[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
So, the quickest way around replacing a green screen without it showing too much, is to replace it with another green background! Here are the siblings.
Us older siblings.
The children of the older ones.
Sisters.
Sister and brother.
Monday 12 December 2022
Time for a hair-cut, more of a tidying up. Emma’s getting tall!
With fancy fringe managment.
Photographic evidence of sweaty me at the gym.
That evening I did yule-photo-shoot #2, this time with these kiddos and their cousins, who also wanted to give their grandma something nice for Christmas.
We had a fair bit of fun! 🙂
Tuesday 13 December 2022
Sporting a small gym-injury, after a screw came loose!
Wednesday 14 December 2022
Squatting 90 kg, but with shoddy form. Haven’t gone up so high since, working on getting the form right. Brother spotting.
Finnur spent the week in the UK, working from the London office. I made Bjarki responsible for dinner, and he cooked his first hamburgers!
Dinner is served!
Leaving the home in Anna’s capable hands, I went to a nearby church to attend a choir concert.
The choir master seems to be a force of nature.
The choir had grown in size since I last saw them.
Familiar faces!
More familiar faces! It was a great concert! Very yule-y!
Thursday 15 December 2022
I’ve never managed to procure a proper yule-sweater, so I made do with a garland.
Tasteful office decorations.
Yule-party, and giving of company gifts.
At 5 pm I took Emma to the swimming pool for the swim department equivalent of a music school recital.
Emma had attended swim practices somewhat regularly all fall semester, and made very good progress. She wasn’t loving it though, and opted to switch to parkour in the new year.
Selfie-time!
Towards the end all the swim-kids got candles and went into the pool while music happened.
Quite a few kids!
This time is was Anna’s turn to make dinner.
Friday 16 December 2022
As I was leaving to pick Finnur up from the airport, the weather was beginning to take a turn for the worse.
But, we made it back in one piece.
Yule-lights doing their thing.
Two. Hours. Later…
Saturday 17 December 2022
The following day, there was pretty deep snow outside, and more incoming.
More yule-lights, this time, inside!
The birds waiting for their breakfast.
I decided to brave the elements to visit a cafe in the morning, but took the big car this time.
A lonely electric scooter.
It kept snowing. Finnur was lucky to arrive when he did, the road to the airport got closed at some point due to too much snow.
Collecting my scattered thoughts into a to-do list.
I joined a few girlfriends for yule-brunch downtown. There’s a large church at the top of that street.
There were people milling around downtown in spite of the weather.
The church finally visible. My destination, Kol, is there on the right.
Some of the best deep friend shrimp I’ve gotten!
The crowd.
Proper restaurant-theater!
Fast charging just to be on the safe side.
This time around we really tried to keep our parking lot plus exit part free of ice!
Cleared the snow from our third car… and a little bit extra.
The fun kept coming, I met up with mom and two brothers, taking the place of brother #3 who was sick, to go see Jón Gnarr tell stories.
So much love!
The colorful walkway from the mall where we ate to the theater entrance.
Patiently waiting!
Finding our seats.
The man himself. I’ve never been a big fan, but as he’s gotten older he’s gotten wiser and humbler, and there’s no denying he’s a fantastic story teller. He basically had a bowl with slips of paper with story names, and over the course of the show he picked three slips, and told the stories, which were all from his utterly whacky life, which bizarrely includes being major of Reykjavik for four years!
Sunday 18 December 2022
When I got home, I decided it was now or never to clear the other open public parking spaces opposite our house, while the snow was light an maneuverable, in case we moved the third car and somebody would grab its cleared spot.
The big birthday party day began in the west end of town, where one of the cats found a cozy home.
Yum, good food!
Then we moved to party #2, up in the boondoggles in our own town.
The kids watching the men’s soccer World Cup final.
There was much jubilation on the screen.
Monday 19 December 2022
The parents of one class arrived early that morning to attend the final run-through for the yule-play that Emma’s class was responsible for that year.
The kids did a grand job!
Gym plan.
Prepping for 120 kg deadlift. Yule-stress is very inspiring when lifting.
Releasing pent-up stress by lifting 5 x 120 kg.
Tuesday 20 December 2022
Working on pressing. After rowing a lot I’m very good at pulling, but not so good at pushing.
It was cold outside!
Emma got to try out with an all-girls parkour group. The sport seems to mostly have boys participating.
Proud after cleaning her art-table. Well done!
Wednesday 21 December 2022
Yule-shopping made the traffic after work extra bad.
Yule-party with my team at work. A chef is explaining what the buffet contains.
The company rents a floor in a tower stuck to the Smaralind-penis-mall.
The new buildings, and the red heart is where I actually work.
Bird-food in place for next morning.
I doubled the capacity on the fence, and tried to pawn off the feed on the right, but there was a clear preference for the stuff on the left – sunflower seeds, and chopped nuts.
Thursday 22 December 2022
The birds have voted!
Picking stuff off the ground too, rather than eat from the right container.
Thankfully a few retailers were offering free home-delivery. This particular store is right downtown, where parking is nigh impossible.
Went to the gym… but hmmm… wasn’t feeling great.
Sigh, that evening I spiked a fever… and I would be totally useless for about a week. Greeeaaat timing!
Friday 23 December 2022
Slightly better the morning after, but still had a hard time staying vertical.
Scrounged up some energy to wrap presents for the household.
At least I didn’t have Covid, but whatever I had seriously derailed my plans for the following days. Bah-humbug!
