[Photos taken 31 December 2024 (into 01 January 2025), posted online 14 June 2025. We’re getting more really nice weather, it’s like a “summer”??]
New Year’s Eve is always a fun day. The day began with Anna making yet another batch of the ever popular “horns” for the potluck-party that evening. It’s a “newish” twist on tradition that Finnur’s sister now invites the family to celebrate the new year, and we got permission to invite our US visitors along.
Earlier that day I managed to convince two hyperactive souls to join me for some frisbee golf in the baby-sized forest up the hill (Guðmundarlundur). By the forest we ran into a lost shivering cold dog, which we pulled into our car. The magical powers of Facebook (advertising lost animals is about the only thing it’s actually good for) had the dog reunited with its owner in half an hour.
Our US visitors were very keen to see the northern lights, and had been following the expected conditions. The forecast for the evening was excellent, following a solar storm ejection two days prior, so they planned on driving out while the Icelandic “annual comedy hour” was in progress to go hunting for lights.
At the last minute, I decided to join them as a guide in the hunt so they didn’t get hopelessly lost, or drive too far afield to make it back for the insane fireworks at midnight. Let’s just say that we got very lucky in the aurora deparatment!
Happy 2025 Everybody!!
Tuesday 31 December 2024
Happy 2025 everybody!!
Horn-dough being made.
Arriving at the baby-sized-forest for some frisbee golf.
An older gentleman called to us to ask if this was our dog, as it was wandering around without an owner about.
The poor dog was shivering cold, but willing to let us approach and pet it. Since I have a rubber mat in my trunk we told the gentleman we’d take care of it, and got it into the car to warm it up. Meanwhile, I posted photos on Facebook on the “lost dogs” group, and called a number for a group of people that have scanners that can read the ID-microchip.
The owner and a guy with a scanner arrived at the same minute about half an hour after I posted the photos, and the lost-dog story had a happy ending!
Time to go frisbee golfing in the forest!
Action shot!
Disc in mid-flight.
The sky being sun-set-ish at 16 (4 pm) in the afternoon.
Celebratory ending of the game as it was getting late, and some people’s toes were cold.
Proof I was there!
Obligatory snow-angel.
A cute center area with benches.
Not a moment of peace!
Horns coming along nicely.
Anna also made a delicious apple cake.
Youngsters surviving saying hi to Finnur’s dad.
The two Annas.
Kitchen siblings.
The obligatory squid dish on the stove. It’s sooo good!
Meat getting a final searing on the BBQ outside.
Continued kitchen silliness.
Potatoes looking amazing.
The greens.
The master chef at work cutting the perfectly cooked beef.
Kids chilling before eating, and then going out to shoot fireworks.
Let’s eat!
Deep dinner discussions.
After dinner, we headed outside, some to just shoot fireworks, and myself to take a few folks to a nearby bonfire.
Approaching the bonfire by Rauðavatn (the red lake).
We were a little late to arrive, but the fire was still quite lively.
Group photo!
Ex-pallets visible.
Arty water-reflection.
A kid running past.
I was glad I’d brought the ‘big’ camera along as the phone camera was having a hard time dealing with how to process the inferno in the dark.
As we were leaving the bonfire, we looked up, and low and behold there was aurora above!
We hurried back to the party, all excited about the aurora, and swallowed down some delicious dessert before heading out with the US crew again.
We’d just barely cleared the capital area before this appeared out the car window on our right, so we near-immediately pulled over and parked on a side road (by Heiðmörk, a little past Rauðhólar). To be fair, the naked eye has a hard time seeing the red, it’s more a very dark red to the naked eye, but the phone camera on the night-setting worked splendidly!
I managed to corral the US-ers into looking at the camera for a few seconds! You can see by the light on the ground that we were actually quite close to the street-lights still so we drove on for a bit.
We’d initially planned to go all the way to the Litla kaffistofan, i.e. that light on the lower right, but decided this view was good enough!
The ladies of the US got dressed (it was very cold outside, something like -16C / 3F) plonked themselves down on the ground to take in the show. And what a show it was!
Aurora all but falling on our heads.
The lights kept dancing and shifting and changing, and I had a hard time convincing the ground-dwellers to stand up and rejoin civilization.
Civilization rejoined!
Emma with a flare, as the background goes bonkers around midnight.
Enjoying the mad fireworks going on at three minutes past midnight.
The US scout got instructions and then hands-on-training in lighting fireworks!
Emma drawing for the camera.
Still going at 24 minutes past midnight.
The year 2024 being burned away for good.
Happy new year, hopefully!
One quick selfie as we were departing the party quite a ways past midnight. Happy new 2025 everybody!
