Gymnastics, Family Park & Silfra Snorkeling

2021-05-22Uncategorized Standard

[Photos taken 22 – 31 May 2021, posted online 05 August 2021. Intermittent rain in the capitol area, am working up the nerve to ‘refresh’ Bjarki’s bedroom… or attack the weeds in the garden… or both..?]

Bjarki participated in a gymnastics meet, we visited the farm-animal and family park for the first time in a long while, masks were no longer required indoors (which was weird), my department at work went and snorkeled in Silfra, and then there was the usual gardening-library-garage-cleaning trifecta. (50-ish images total)

Saturday 22 May 2021

Bjarki with the trophy his gymnastics team got in their team gymnastics meet.
Numbered and registered seats, 2 m apart.
Bjarki’s team prepping for the trampoline jump.
The fly-over, harder than it looks. (Animated gif)
Nice spinning! He discovered that ‘competing’ puts extra adrenaline into the system, hence the rocky landing. (Animated gif)
Getting their awards. This was the low-stress meet, there’s another that is more intense. The team competed in two events out of three (skipped the dance, Bjarki never made it to the dance practices as they conflicted with his confirmation classes) but they were the only team in their division, so trophy! Trophies are always sweet!
Really?
Finally, the long-anticipated final of the Eurovision Song Contest happened! Iceland’s group got super unlucky, and one member contacted covid-19 (all recently vaccinated) so the final practice run-through was the version that was played for the world. Thankfully, it was pretty good, and we ended in 4th place!

Sunday 23 May 2021

We were bored out of our minds, so when Emma suggested a trip to the farm animal and family park it sounded like a most excellent idea.
Our adrenaline junkies.
There was happy squealing.
The carousel has been moved to a more picturesque spot.
The rolling boat had been renewed to a viking ship. It was a good upgrade as the old boat had become very squeaky.
I think you’re a little big for this ride… but oh well!
We bumped into some familiar faces. This thing goes round-and-round (if pushed), and you need to keep your wits about you when you’re close.
Please no injuries… please no injuries…
It was a lovely day.
The park closed at 5 pm, and we all made our way to the cars.
Ooooh, leaves appearing on the trees! This is one of the warmer spots in the city.
Finnur’s sister made it to the volcano! We kept not going. (The caption says “Finally I’m like everybody else!”)

Monday 24 May 2021

Whit Monday is a public holiday in Iceland, I celebrated to going to the same café (and the same table it seems) as I’m sitting at writing this.

Tuesday 25 May 2021

Maskless (legally) in a store!
My children know me very well. If I’ve given a green light for something, they need to keep pestering me until I execute it, or I’ll forget. Emma cleverly kept pestering me to put stuff on her bedroom walls, as they were just depressingly empty (which I agreed with). I finally got my act together and visited the local nerd-store after gym one day. Emma and I also visited the mall next to us to pick up additional decorative items.
The result: Posters and cubbies and images and words on the walls. (Please adjust the bedroom size down a size in your head, this is taken with a fish-eye-lens.)
Random wall things from Söstrene Grenes.
Couldn’t resist this memory that popped up on photos… Oh how small and excited he was!

Wednesday 26 May 2021

Excellent conditions for a jog.

Thursday 27 May 2021

My workplace all but mandated a “group activity” for “team building” at the end of May, as covid cases went down. Here are members of my department putting on dry-suits in Thingvellir National Park, as we were about to snorkeling in the Silfra fissure!
The adventure company keeps their dry-suit collection in the backs of their vans.
Excited!! It should be noted that Finnur DOVE in Silfra in 2011!
Yours truly in the 4C/39F cold water. It’s that temperature year-round.
I’m the one wearing red fins. This is pretty much exactly the colors you see down below.
You just float and enjoy, and practice your mindfulness.
Above the water was a lot less graceful, and weirdly dull-looking.
It takes about half an hour to float down to where you have to take a sharp left turn or you end up in lake Thingvellir, and that’s just not a good idea.
There’s a shallow part or two on the way, where I wondered how easy it was to get over with an oxygen tank on your back…
Ridiculously pretty.
Doing my best floating-seal impersonation. I tried to keep my hands up behind my back so they wouldn’t get too cold, but occasionally I needed them to push away from the walls.
Back at the cars. My suit had sprung a small leak when I turned my head just-so, so I came out quite wet, but thankfully had a full change of clothes.
Team members chilling in the WARM wind that was blowing that day. It was amazing. We then took the bus back to town, and all went out to dinner together. Yay for relaxed regulations!!
The view at 23:30 (11:30 pm). Not bad.

Friday 28 May 2021

Went out to dinner with a friend!
The place was packed!
On the home front I restacked the stones holding the domes down, as we had some serious wind.

Saturday 29 May 2021

The line for Covid-19 tests stretched far out from the door (left of the image) as seen from the stair-machine at the gym. We hoped they were just tourists reporting for their mandatory testing.
Seen worse for 1000 m.
The kids wanted a boxing-bag installed in the garage, which meant some serious rearranging of stuff. I moved a whole car-full of stuff to the recycling center, yet again. Yes, that included the 15 year old earthquake-supplies box from California, which still had diapers and baby-stuff in it.
As vaccination rates rose, especially with regards to at-risk-groups, the 2 m distance rule was removed. Practically speaking it meant it was easier to get seats at cafes.

Sunday 30 May 2021

Anna wanted, and thus made, focaccia bread!
At the recycling center. That rug in the center had reached the tender age of 20 years old, and had remained unused for 15 of them. It thanked us for the neglect by raining red stuff all over the car.
It was now conceivable to install a boxing-bag.

Monday 31 May 2021

Mask-less in the library elevator. The manga books now live on the fifth floor!
Thank you Google Photos for the memory! This is Baby-Finnur being cute in Hawaii (click to see more Hawaii photos)!