Goodbye 2022, Hello 2023!
[Photos taken 31 December 2022 – 01 January 2023, posted online 3 August 2023. The weather is possibly changing… it’s been about the same for a month, hardly a drop from the sky, and pretty warm.]
This time around, the annual New Year’s Eve potluck party in Finnur’s family was hosted by his youngest sister and family. They’ve recently moved into a much bigger house, and it so happened that the town’s bonfire would be essentially in their backyard!
Saturday 31 December 2022
2022 Yule, Anna’s 19th Birthday & Ginger-Bread
[Photos taken 24 – 30 December 2022, posted online 01 August 2023. Just drove one brother & family to the airport, they’re moving to Sweden!]
With my iffy health, we had to cancel having mom and brother over for Christmas Eve dinner and present openings. Instead, I lay in bed for most of the day, but then rallied and spent the evening downstairs, tucked away in the corner, as far away from everyone as possible.
The day after, it was Anna’s 19th birthday. She spent the morning making desserts, and we had a present opening ceremony before Finnur took the kiddos to the annual Christmas Day feast at his parents’ place, while I returned to being mostly horizontal.
The second day of Christmas was suitably low energy. Much to my consternation, I was still vertically challenged the following day, and Finnur’s youngest sister went with the gang to a year-end comedy show.
Finally, after a week of barely staying vertical, I got better, and walked outside for the first time in forever. I went into work for one day, then took another one off and we finally made a ginger bread house. Which brought us to the last day of the year…
Saturday 24 December 2022
Yule-Photos, Yule-Parties & Yule-Performances
[Photos taken 11 – 23 December 2022, posted online 31 July 2023. Week 3 of summer vacation is beginning, and I’m hoping I’m over the “constantly-napping” phase of summer vacation!]
This year, I colluded with my siblings and spouses to make a photo-book for mom of her descendants. We met up at my oldest brother’s place, where a green screen was put up, and photos were snapped.
In the future we’ll be avoiding green screens, as it’s REALLY HARD to work with hair and green screens, but middle-brother found a pretty good solution in post-processing…!
I also did another photo-session for another grandmother, then it was onto the last sprint before Christmas.
There were haircuts, Finnur took off for a week to work in the UK, I attended a choir-concert, Emma’s swim department demo, there were a couple of work-parties, I met girlfriends for brunch, went to a dinner and play with mom and two brothers (one fell ill), snow started falling with a vengeance, parking lots were cleared, there was a day with two birthday parties, stress was released at the gym, birds were fed, and then my body caved in and I fell ill, and had a hard time staying vertical over Christmas. Bah-humbug!
Sunday 11 December 2022
Kleifarvatn Hiking, Yule-Outings & 7 Habits
[Photos taken 03 – 10 December 2022, posted online 27 July 2023. Been a cloudy few days, very low energy, possibly due to volcano smog permeating my brain. Finally have blue skies again today.]
And then it was December, again!
There was one more organized hike left in the year, this time around Kleifarvatn (lake). It was a super still day, and it was really nice to see the sun come up.
The social calendar filled up with all sorts of yule-related outings, like concerts & buffets, as I also attended a two-day “7 habits” seminar/workshop at work, and two kids played at musical school concerts.
Saturday 03 December 2022
