First Day of Summer, Nature, and Jigsaw
[Photos from 21-23 April , posted online 26 May 2016. Backtracking yet again…]
As always, I’m conflicted on whether to post old or new stuff, and tonight old stuff wins out. I find it remarkable how I manage to always lose the plot on this blogging thing!
Anyway! Here we have The First Day of Summer (which is a national holiday, always on a Thursday, go figure) which we marked by opening up, cleaning, and filling the hot tub for the first time this year (I think?). Meanwhile, gardening work commenced, and continued into the next day. Saturday saw us visiting good friends, and walking to a beach and back. We saw a spider weave her web, and I completed a stubborn jigsaw. (24 images total)
First Day of Summer – Thursday 21 April 2016
Emma posing just before going into the hot tub. She’s wearing Anna’s old swimsuit!
Nap-Drive and Emma
[Photos from 17 – 18 April 2016, posted online 27 April 2016. Evening light is upon us.]
We can still trick Emma into napping in the afternoon by driving her around for a bit. We like to do so before we’re having visitors over for dinner, or visiting someone for dinner. Usually she falls asleep in five minutes, but this time she was super wired, and took half an hour to nod off. Therefore I ended up in our back-country, which I found to be surprisingly pretty.
Also, this was the week Emma had chicken pox, and she spent most of it at her grandparents’ place. (7 images total)
Sunday 17 April 2016
Emma took a long time to fall asleep so I ended up in the back-country to our fair city. I’d never been there before! This is the parking lot where you park to go walk up on Helgafell.
First 2016 Trip to Laugarvatn
[Photos taken 09 to 10 April 2016, posted online on 17 April 2016. My laptop battery is dying.]
Finnur and his siblings share access to a summer house his late grandparents built at Laugarvatn. According to The Online Speadsheet, it was our turn, and since the weather forecast was nice, we decided to venture out into the country-side a bit.
Finnur busied himeself with fixing some piping issue under the house, while the kids and I erected the trampoline.
To help ease our loneliness, our friends Guðrún og Snorri (their kids were busy in town!) arrived around dinner time on Saturday, ate dinner, played a fun board game, and then took off after lunch on the Sunday.
Sunday turned out to be really nice weather-wise, a couple of kids ended up in the underwear on the trampoline, while I face-sunbathed, in a jacket, and under a blanket. (11 images total)
Saturday 9 April 2016
Mount Hekla seen from the patio.
Birthday Party at Steinunn’s
[Photos from Sunday 3 April 2016, put online on 5 April 2016. Politics in Iceland are insane right now. The mind boggles.]
It was a mostly quiet weekend. On Saturday I drove for the first time in about three months!!! To celebrate, I took Anna on a slow shopping trip for some outdoor equipment for the school trip she’s on all this week, and we also made a library run. Then we all spent the evening with some good friends.
Sunday was pretty quiet, but we did attend the birthday party of Steinunn and Einar’s one year old boy. (5 images total)
(After the party Iceland’s version of the Panama Papers reveal was broadcast, and the entire nation gasped. It’s been a wild ride since.)
I can drive again!! Freedom!!
Easter Day 2016
[Photos from Easter Sunday 27 March 2016, posted online 31 March 2016. We just finished all the chocolate.]
Easter Sunday began unusually calmly, as the smaller two kids seemed happy to hang out in computer-land for most of the morning, or until the resident teenager woke up around 10 am. The kids then hid our eggs, we hid their eggs, and chocolate bunnies, and then we all overdosed on chocolate.
Around lunchtime we went to Finnur’s parents’ place to eat good food, enjoy good company, and play social whist. Bjarki participated in the whist for the first time, and handled it well, although he joined his grandparents near the bottom of the final score pile. Finnur was victorious though, just like last Easter!
Here, have some photos (33 images total) or if that’s not enough, HERE ARE ALL OF THEM.
The kiddos with their standard issue Icelandic Easter eggs.
Easter Holiday Meetups with Friends in Spring + Surprise Winter
[Photos from Saturday 26 to 29 March 2016. Started writing post late 31 March 2016. Bye snow. ]
Easter is the only holiday to come with a guaranteed five-day-long continuous holiday. I wish Christmas-time came wrapped in a similar package.
Since I was still on crutches, we didn’t do much of anything, but we did manage to meet up with some friends, use our hot tub for the first time this year, and then scratch our heads as winter suddenly appeared again as we headed back to work on Tuesday morning. (9 images total)
Saturday 26 March 2016
A small part of the expansive view our friends have out of their kitchen windows.
Confirmation Party – The Arnar Version
[Photos from 24 March 2016, posted online 25 March. Progress?]
Today we attended the confirmation party of Arnar, the son of some friends of ours. It was a lovely party, and we had a great time. (Meanwhile, my brother Bjarni was competing in men’s physique, and he won his category! Yay for him!!!)
Usually I end up being a photographer at events like these, but since I can’t really walk about, I decided against taking my big camera. Alas, because apparently I can’t help myself, I still ended up snapping photos on my phone. (15 images total)
The newly confirmed boy with his mom and dad. His two younger brothers were patiently waiting on the side, while I snapped this on their camera.
Screwed
[Photos from Tuesday 22 March 2016, posted online 23 March 2016. It’s hard to sulk with all this spring in the air.]
The day started out with terrible news from Brussels, so spirits weren’t exactly running high when I showed up at the hospital after lunch. The aim was to finally get a screw removed so that I could begin to put full weight on my foot, and begin to get rid of my crutches. Yes it’s been 10 weeks since my breakage!
But no, the doctor decided not to remove the screw. Perhaps it’ll go next week, or the week thereafter, I’ll have to wait and see. I will readily admit that I’m disappointed, and wallowing in self-pity a little bit. Hopefully it’ll pass soon.
The culprit was the shrinking-but-not-fully-healed hole/dip in the big scar (photo is from the England post), formed by a large chunk of clotted blood which got lodged there somehow. Apparently doctors don’t like cutting into legs that have open wounds still (it’s open enough to discharge liquid if squeezed). So, the hole got cleaned, bandaged, and I have strict instructions to leave it be. No scratching or whatnots. Sigh.
Feeling a little lost, and not quite up to going back to work with my metaphorical tail between my legs, I got Finnur to pick me up, and spent the rest of the afternoon working in his office. It was a nice change, although apparently I disturb Finnur’s otherwise very peaceful office-existence! 🙂
Meanwhile, Bjarki went to spend quality time with his grandparents, and he’ll spend the next few days at the summer house with them. I hope they have a lovely time! (7 images total)
The happiest photo of the day: Bjarki with his grandma filling up plastic eggs for the Easter egg hunt this coming Sunday. These are the eggs we brought back from the US after numerous fun Easter egg hunts there.
A Weekend of Dinners
[Photos from Friday 18 to 20 March 2016, posted online 22 March 2016. Stuffed to the gills!]
Three nights of dinner engagements make for a busy but a fun weekend!
Friday I went to celebrate the 40th birthday of a friend of mine, Saturday we visited Solla and Gunni, and then on Sunday we visited Guðrún and Snorri.
This coincided with spring arriving suddenly, so out of nowhere I was desperate to start tidying up and cleaning now that all the dust mites are screaming for attention. With a bum leg not much got done, but at least the Christmas Cards got taken down from the wall in the hall and album-ed, Finnur attacked the garage, and quite a few death traps got removed. 🙂 (15 images total)
Friday 18 March 2016
The birthday girl!
Fever, Snow, Coffee, No Snow
[Photos from Friday 11 to Monday 14 March 2016, posted online 14 March 2016. Now which date does this belong to, once I restore time?!]
It sounds like viruses are swirling all around these days. This past Friday one of them hit our humble abode, when Bjarki came down with a fever, headache, stomach ache, and an unending thirst for more computer time.
I will admit that I was pretty glad I had an excused to take Friday off from work, since I’d mentally (as well as physically) limped through Thursday. My work stamina is still pretty blah apparently.
The biggest thing that ‘happened’ on Friday was that Emma discovered we have a backyard that she can play in after daycare! It was not obvious to her before because it was always dark out, but now we’ve got happy brightness past dinner-time. Yay!
Saturday was a huge nothing-whatsoever-happened-day, but on Sunday the whole family (me included!) ventured out on a library/coffee house-run. We all desperately needed to get out of the house, but decided against actually infecting the friends that had invited us over for dinner, so downtown to infect strangers we went!
Monday rolled around with Bjarki still at home, but this time Finnur took home-duty, while I escaped to work (funny how that works!). Oh, and after two days of thaw, our backyard is now quite snowless for the first time in over three months! (15 images total)
Emma, having recently discovered this “backyard” thing of ours, where she can go out and play by herself, without us having to go out too (which we can’t/won’t because we’re lazy/it’s cold/feet don’t work). Taking photos through the window works though!