Ginger Bread House / Yule 2023 / Anna’s 20th Birthday!
[Photos taken 23 – 30 December 2023, posted online 20 June 2024. I now have a 67 year old mom!?!]
This yule went pretty much by the book. No surprises.
We managed to organize ourselves enough to make the annual ginger-bread-house, and some cookies. Then it was on to Christmas itself, which we celebrated on Christmas Eve as is the Icelandic custom, hosting my mom and one of my brothers. We spent Christmas Day at Finnur’s parents’ place, eating and playing social whist. That was also the day that Anna turned 20 years old!
My work gave us the days between Christmas and New Year’s off, so the days were calm and restorative. We ended the week by going with friends to the “summer” house, as the temperatures plunged outside.
Saturday 23 December 2023
Graduation Trip, Mr. Weeding & Gorgeous Days
[Photos taken 01 – 07 June 2022, posted online 21 January 2023. After multiple weeks of an unusually deep freeze, with multiple days in a row at -12C/10F, this weekend is The Big Thaw.]
With Anna on a graduation trip in Mexico, the house was a little emptier than usual. The days were filled with weeding (aka Bjarki’s hunt for money), I attended a choral performance, the kids’ school closed for the summer, we visited the house in Skorradal for a long weekend (where an epic mowing job awaited in glorious weather), and I socialized with the people at work. (60-ish images total)
Wednesday 01 June 2022
Anna’s FG Graduation & e-Biking Njarðvíkurheiði
[Photos taken 28 – 31 May 2022, posted online 18 December 2022. After endless frosty days, we finally have snow… all the snow!]
After three years at FG (Fjölbrautaskólinn í Garðabæ), Anna graduated/matriculated with her “student’s diploma”, allowing her to enter university. She did a really good job, especially in light of the whole covid-situation, and months and month of remote learning and zero socialization.
We attended the graduation ceremony, and then we received family and friends in one of the houses at Árbæjarsafn, aka the “old houses museum. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and almost capped off one of the most insanely busy months in recent memory!
The last ‘event’ of this May-Mayhem was an e-bike ride out on Njarðvíkurheiði, by the international airport. And with that, May finally came to a close! (80-ish images total)
Saturday 28 May 2022
Anna 16 Years Old & Yule Party
[Photos taken 25 December 2019, posted online on 27 June 2020. Bjarki turns into a teenager tomorrow!]
On Christmas Day, Anna turned 16 years old. She opened presents at home, and then we all went to Finnur’s parents’ place to eat great food, play social-whist, and then Anna opened some more presents! (25 images total)
Wednesday 25 December 2019
Yule Photo-shoot & Recital
[Photos taken 17 December 2019, posted online 01 June 2020. It’s Whit-Monday, a public holiday, cloudy but calm outside, riots abroad.]
Out of pure stubbornness (my defining characteristic), I still take photos of the kids every year, for the annual photo-calendar. (The rule of the calendar is that every month has photos from the same month of the previous year.)
This year I was running out of time as usual, so a random Tuesday was my day of choice. It coincided with Emma’s first yule-tide music school recital, which was more stressful for her than I’d realized. Next year I’ll try to avoid such a basic scheduling mistake, but it all worked out ok in the end. (20-ish photos)
Tuesday 17 December 2019
Anna Graduates 10th Grade
[Photos taken 05 June 2019, posted online 27 December 2019. The rain is taking all our snow away. New Year’s Eve fireworks weather is not looking promising. ]
After eight fine years at our local school, it was time for Anna to graduate from 10th grade. Two days prior, the whole graduating group (70-ish kids) had gone on a graduation/team-building trip to the north of Iceland.
The trip was a roaring success, and they arrived sleep-deprived and weepy with emotion a few hours before the formal ceremony. At the graduation ceremony itself, hardly an eye was left dry in the house, as parents and past-and-present teachers talked, gifts were given, hugs were exchanged, lovely words were written in yearbooks, photos were taken, and food was eaten. (35-ish images total)
Wednesday 05 June 2019
Autumn Colors, New Piano
[Photos from 22-25 September 2018, posted online 26 March 2019. Weather found the ‘spring’ setting again.]
We went to house #2 with friends, while the autumn colors were in full force. Back in the city, autumn weather said did its best to get rid of autumn colors, and we got a new piano!!! (50-ish images total)
Saturday 22 September 2018
Kids’ Spring Concerts
[Images and videos from 17-18 May 2016, posted online 18 May 2016. 9 pm feels like 5 pm daylight wise.]
Since I last blogged (27 April), Finnur’s traveled to England with his football-buddies for a long weekend, I’ve traveled to Prague with my sewing club girlfriends for a long weekend, and we spent the last weekend (also a long one!) at the summer-cottage by Laugarvatn!
Add to that the usual mix of full-time work, three kiddos, and spring looming with a thousand-and-one projects that seemingly need doing (but don’t get done, they just loom), and there is little to no energy left for frivolous things like, say, blogging.
But, I’m putting my fingers down to post that the big kiddos just finished their spring performances, with Anna on piano, and Bjarki on guitar.
Anna is not a big fan of performing, so she chose a simple short-ish song. The final decision on whether she’ll continue next year will be made on Friday, but most likely this is it for her formal music education.
Bjarki, on the other hand, is less jaded, and is game for another year of guitar.
Enough chit-chat, on with the media! (2 videos and 4 images total)
Tuesday 17 May 2016
Anna went first with “Bláu augun þín”. I apologize for the substandard sound quality!
Parental Meetings at School
[Photos from 03 February 2016, posted on 05 February 2016. No more melty-snowstorm.]
I expected to get more done on the blogging front but a) my brain was hijacked by a new book series, which I’m having a very hard time putting down, and b) we had parental meetings this week, and my energy levels are apparently good for “one thing per day”. Also, going to the school on crutches was So. Much. Fun! (Not!)
The parental meetings at school went well. Both Bjarki and Anna seem happy at school, and are generally doing well. Anna is actually doing extremely well, scoring 9-10 out of 10 in every single subject. Her teacher describes her as even-keeled, and we struggled to find stuff to talk about.
Bjarki is reading fast, as he’s already achieved a reading speed two grades up. When he’s interested, he also understands what he’s reading. We see this in him as he’s now storming through Harry Potter (he’s on book #3). He’s also started to become a little more interested in interacting with the boys in his class, when up until now, he’s mostly focused on boys a grade below himself, possibly because two of them live on our street. He still has his strengths and weaknesses, but is definitely moving forwards.
Overall, both teachers sounded very positive, so that was good.
So yes, I’m made it out of the house lately, but now I’m back on the couch. Here, have some photos! (5 images total)
The couch is where it’s at!
Archery
[Photos from Sunday 27 December 2016, posted online 25 January 2016. Or not. The kids are about to come home.]
Every few weeks, Bjarki will ask to go to the archery place, and usually he gets a “no, not today… ask again later” answer.
Now, since this was a holiday, we decided to stop postponing, and just do it, so to the archery three went, while Finnur fooled Emma into taking a nap. (Only he can get her to fall asleep indoors during the day. My only chance at putting her down is to drive her around in the car for a few minutes, but then we’re stuck in the car for an hour! Thankfully, the electric car is happy to provide non-smoggy heat when that happens.) (9 images total)
I won’t lie. I was incredibly proud of myself for getting us Out. Of. The. House. for once!