City Family Park & Fákasel Horse Theater
[Photos from 03 August 2016, posted on 02 OCTOBER 2016. There’s a storm outside, so let’s pretend it’s still summer!]
I was just done with painting after finishing the outside of the house, so to give Finnur peace to continue the seemingly endless task of staining wood, I took the kids to the farm-animal/family park in downtown Reykjavik.
While we were there, a reminder popped up for a trip to the Fákasel Horse Park with some of our Icelandic friends from California. Finnur wanted to keep on working, so I took the kids, and we had a grand time! (21 images total)
Emma at the end of riding in a large circle on horse-back at the farm-animal park.
Visiting Laugarvatn, Slakki Petting Zoo, and Thingvellir
[Photos from 24-26 July 2016, posted online 11 September 2016. Baby steps.]
It was “our week” at the summer house Finnur owns with his siblings, so to the summer house by Laugarvatn we went! With us were Adda and Halli, plus kids, and a lovely time was had by all (we hope). We visited a small petting zoo for the first time, there was more jogging, and on the way back, we stopped at various places to hunt Pokemons. (23 images total)
Anna and Finnur at the overlook point by Þingvellir, as they hunted for Pokemons on the way back to town.
Day #7 in Sweden: Visiting Friends & Second Beach Trip
[Photos from Sunday 17 July 2016, posted online 4 August 2016. Two posts in one night? It’s really late…]
On this lovely Sunday, we went and visited our friends, Stina & Tommi. (Yes, this is the same Stina that Anna and I went to watch sing a few night earlier.)
Afterwards, we decided to try the ‘other’ beach in our town, and the kids had fun splashing around for a bit, while Finnur went grocery shopping. (23 images total)
By Stina & Tommi’s dining room table.
Bjarki’s 9th Birthday
[Photos from 28 June 2016, posted online shortly after midnight. Hopefully.]
Bjarki turned 9 years old today! Click here if you want to read up on the day of his and Reynir’s birth, also known as the best of times, and the worst of times.
But, Bjarki keeps thriving, and he was pretty excited to open his presents this morning. He then spent the day at a camp (námskeið) with the local scout group, before coming home in the afternoon, and spending pretty much the rest of the day on some computer or other. It was his birthday after all!
With Finnur slowly making his way back from Nice, France, via Vienna (!), and not expected to arrive until right now (30 minutes past midnight, technically on 29 June) I invited Adda, Halli, and their kids over for some hamburgers, ice cream, and muffins. Bjarki even got to blow out a candle!
Formal family celebrations will have to wait a bit, probably until next week, while Finnur recovers from his football adventure in France, and until the weather forecast gets its act together.
Some photos from the day! (9 images total)
The birthday boy!
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!
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.
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!
Dinner with Ragnar, Agnes and their Munchkins
[Photos from Sunday 06 March 2016, posted online 10 March 2016. It hasn’t even been a whole week!]
Ragnar and Agnes (or Agnar and Ragnes, as I usually miscall them, oh brain!) are old friends of Finnur’s. They’re good fun to be around, but live psychologically far away, so we never used to meet up with them much. (They live only 30 minutes away by car, but it involves driving across barren land towards Keflavik airport, making the trip feel much longer.)
Then, during a stroke of genius, we started planning our next meeting before the current one ended, some 6 weeks in the future. Of course, rescheduling happens, but once it’s on the calendar, chances are we’ll actually meet up sooner rather than never.
As it happened, it was Agnes’ birthday (!!!), but they still came over, and we all had a lovely time.
Some photos from my corner on the couch follow… (11 images total)
Agnes, the birthday babe, with her second born.
The End of January … From the Couch
[Photos from 28-31 January 2016, posted online 4 February. Lots of snow coming down, with wind. Oh fun!]
Since I’m stuck on the couch, this blog is stuck on the couch. Deal with it.
Yes, here follow more photos taken from my corner on the couch. It mostly just the kids, but we did entertain Saturday dinner guests, which was nice. The biggest news was probably Anna winning a bronze medal in Shot Put (kúluvarp) in her age group, during her first track and field meet ever. (15 images total)
Thursday 28 January 2016
Bjarki, hunched over a screen of some kind.