Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease Comes Knocking
[Photos acquired on 31 OCTOBER 2014, wondrous text added on 30 DECEMBER of the same year.]
Emma, along with pretty much all the youngest kids in her class, came down with a nasty case of hand-foot-and-mouth disease this fall (gin-og klaufaveiki fyrir fólk, kallast handa-, fóta- og munnveiki).
She had to stay home for five days, and we were rescued by Finnur’s parents who took her in so that we could go to work. (6 images total)
The poor munchkin.
FFF #2.4 – Fishspa and Kjarvalsstaðir
[This happened on Saturday 25 October 2014, but was written on 26 October 2014. Indeed!]
This past spring I received a gift certificate to visit a Fishspa that is located downtown. It is a place where you dip your feet into a tub full of fish for at least 20 minutes, and the fish eat all the dead skin away, leaving you with very clean smooth skin.
The experience was a little weird, the fish really liked my feet, and didn’t seem to be quite done when my 20 minutes were up! The sensation was somewhat ticklish, but not so ticklish that I needed to move my feet around. The fish don’t have teeth so there was no biting and no pain. I’m thinking this might be a nice fun thing to do annually…?
I hadn’t planned what to do after getting my feet eaten, but since it was nearby, I decided on Kjarvalsstaðir, the art museum where they display the works of legendary Icelandic painter Jóhannes S. Kjarval alongside other exhibitions. I last visited Kjarvalsstaðir on my very first FFF outing, and since this was an unplanned visit, I had no idea what was in store for me.
Both showrooms where hosting a mixed exhibition of the works of Kjarval (Top Soil) and Swedish artist Andreas Eriksson (Roundabouts). The Swede supposedly took some inspiration from the works of the much older Kjarval, which is why their works were being shown somewhat side by side.
My take on the Swede was that he was a) not my cup of tea, but that b) he was very internally consistent in showing the murky colors of the woods surrounding his home. Also shown were bronze castings of birds that had died after flying onto his windows, as well as molehill mounds. Yes, very woodsy. It wasn’t all brownish green to black though, two spray-painted images in bright colors were a little odd, and then there were white 3D things. Yeah.
Anyway, enough wordage, on to the photos! (51 images total!)
Hello there Fishspa, almost hiding on the first floor. Up the hill is Laugarvegur, the downtown shopping street, and …
Pinochle Uber-Hand!
[The momentary magic happened on 24 October, but is being blogged about on 30 December 2014.]
We have taken to occasionally playing the card came Pinochle with Adda and Halli. (Our old sparring partners were Sarah and Augusto, but they live too far away now, boohoo!) (2 images total)
One evening, while Halli and I were losing spectacularly to Adda and Finnur, I got dealt a “double pinochle”, i.e. two jacks of diamond and two queens of spade, which basically means you win that round. But to my amazement, during the card-swap before the trick-taking began, Halli handed me what I needed for a “run” too, meaning this is what I put down as my “meld”:
That’s 40 points for the double pinochle, 15 points for the run in trump, 6 points for the four different queens, and 2 more for the marriage in spade. This meant just my meld was a whopping 63 points!! Sadly, this uber-round just made us positive for a bit, before yet another bad call plunged us into red waters. But it was fun while it lasted!!
Walking in Snow to Buy Snowgear
[Photos from 21 October 2014, blogged on 30 December 2014.]
We had one snowy week in October, and as usual we discovered that one of the kids didn’t have good snow-gloves. As it happens, my workplace (Marel, here on Google StreetView) is right next to at least two outdoor-gear shops, so one lunchtime I braved the snow and walked a small circuit to buy gloves… and took a few photos on the way. (3 images total)
The blue and gray Marel building. The front portion is all offices, while back building houses the production facilities.
FFF #2.3 – Archery and Cafe Kruðerí
[This happened on 19 October 2014, but was written on 20 October. Nearly instant!]
The FFF had a big outing, with four childless ladies shooting arrows for an hour, before enjoying some lovely hot drinks and pastries at nearby Cafe Kruðerí. (12 images total)
Adda and Þóra all geared up.
Autumn Trip to Laugarvatn
[Written Wednesday 15 October 2014. Happened over the past weekend, 11-12 October.]
Back in September we promised Finnur’s family to take down the trampoline by the Laugarvatn summer house before winter came roaring. (Translation: We were there in September, and failed to do it then.)
We were too tired to set out on Friday night like usual, so we ended up leaving town shortly before noon on Saturday instead. We’d invited Guðrún and Snorri along for the change of scenery, and we somehow all managed to arrive at the gate to the summer house at the same time. Great coincidence!
On the Saturday the boys took the older kids swimming, while Guðrún and I hung out with the little kiddos. We managed take down the trampoline before the scrumptious lamb dinner, and even had energy to spare to play some cards in the evening.
Our guests took off shortly after noon on the Sunday, but they didn’t drive straight to town though. First, they followed Finnur, Anna and Bjarki to the Geysir area, where Finnur flew his camera drone. Meanwhile, Emma and I napped. Mmmm… naaaapping!
We left slightly later in the afternoon, but had to drive back 20 minutes in because we’d left a charging drone-battery in the summer house. To make up for the extra drive, we stopped by one of the cracks in Thingvellir (a less famous one) and Finnur flew his drone, while the kids clambered around, and we did our best not to shiver into oblivion. Yes, it was coooold!
Some photos from the weekend follow… (35 images total)
Saturday 11 October 2014
Emma enjoying the vintage Fisher Price school house. This was the first time she actually played with the figurines, carefully putting them on the swings, and spinner, and pushing and spinning. Yay for daycare!
Hands in Various States
[Happened 13 OCTOBER 2014. Blogged 30 DECEMBER 2014. THIS IS NOT A RECENT OCCURRENCE!]
On Monday, 13 October, Finnur refused to let the kids bike to school because there was a layer of potentially slippery frost covering everything, and we still hadn’t switched any of our bikes to studded winter tires.
Being a fully grown adult, who makes good adult decisions, Finnur then decided to bike to work himself, on his summer tires.
Which went fine because the paths were mostly fine, except when all of a sudden they weren’t, and Finnur went flying off his bike, breaking a bone in his left hand. He managed to bike the rest of the way to work, but when the pain in his hand wouldn’t stop he took a taxi to the emergency room. They diagnosed him as having a double fracture, so he was put in a cast, but when he went back for reexamination the next week, it was downgraded to a single fracture, and a splint installed instead. (3 images total)
Finnur back at work with his cast.
Achievement Unlocked: Jumping!
[Jumping occurred on 09 October 2014. Documenting it properly had to wait until 30 December 2014. Bad brain!] Emma came home from daycare, having figured out jumping. Here, have a gif! (And a video if you click the moving image!) (2 images total)Read more
Bjarki the Builder
[Image from 8 October 2014. Text from 30 December 2014. Awww!] I picked Bjarki up from yet another birthday party at a certain party location, and he insisted on trying out this digger.Read more
Sewing Club Housewife Vacation
[Photos from the weekend of 4th and 5th October, words and layout from 30 December 2014.]
One of the girls (ok, women, I guess we’re all well over thirty!) in a sewing club I belong to has access to a lovely summer house not too far away from the capital area.
Over the past few years, we’ve all tried to gather there for an overnight stay, at least once per year. We call it a ‘housewife vacation’ since we all have 2 or 3 children, and really, taking a break from them can be a very good thing!
This time six out of eight could make it. Some arrived late on the Friday evening, but I hitched a ride on the Saturday, and we met up with the gang at the Fontana Geothermal Baths at Laugarvatn. (19 images total)
The first snow of the season.