Mowing-time, Birthday-time, Biking-time & Ducks!
[Photos taken 10 – 15 June 2023, posted online 14 March 2024, from a cafe in Brussels that has a smoke detector that is almost out of battery. Peep!!]
Upon returning home from California, the grass had grown to time-to-mow-length, there was a birthday, more work to do in the garden, bread-baking, insensibly fed ducks, purchased kayaks, and e-biking along the rocky coast.
Saturday 10 June 2023
Chef-lings, Graduation-Season, & Outdoors-ing
[Photos taken 20 – 31 May 2023, posted online 14 20 January 2024. An eruption started early this morning last Sunday just outside the town of Grindavík. Three houses were burned down as lava entered the town itself. The protective wall successfully diverted most of the lava past the town, look for insane footage of the machines being rescued off of the wall as lava surrounds it, and then later in the day closing a wall-gap where the main road was. The ground is all cracked as parts of the town sunk by 1 m, and it’s very dangerous being in town. One road worker died as the ground collapsed under his feet a few days before the eruption. The town remains evacuated, and will be for the foreseeable future.]
Finnur transitioned from a soccer-group-trip to Scotland to working from London the following week, getting the royal treatment at my dad’s & Shirley’s! Meanwhile, I assigned-dinner making to the kids, one dinner each, as Mon/Wed/Fri afternoon gym-class cuts into dinner-prep time.
We all survived the lack of true-chef, and then transitioned over to attending junior-college graduation parties. All this was mixed in with some outdoors-ing.
Saturday 20 May 2023
Easter 2023, Spring-Tasks & Hiking
[Photos taken 09 – 14 April 2023, posted online 24 December 2023. Perhaps it’s fitting that one festival is being blogged on another one?]
Easter day was a classic one. The kids got their chocolate eggs at home, and then we headed over to Finnur’s parents’ place for Easter eats, and social whist.
Easter Sunday 09 April 2023
Confirmation Season Continues
[Photos taken 01 – 08 April 2023, posted online 16 21 December 2023. The start of this blog post was written in a cafe in Dublin, Ireland!]
The confirmation season continued in full swing, as Easter vacation began. We attended two confirmation parties,
Saturday 01 April 2023
Waterfalls, School Visits & Confirmation Parties
[Photos taken 18 – 31 March 2023, posted online 02 December 2023. Frozen days ahead of us, but little snow predicted, hardly any snow this season so far.]
We actually went on an outing to the lavafield-waterfalls (Hraunfossar) from the summer house with friends who like sight-seeing. The rest of the month passed in a blur of confirmation-related events, junior college school visits with Bjarki, hosting dad & Shirley for an evening, Anna’s school project, and gymming.
Saturday 18 March 2023
46th Birthday, Jamie & Júníus, Druk-Play & Dinners
[Photos taken 01 – 17 March 2023, posted online 26 November 2023. Long time since last post, I got swallowed up prepping for Christmas, lots of computer projects. Not long now until I’m a year behind, sigh!]
It was my turn to celebrate a birthday, as I crossed the 46th annual age-increase-threshold, and two days later we had a 23rd wedding anniversary.
The month included a literal avalance of events and outings. We attended a play, went out to dinner, and visited the summer house. I did a photo-shoot, a hike in the freezing-cold, attended not one but two (!) concerts in Harpa, hosted a sewing club, kept going to the gym, hunting for furniture, arranging hair-cuts, and generally trying to keep my head afloat in the water.
Wednesday 01 March 2023
Goodbye 2022, Hello 2023!
[Photos taken 31 December 2022 – 01 January 2023, posted online 3 August 2023. The weather is possibly changing… it’s been about the same for a month, hardly a drop from the sky, and pretty warm.]
This time around, the annual New Year’s Eve potluck party in Finnur’s family was hosted by his youngest sister and family. They’ve recently moved into a much bigger house, and it so happened that the town’s bonfire would be essentially in their backyard!
Saturday 31 December 2022
2022 Yule, Anna’s 19th Birthday & Ginger-Bread
[Photos taken 24 – 30 December 2022, posted online 01 August 2023. Just drove one brother & family to the airport, they’re moving to Sweden!]
With my iffy health, we had to cancel having mom and brother over for Christmas Eve dinner and present openings. Instead, I lay in bed for most of the day, but then rallied and spent the evening downstairs, tucked away in the corner, as far away from everyone as possible.
The day after, it was Anna’s 19th birthday. She spent the morning making desserts, and we had a present opening ceremony before Finnur took the kiddos to the annual Christmas Day feast at his parents’ place, while I returned to being mostly horizontal.
The second day of Christmas was suitably low energy. Much to my consternation, I was still vertically challenged the following day, and Finnur’s youngest sister went with the gang to a year-end comedy show.
Finally, after a week of barely staying vertical, I got better, and walked outside for the first time in forever. I went into work for one day, then took another one off and we finally made a ginger bread house. Which brought us to the last day of the year…
Saturday 24 December 2022
Yule-Photos, Yule-Parties & Yule-Performances
[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
Misty Hiking, Delayed Confirmation Party, & Northern Lights
[Photos taken 12 – 30 November 2022, posted online 21 July 2023. Gosh, darnit, my eyesight is changing really fast these days, I get the feeling that in the olden times I should be dead by now!]
Tearing me out of my “just started a new job” stupor was a day hike to Stardalshnúkur & Þríhnúkar on a rainy-misty day, but the clouds cleared at good moments, and good memories were made.
We attended a covid-delayed confirmation party, I tried to find a new gym/work balance, Finnur took photos of northern lights, yule-tide outside lights were put up as the darkness grew, yule-tide shopping began, and life kind of went on as usual.
Saturday 12 November 2022
