Merry Christmas! Gleðileg jól! Happy Solstice! Gleðilega sólstöðuhátíð!
2011-12-24Uncategorized Standard
Merry Christmas! Gleðileg jól! Happy Solstice! Gleðilega sólstöðuhátíð! 🙂 🙂 🙂 All in all – HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 🙂Read more
Christmas Tree!
2011-12-23Uncategorized Standard
We spent Christmas 2010 in England, and therefore never bothered to buy a Christmas/Yule-tide/Solstice tree last year. This year we were planning to cut down a tree in our own back-yard, but when the time came it was already dark out, the tree wasn’t that pretty, and we were feeling lazy. End-result: Finnur drove to the nearest tree-depot and bough a tree.
It is customary in Iceland to put the Christmas tree up on the evening before Christmas Eve, so that’s what we did. As it happened, Bjarni and mom were delivering presents at the same time, so we got them to help out.
Anna and Bjarki walking aroud the decorated Christmas tree stand…
Ný Nökkva -og Jóhönnudóttir! :)
2011-12-21Uncategorized Standard
On 16 December 2011, my brother Nökkvi and his spouse Jóhanna welcomed their second child! She was in a hurry to get here, and measured 53 cm (20.9 inches) long and weighed 4 kg (16 ‘merkur’, 8.8 lbs) on arrival. All were healthy and happy and they went home later that day. Since we wereRead more
An Early-Bird Christmas Vacation
2011-12-09UK Standard
Once I found out that I’d be all done with final exams on December 5th, I went right ahead and bought tickets for us to spend 10 days in the UK before Christmas with dad et al. It’s always nice to change scenery, and get a little extra daylight over the darkest bit of the year in Iceland. So to England we flew, and spent the days mostly just hanging out at my dad’s, oh and I did a bit of shopping too. 🙂
Friday 9 December 2011
The stewardesses of Icelandair have this lovely custom of coming out into the main waiting area and sing happy Yule-tide songs before heading to the planes (which all depart around the same time). They're really quite good!! 🙂
Biking in the Snow
2011-12-06Uncategorized Standard
After biking pretty much daily to work in the balmy fall weather, frost and snow hit us like a brick in the latter part of November and nobody has stepped forward to remove the brick yet. I was all ready to keep biking, but for some reason my schedule became such that I’ve been car-riddenRead more
A Thanksgiving-Feast with Ex-Californians
2011-12-03Uncategorized Standard
While living in California for ten years, we were incredibly fortunate to meet and befriend other Icelanders who lived in our area. Many of those ended up moving back to Iceland (as one does!) and we still keep in touch with many of them. Out of the ‘large’ group of friends, a small ‘core’ emerged, and this group meets up once per year to celebrate Thanksgiving – because who else would give a damn in Iceland?! 🙂 (This year the feast got delayed a bit, so it almost merged with Yule-tide – hence the decorating of ginger bread houses! 🙂 )
Our hosts this year were Soffía and Ágúst in their newly built house, and just like last year, Finnur missed the party – this time because he himself was in California on a work-trip!
Happy chit-chatting by the kitchen-island. 🙂
Daycare Christmas Ball
2011-12-03Uncategorized Standard
Bjarki’s daycare center held its annual Christmas Ball in the main-hall of Anna’s school. There was walking-around-a-fake-Christmas-tree-while-singing, a Santa-Clause showed up and regaled the kids with stories, before going on a sit-with-children-spree. All in all it went really well, and a good time was had by all! 🙂
Anna and her best friend at the ball doing a song-move.
Proper Snow
2011-12-01Uncategorized Standard
As usual, I found myself moaning about the weather being so nice for so long this November. Mostly it was my nerves about ‘climate change’ speaking. And then the snow hit and I felt a bit better. But as of today (16 Jan 2012) it’s still here and my ‘climate change’ nerves are starting toRead more
Cold
2011-11-30Uncategorized Standard
We’ve finally entered a cold snap and, it’s freezing! Literally! Unfortunately I’m also carrying around the other kind of cold, the nasal-drippy, raspy-voice kind of cold. I’m hoping yesterday evening was the worst of it though, and that it will be getting better from now on. It does feel like both nostrils are equally cloggedRead more
Cousins and Ginger Bread
2011-11-27Uncategorized Standard
Grandma Anna sent this picture of Anna cutting out ginger-bread cookies with two of her cousins (children of Finnur’s sisters). Is is just me or does Anna look extra grown-up in this picture?!Read more