Horse Camp for All & Housing Progress

2019-07-13Us Standard

[Photos taken 13 – 17 July 2019, posted online 29 February 2020. Snow on the ground, and we have our first local Covid-19 case.]

We drove up to house #2 with some friends who live in California for a change of scenery. As they only have young children, we only brought Emma along, leaving the older ones to fend for themselves for a night.

I tried being good about gymming, but hurt my foot assembling a bed (!!?!), and then it was all over for a while. Both Emma and Bjarki began attending horse camp, but not at the same time, so that involved quite a bit of driving. I did also succumb to Emma’s request to go to the farm animal park, where we saw a four day old calf! (40-ish images total)

Saturday 13 July 2019

“Mood” as Ms. First Born would say. Taken as we were driving north to house #2.
Earlier that day we were driving in the city when we noticed there’d been a sudden influx of campers in an unusual spot.
A quick calendar check and we discovered these belonged to out-of-town families of girls participating in one of the biggest football (soccer) tournaments in Iceland.
11 am is a weird but nice time to go to the gym.
My first ever time videoing myself lifting, as my usual gym-buddy had eloped to foreign lands. (Animated gif, must wait for it to load)
At home base, we scratched our heads over how best to fasten these Ikea boxes for transport. It’s great to finally have a car that can tow. 🙂
All set!
The drive north was a bit muggy, but thankfully mostly dry so the plastic around the boxes didn’t have to work hard.
Unloading, and the summer flowers still alive!
My big accomplishment that day was to install these wall-lights, and a ceiling light in the guest house. I opted for the the Ikea Tradfri system, which works pretty well.
Meanwhile, Anna did nail-art at home as we’d left her and Bjarki home alone, only bringing Emma along with us for the ride.
9 pm lounging in the living room, with our friends from California.

Sunday 14 July 2019

The day began with an Ikea assembly, a Songesand bed in the guesthouse.
Finnur kept experimenting with how to best fix mosquito-netting to the windows. This was the velcro-attempt. It proved to be rather unsuccessful, as the velcro strips refused to stick to the windows in any meaningful way.
This is as far as we got with the bed, as we had to get going back to town relatively early.
Hardworking guests are the best guests, although I don’t know what that says about us, the hosts!?! 🙂
One last selfie

Monday 15 July 2019

That morning, Emma showed up for her first ever horse camp as a student.
When I arrived to pick her up at noon, she was happily eating cup-noodles with all the teachers.
Getting her out of the stables proved to be a bit difficult, as there was always another horse to attend to.
These heart-shaped weeds are apparently a horse-favorite.
Last photo before I finally got Emma in the car, because it was Bjarki’s turn to go sit on a horse!
Bjarki suffering through yet another mom-photo-opportunity. Yes, this entire week Emma went to horse camp in the morning, and then Bjarki spent the afternoon there.
Just a photo of my bruised foot, that I got from jumping over and accidentally kicking the foot-board of the bed I was assembling the day before. I never got it x-rayed, but it left me limping for a few weeks (which affected my $@$^! hip which is still unhappy). Sadly, this meant no more gymming for a while…

Tuesday 16 July 2019

Tress and their big-ass seeds in the western part of Reykjavik.
Two tall men figuring out how to wire a light.
It was warm and it poured that day, foreign-style. Emma and myself made our way to a library to return and get some new books.

Wednesday 17 July 2019

Having rested up a bit, I felt ready to tackle the huge and ominous pile of ‘too-small clothes’ in the laundry room, and sort it. It’s possible the piles got to hang around on that floor for quite a few days before I had the mental energy to do anything more about them.
The weather was gorgeous, so Emma begged to go visit the farm animal and family park, which we did!
Apparently horse camp that morning had not been enough ‘horse’ for the day.
Returning from her ring around the yard.
We were greedy and requested a boat each, even though there was a bit of a line. Apparently the park was busy all summer long, as the weather kept being mostly very nice.
Obligatory long stop by the water-sand area.
As we were making our way back at 16:30, the cows and 4 day old calf were being brought into the house for milking, and sleeping. The mom was not happy to be separated from her calf at all.
The calf was kept in a small pen with solid walls so the mom couldn’t see him.
The older calves getting freshly squeezed milk from the three cows.
Calf, mom plus other cows, and Emma looking into the room where the milk is gathered via the pipes in the ceiling.
Then we moved on to help give the piglets food.
Snap from Bjarki’s turn at horse camp, that’s him in the NYC shirt. Apparently it was 16C/60F outside!