Horse Riding & House #2

2020-07-21Finnur's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 21 – 25 July 2020, posted online 16 January 2021. I went out to dinner last night, gasp!]

High on Anna’s list of things to do was going horse riding. As a result we visited a horse rental in neighboring Mosfellsbær (Finnur’s old town). The day after that we drove to house #2, where a number of tasks awaited.

The following weekend, Finnur drove back to town where he had planned some fun with his friends, while Anna (!!) drove the rest of us eastwards to Finnur’s parents’ summer house. (65-ish images)

Tuesday 21 July 2020

On our horses at Laxnes horse farm.
Spooling back in time a little bit, we arrived shortly before 2 pm, after suffering through a nasty traffic jam as the roads there were being paved.
Finnur saying hi to his horse.
Emma with her horse. She was a little nervous about the whole thing.
Bjarki’s horse was the same color as his jacket!
Anna saying hi.
As this is little Iceland, the owner and Finnur were vaguely familiar with each other from way back when.
Ambivalent on horse back.
Bjarki being very chill, all the years of horse camp paying off.
And off we went! We were part of a larger group (including two foreign tourists, gasp!), and the riding path was so wide that the horses were side by side which is unusual.
The first time the group sped up a bit, Emma freaked out. Thankfully one of the two guides was up for taking just Emma and myself on a calm ride while the others went further and faster with the large group along the entire valley. Instead, Emma and I did sort of a smaller figure 8 in the valley, walking along back-paths which was very enjoyable, as I’ve driven along this valley hundreds of times, but never really given myself time to explore it. This was taken after we’d cleared a closed gate, and the guide was about to get back up on her horse who was not happy about being separated from the big group.
Some of the houses we passed. Very classic Icelandic farm-style.
Emma and I arrived back at the stables only a few minutes before the others did. It turned out Anna became sort of lead #2, as she was the most experienced rider of the visitors, and was needed up front to keep the other horses in check. She didn’t mind. Overall we enjoyed the outing, but Anna put in a request for trying to find a rental where we would be alone, so she could go really fast. 🙂
Bjarki saying goodbye to the dog of the farm. As we were leaving we saw it deftly herding horses to a nearby field.

Wednesday 22 July 2020

We made the decision to go up to house #2 for a few days, sans visitors, to get a few things done. Finnur took off with Emma early in the day, but the rest of us lingered in town long enough to visit the library (and cafe next door), and say hi to the puppy before taking off.
These are not doughnuts, but rawhide-nuts!
Trying to slow down the fast eating by hiding the food in a towel!
Stopped by a paint store to get some wood staining material. Trying to guess an established color is nigh-impossible!
Dinner was my ever first visit to a KFC that I’ve been resolutely ignoring now for 9 years of living almost next to it.
Food. Of sorts.
Anna got to drive us northwards.
We arrived at house #2 shortly after 9 pm, can’t you tell by the light? The grass was in desperate need of mowing.
Using the daylight to the max, washing timber needing to be stained.
I don’t know what on earth possessed me, but by 9:50 pm I had already pulled out the lawn-mower and began hacking away at the crazy grass.
The wheel-fern looking happy, with the pretty mountains in the back.
By 11 pm, I’d managed to mow the entire lawn, phew! (Finnur’s allergic to grass, so this task falls squarely on my shoulders now.)

Thursday 23 July 2020

The next day, Operation Cut Grass continued. I handed Bjarki some electric shears and asked him to cut the edges, much to Emma’s frustration.
Emma sort of agreed to do some raking…
We then noticed that the extended parking lot was getting quite fuzzy with weeds, and I gave Emma free reign to start pulling them.
Finnur soon joined in.
After moving the cut grass off the lawn, I decided to tackle the weedy walkway.
To lighten spirits I took the kids swimming in nearby Borgarnes.
The sunset that evening was gorgeous.
Idyllic life at 10:45 pm.

Friday 24 July 2020

Chilling.
Weeding while listening to a podcast is quite nice.
Finnur stained a side-deck. The color worked ok.
I walked down the hill a bit to recover a white plastic sheet that our friend had spotted while flying a drone the year before. I keep meaning to make a proper path down the hill (our land) but so far haven’t made any progress.
Measuring the windows for fly-nets.
Obligatory hot-tubbing.
Slow and steady. I think that was as far as I went that day.
Finnur took off into town before dinner. Since I wasn’t feeling enthusiastic about cooking after a whole day of weeding, I called into Borgarnes-town, and got lucky as there was a table available in one of the restaurants. When we arrived, they were fully booked, and turning away tourists.
The mussels were amazing.
I was thrilled the kids menu had plain white fish on it.
Bjarki likes soups.
Anna is more of a pasta-girl.
So good!
Afterwards, we all hiked up on the overlook above the restaurant, and enjoyed the windy view for a bit.
Looking towards the town.
Pretty!

Saturday 25 July 2020

By noon the walkway was finally weeded, and it was time to pack up and depart for the next destination.
It took a while to get going, and by then we were all so hungry we made a pit stop at our favorite café in Borgarnes.
Few places match this one in coziness.
There were other people there!!
By 5:30 pm we were on our way eastwards via roads I’d never traveled before.
Good driving practice for Anna! Happily, the Jaguar handles excellently and we had no issues.
Semi-barren lands.
At one point we drove into a big dust cloud.
Steep hill leading down to Thingvellir.
Some shrubbery suddenly appeared.
Lake Thingvallavatn. Always gorgeous.
We arrived at Finnur’s parents’ place by Laugarvatn shortly before 7 pm.
Always cozy!
Dinner, classic summer style.