US Visitors – Out in the Countryside
[Written 26 July 2014. At least it’s still July!!]
After spending the work-week in the city with our US visitors, we headed out to the trusty old summer house by Laugarvatn on the Friday. We planned to stay there for four or five nights.
It took us half of forever to get going, packing everything up, and fitting it in the cars. Cleverly, we’d planned for the US-ers to leave first, which they did, so they could stop at Thingvellir (which is half way there) to sight-see a bit.
The rest of us got a slightly later start because there’s always something that needs doing at the last minute, and then we had to make a library run, aaaand pick Finnur up from work. Oh, and return back home for stuff I forgot to pack.
Anyway, we finally caught up with the gang around 5 pm as they were about to walk to a waterfall in the gusty cold wind. We told them they were out of time, and that we’d stop by on the way back when there would surely be less wind. They admitted we had a point, so onwards to Laugarvatn we all went, settled in, and made dinner.
We were super lucky in that the second house (again, Finnur’s parents’ house) was available, so Sarah’s parents could stay there and get a break from the loud and rowdy kids (and adults!). (36 images, 2 videos total.)
Friday 4 July 2014 – Finnur Flies the Quad-copter
Around midnight on the Friday, the weather was doing its ‘calm before the storm’ routine, so Finnur used the opportunity to test drive his 40th birthday present: A quad-copter with a video camera, aka drone.
The tiny video unit.
About ready to go find a good take-off spot.
It was a lovely midnight, even though the wind was starting to pick up a bit.
Reading the instructions. Always a good first step.
Getting ready.
Uuuuhhhh, not quite ready. Silly vegetation.
Wheeee! And up it goes!!
Happy guys are happy.
Saturday 5 July 2013 – Quiet Day
This day had been designated a QUIET DAY, as in, no big travels or activities. Which was good because it was SUPER WINDY the entire day, so staying inside was mostly a good idea.
Emma woke up with an allergic rash all over, but thankfully we’d remembered to take her mediation with us, and her skin returned to normal as the day went on. We have no idea what set it off, but I suspect some laundry detergent we tried out this spring, and may have been on some of the clothes I’d dug from deep inside a drawer.
Games are good fun. Here Sarah, Augusto, and Anna are playing Set.
Anna trying hard to keep up with the old set-pros.
Later that day we also played some Robo-Rally.
Sarah and Jason played together.
Emma was going insane being cooped up inside, so I took her outside for a bit. The trees were still getting blown about quite a lot!
Emma enjoying some solo-time on the trampoline.
Probably some of the strongest wind I’ve seen there!
Walking around on the grass is tricky.
Get me out of here!
Life is fun again!
Life is bad again!!
We all ate dinner together again, and that was the end of lazy Saturday.
Sunday 6 July 2014 – Gullfoss og Geysir
The agenda for the day was to visit two of the main tourists attractions in Iceland. Seeing how we’d only just visited them last year, and bringing Emma along would just be a lot of work, I opted to stay behind with Emma, making everyone’s lives a little easier.
I’m told the day was a success, tourist wise, and it was also a success for Finnur who flew his drone all over the place.
He’s now edited together a video shot using the quad-copter at Gullfoss, go see it here!!!
Jumping bean!
The weather was nice (for once!) so I put the tent and tunnel up on the patio for Emma to play with. She used them a little.
Emma hanging out by the fire-extinguisher. Nonono…
After her nap, we were both suffering from some cabin fever, so I put her on my back and went on a short hike up the hill. I may or may not have spied on the other summer houses up there…
When the travelers got back our kids insisted on flying the tiny quad-copter Finnur had picked up in the US. It’s super light and hard to control, so it kept crashing in the wind so the kids had to run and get it again, and again…
Bjarki bringing the chopper back.
Up it goes again!
Anna resting after all the running!
But wait, there’s more running!
Bjarki on the last run before we called it quits due to excessive wind.
Emma’d gotten to tag along in the back-carrier.
For once, there was fish for dinner! Eating BBQed meat does get repetitious after a while!
Monday 7 July 2014
The Monday was another quiet day. I think this is the day we mostly lounged around, but finally managed to get our act together late in the day, taking all the kids (except Emma, she was acting kinda sickly and thus got left behind with Finnur) swimming at Minni-Borg, which is the pool with the near-vertical slide. No pictures got taken. Oops!
Instead I present to you even more pictures of dinner time!!
Dinner almost ready!
Finnur making his favorite fancy sauce, Bernaise sauce.
Mixing in the butter, veeery slowly!
Dinner being gobbled up!
The final full day out in the country was spent visiting Seljalandsfoss and the Sólheimajökull glacier. That was probably the only day where I took a bunch of photos myself, so those will be covered in a separate post!!