the ship before today's Vasa Museum was opened. Definitely a "worth see" on a visit to Stockholm.
One morning, we "pullled a Kristy" (thinking back to our Mediterranean Cruise and the Rick Steves' walking tour of Nice....). We took a 90 minute walking tour (from our guide book) of a local island Djurgården and eventually ended up at a TV tower that had an amazing observatory with great views and even greater desserts at their cafe. :) Well worth the 90+++++ minutes :)
This one's for you Tim... me and an anchor at The Maritime Museum.
A beautiful view of the Nordisk Museum...amazing architecture in Stockholm Jen posing in front of Parliament On our last day, we took a walking tour of another part of the city - Sodermalm. (It turns out that Jen is quite the guide book fiend...remindeded me of Kristy). Anyway, it once again led us to some great look-out points. Here is Jen with City Hall in the background. (This one was 30min +++++)
Check back here soon as Mountain Man Jonathan will be arriving Wednesday and he hasn't shaved or had a haircut in ages. I think I will have a razor and some shaving gel ready for him before he scares my children :) Regardless, we can't wait to hear about his adventures on his Kilimanjaro hike.

Summer Holidays - Week 4 +++

Another week and a half have passed of our "extended" summer holidays and we are still on the go. I write "extended" summer holidays as it really is just the norm in Norway to have 3 consecutive weeks of summer holidays, maybe 4. But, since Tim has some paternity leave, we have taken 5 weeks total. So, after Denmark, we came back to Feda for a few days and then headed to Stavanger for the Tall Ships Festival. After that, it was back to Feda for more R&R.

Tim had ridden his motorcycle to Feda at the onset of our summer holidays. So, he decided to take it back to Stavanger last weekend. Lillian didn't quite know what to think...

Tim tightened the set-screw on her little wooden cart at home in Stavanger and she was so excited to walk by herself!

Here is a pic of Jen and Lillian in Stavanger harbour with one of the Tall Ships (Norway's Statsraad Lehmkuhl) in the background. Here are the Griswalds on one of the many sail ships.

Here is Jen with some of the sail ships in the background. The purpose of Tall Ships Races is for youth to learn more about sailing. Each ship has a crew of youth (from their respective countries). The 2011 race started in Waterford, Ireland, sailed to Greenock, Scotland, sailed to Lerwick in the Shetlands, stopped in Stavanger and ended in Halmstad, Sweden. They started 30.june and finish 8.august. There are around 70 ships of all sizes from many countries. Norway, Sweden, UK, Poland, Russia, The Netherlands, to name a few. This was Stavanger's third time to host the sail ships. Other years were 1997 and 2004.
Here is a picture of Norway's Sørlandet. In 1989, Tim did some of his basic seaman's training onboard Sørlandet. He sailed all over the North Sea (UK, Norway, Shetland, Denmark, etc.) for 3-4 months.

Here are Tim, Lexi and Lillian at the helm of one of the massive Russian ships.
Here I am with my girls

As we crested the hill and caught our first glimpse of Stavanger harbour with all of the sail ships in port, Jen's reaction was "WOW"! If I had to guess, Jen's trip highlights (despite spending time with us Griswalds of course) will probably be Tall Ships, Stockholm (next week) and driving a tractor (see below).
It is always awesome to see Stavanger during a festival. Blue skies and packed with people...a great atmosphere.

On Sunday, we went to an area lighthouse / look-out point and watched the ships sail out to their next destination. Unfortunately, the were headed directly into the wind to get out to sea; so, they couldn't put many sails up. Here are a couple of ships sailing (or motoring) out to sea.

Beautiful sunshine, but a bit cool down by the waterfront.

Back in Feda, Jen resumed her stroller / baby bjørn duties :)

Lexi stopped to admire the flowers on her scooter.

We stopped in a Harley store in Lyngdal one day and Jen was drooling over all of the (well-priced) bikes :)

They had a small Harley ride. For 5kr, Lexi got to hear the vroom, vroom and had lights and motion.

Lexi likes to be paddled around in her little rubber boat

Lillian got a new swimsuit (wetsuit) for our upcoming trip to Spain. She tested it out yesterday and sister took her for a little spin in the boat.

Jen the paddler

Lexi attempted to snorkel

Again, Lexi likes to be paddled around....

Lillian was soooo very tired in this pic and sat quietly on Jen's lap for something like 10 minutes or more.

Morten drove his family's tractor over to help Tim move the old anchor. Tim's dad found the anchor in the fjord years ago and it used to be laying outside the "old" boathouse. We moved it off to the side during our construction project. It has now been re-positioned in front of the boathouse as decor.

Jen got to drive the tractor down to the harbour and back and she was on cloud nine for hours afterward. It definitely ranked high up on her "highlight list" for Norway.