Bjarki Plays @Nótan, Ion Hotel & Visits
[Photos taken 19 – 25 March 2022, posted online 20 July 2022. The two living room walls are now painted, but I’m thinking the new white border around the little windows needs to go… Waiting for Finnur to opine. Have moved my focus to painting parts of the kitchen, and touched off by a broken dimmer knob, am replacing all the black electrical fronts with white ones.]
Every spring the music schools in the country host a series of concerts, dubbed Nótan (The Note), and each school sends an act to perform at one concert. This year, Bjarki’s school asked him and his play-together group (that had met like 5-6 times) to play. He was super nervous, but got through it in one piece.
Straight afterwards, Finnur and I drove out to the country to stay at a hotel out in the boondoggles, to make use of a gift-card I’d given Finnur for Christmas. It looked like 75% of the other guest were also there redeeming the same gift-card, hehe.
We managed to visit grandma on her birthday (very rare occurrence), there was some exercising, Emma got her classroom laser-tag birthday wish, Anna got started on summer plants, and people came for dinner, in our house!! (50-ish images total)
Saturday 19 March 2022
Bjarki Turns 14 Years Old!
[Photos taken 28 June – 01 July 2021, posted online 26 September 2021. Elections yesterday, for the first time in Iceland, women hold more than half the seats in parliament.]
Bjarki’s long awaited birthday finally appeared and he’s now officially 14 years old, and busy checking ever more boxes on the “stereotypical-teen checklist”.
We again held two parties, one for each family, a few days apart, in between life as usual. (25-ish images total)
Monday 28 June 2021
Bjarki’s Confirmation Day
[Photos taken 21-22 March 2021, posted online 22 July 2021. Covid-19 cases are again climbing rapidly in Iceland. Border regulations are being tightened, but no news on domestic regulations (there are currently no restrictions). Authorities are waiting a bit to see the effect of lots of vaccinations, our main concern continues to be not overwhelming the health system, and keeping deaths to a minimum.]
After a nerve-wracking few weeks, as we kept a close eye on new covid-19 cases, while last-minute organizing and ordering contamination-minimizing food for the day, Bjarki’s civil confirmation actually happened as planned!
Domestic regulations stipulated no more than 50 adults in the same room (200 in big auditoriums), so we ended up having two celebrations, first at 3pm for close family friends, and another at 6 pm for our families. The ceremony itself was at noon, so it was a long and busy day, but Bjarki thoroughly enjoyed being the center of attention, so we deemed it well worth it.
Unfortunately, covid-19 cases began skyrocketing the week after, and the following Wednesday, authorities again tightened domestic regulations, and all upcoming confirmations (we were invited to two on 28 March) were postponed! (80-ish images total)
Sunday 21 March 2021
Bjarki Turns Thir-TEEN Years Old
[Photos taken 28 – 30 June 2020, posted online 28 December 2020. I’m on vacation until the new year, with no plans. First Covid-19 vaccine boxes landed in Iceland this morning. ]
Bjarki is now officially a teenager. We celebrated by hosting two parties, one for each family, a day apart. Thankfully the weather cooperated. (30-ish images total)
Sunday 28 June 2020
Bad Weather, Good Progress
[Photos taken 08 – 16 December 2019, posted online 31 May 2020. It’s yet another three day weekend, I’m getting a bit too used to them now!]
December marched on. The Sun deserted us for longer and longer periods of time, but life went on. There were family gatherings, Bjarki performed at the his yule-tide recital, I got a new view of a gymnastics hall, and the weather put its mark on all our lives.
Thankfully, the bathroom renovations marched on, and we finally had an operational toilet and shower. (No sink though.) Feeling inspired, a storage “solution” was installed in the garage, to lessen the chaos there. (50-ish images total)
Sunday 08 December 2019
Summer Vacation Begins/Bjarki’s 12th Birthday Party
[Photos from 10-12 July 2019, posted online 28 February 2020. Lots of snow falling lately, driving Anna to school in the mornings has been a bit adventurous.]
Emma finally truly graduated from daycare, as it shut down for its summer vacation. We were rather stuck-in-town though for the work-week because Anna kept working at horse-camp. Happily we finally managed to celebrate Bjarki’s 12th birthday, and even go out on a date night! (25-ish images)
Wednesday 10 July 2019
Bjarki’s 10th Birthday Celebration
[Photos taken on 02 July 2017, posted online on 17 October 2017. The days are getting noticeably shorter.]
We’ve come a long way from the Night of Extreme Drama, some 10 years ago. Yes, that means, Bjarki’s now 10 years old!
To celebrate, we held a customary birthday bash for family and friends. Just to see how it would go, we sourced almost all the food at Costco, which went fairly well.
On to the photos (18 images total)!
The birthday cake. We got it at Costco, and Anna added the personal touch.
May 2017 Runs On
[Photos taken on 15 May to 20 May 2017, posted online 14 23 September. Spent a long weekend on a work-trip in N-Ireland! (Now two weeks ago!)]
The Ingress game (close cousin to Pokemon Go, played by going to certain locations with your phone) posted a challenge, which involved hunting down about 400 locations in two weeks (before 21 May), and leave markers behind.
Something about that sounded like a good idea, so Finnur and I found ourselves in random locations either after the kids had gone to bed, or taking “the long way home” after work. Very little else got done during those two weeks, and yes, blog posts were put on hold.
Photos got taken, and of course life continued on as usual. Bjarki played his guitar at a spring concert, I tried going out on jogs again (only to hurt my Achilles tendon even more), there was reading, we got visitors, and I even went to a party! (40 images total and 1 video)
Monday 15 May 2017
The view while out on a lunch time jog.
December Outings and Bjarki’s Guitar Recital
[Saturday 03 – 06 December 2016, posted online on 13 February 2017. Slow and steady. I’m told it works.]
December showed up, from nowhere it appeared! The weather was too warm by 5 degrees, and no snow was to be seen for miles. (5 images and 1 video total)
Saturday 3 December 2016
I’ve begun going downtown to my favorite cafe to work on my photos and blog on Saturdays. Often time I also walk around to play a bit of Ingress, and on one such walkabout I stumbled upon the December-only ice-rink in downtown Reykjavik. Pretty!!
Bjarki’s 9th Birthday Celebration
[Photos from Monday 04 July 2016, posted online 23 August 2016. Truly.]
On this gorgeous US Independence Day, we hosted a family birthday celebration in honor of Bjarki turning 9 years old.
It was a pretty standard birthday party except there was a small interruption in the middle as everybody gathered in front of the television to watch the Icelandic national football team drive into downtown on a roofless bus, being greeted as heroes by thousands, after their 2016 Euro Cup performance! (17 images total)
Bjarki’s cake, and some extra items. The sword was there to raise the plate up, because the cake was a bit crooked. It sure tasted good though!