Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Lovely-Ladies-trip to Thórsmörk / Hike Towards Tungur

2023-07-14Iceland Standard

[Photos taken 14 July 2023, posted online 20 April 2024. Spring is in the air!]

It turns out that I’m a sheep when it comes to outdoor activities. I suck at making them happen, but will happily show up when someone tells me to be somewhere, and do the thing.

Thus it was that I was invited to join what turned out to be a 10-lady group on a weekend trip to Thórsmörk (Þórs-mörk, the area/forest of Þór/Thor), which is a beautiful area in the south of Iceland, only accessible by large all-wheel-drive vehicles, as the rivers leading there change too fast for bridging to make sense.

Friday 14 July 2023

Photo from 5 in the afternoon, of me standing in front of Mýrdalsjökull (Swamp-valley-glacier), home of Katla, the volcano, which is due for a burp.

Kayaking & Eruption-Monitoring on Vacation Eve

2023-07-08Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 08 – 13 July 2023, posted online 14 April 2024. Today I want to clear out the garage, ooof.]

We’d gone ahead and bought a couple of kayaks at Costco, and then scratched our heads long and hard on how to transport them to and from the lake. Thankfully we found roof-racks for the big car, and after some more head-scratches, the roof racks were installed, and a YouTube video consulted on how to fasten kayaks on top. We invited the soon-to-be-Swedes to the summer-house for a bit of a farewell, and lucked out with the weather!

We then held our collective breath until yet another volcanic eruption began. It was far away from everywhere, and would last for just under a month.

Finnur remained at the summer house, working remotely during the day, and oiling/staining wood outside of working hours. There’s a lot of wood that needs to be taken care of there… Meanwhile I cooked (once), weeded, gymmed, and prepped for my formal summer vacation!

Saturday 08 July 2023

Success! Emma in one of our kayaks on the Skorra-valley-lake.

July Warmth = Jog, Tub, Sunsets & Horse Camp

2023-07-02Friends, Us Standard

[Photos taken 02 – 07 July 2023, posted online 14 April 2024. I have resigned from my current job! Still have a few more weeks to go until leaving for good. Hard to leave excellent coworkers, but brain wants a change.]

July rolled around, and with it some lovely weather-days. I went out for a jog, and even cleaned the hot tub in the backyard, which rarely gets used. The sunsets were of the “are-you-kidding-me”-type evening after evening, we starting subscribing to fruit deliveries, the earth rumbled, and Emma finished yet another horse-camp session.

Sunday 02 July 2023

At the tail end of my 5k jog I found the cave-let (Maríuhellar) that is a few steps away from a previous jog-route, but I only recently discovered existed.

Mom’s South-Coast Birthday-Trip & Bjarki’s 16th Birthday

2023-06-25Birthday, Graduation, Hrefna's family Standard

[Photos taken 25 – 30 June 2023, posted online 16 March 2024 from Brussels. Yesterday I saw dinosaur fossils, and The Smile (nearing dinosaur-status, but not fossilized, yet).]

We went on an afternoon-trip with mom to celebrate her birthday a few days prior with a fleet of four cars, then attended another university graduation party (we know so many studious kids!). A few days later, we celebrated Bjarki’s 16th birthday, and he took his first driving lesson, thankfully returning unscathed.

Sunday 25 June 2023

Mom surrounded by offspring, spouses, and grandchildren. One brother sadly couldn’t make it.

Outdoorsy-Days of June, Gym & Graduation

2023-06-16Friends, Graduation Standard

[Photos taken 16 – 24 June 2023, posted online 15 March 2024. Still in Brussels, still no eruption in Iceland.]

I guess our lives have settled into a deep groove at this point. With the long, lovely days of June came the usual: e-biking, weeding, summer-housing, gymming, horse-camp, and attending a university graduation party!

Friday 16 June 2023

The e-biking group gathered at 6 pm within easy biking distance from home, and did a 20 km circuit.

Mowing-time, Birthday-time, Biking-time & Ducks!

2023-06-10Birthday, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[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

Shopping, Meeting, & Departing in CA

2023-06-06USA Standard

[Photos taken 06-09 June 2023, posted online 10 March 2024. Still no eruption.]

While planning my California trip, I allocated one day to shopping, a walk, and a downtown-dinner. The day after I managed to invite myself to visit a person I’d been regularly remote-meeting with for work that whole spring, and then it was time to fly back home!

Tuesday 06 June 2023

A signature tree of the area during a cloudy morning.

Stanford Reunion & Memorial, Bjarki Graduates 10th Grade!

2023-06-04USA Standard

[Photos taken 04 – 05 June 2023, posted online 3 March 2024. We’re waiting for the next burp, err… eruption. There was a small magma-run yesterday, but it stopped before peeking out of the ground…]

My whirlwind-visit to the San Francisco Bay Area continued with a reunion of the Stanford lunch group (or whatever to call it?). The following day was dedicated to attending the memorial of Prof Len Tyler, and then literal walks down memory lanes as I walked all over the Stanford campus, curios to see what was new and what was the same.

Sunday 04 June 2023

Reunion group! It was remarkable that we got so many together, as so many of the Stanford-ians we know have moved away from the area.

California Revisited

2023-06-01Friends, Hrefna, USA Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 03 June 2023, posted online 17 February 2024. There’s been another eruption since my last post! This one took out the hot water pipe to the Reykjanes peninsula, but it was fixed by building a road on top of days-old lava, and reconnecting a new pipe on top of it!]

June was a busy month. It began with Bjarki departing on a multi-day trip with his graduating-class to celebrate the end of their journey together. Trips like these came about to stop 10th-graders going on drunken binges downtown to celebrate finishing their compulsory education!

Then I was off on a whirlwind-trip to California to attend a memorial ceremony for Professor Len Tyler, who’d passed away a few months earlier. It so happened that I also managed to wrangle together a meetup with lots of old friends, as well as inviting myself onto the campus of a company that I’d had remote meetings with for months. The biggest drawback was that I missed Bjarki’s graduation ceremony, but the boy did good, and passed all his classes!

Thursday 01 June 2023

Kid going on a three-day trip with his class-mates. What’s deceptive about this image is that his bag is in fact quite large and long.

Chef-lings, Graduation-Season, & Outdoors-ing

2023-05-20Friends, Graduation, Hiking, Us Standard

[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.