Goodbye California

Departure day.  We woke up around 6am, ran around a little like headless chicken, but somehow managed to pack the car and be at the airport well before the departure of our flight.  Embarrassingly, we didn’t get a family photo of our gracious hosts, Sarah and Augusto, mostly because of the headless-chicken thing.  Jason woke up just in time for our departure so we got to wave him and his cheeky grin goodbye.   Yes, sniffles.  Bucket-loads of sniffles.

At a cafe at the airport, having gone through security with an obscene amount of hand-luggage. JetBlue flies out of the International Terminal at San Francisco, so the food was a wee-bit more upscale than what is usually available at the domestic terminal, but I must stress the 'wee'.

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Bye bye daycare

On the last day before our departure we settled our affairs with our landlord, and then paid a last visit to Bjarki’s daycare.  We visited the various classrooms to say goodbye to Anna’s old teachers as well as Bjarki’s old teachers.  When it was time to visit his current classroom, we discovered that all the kids had gone outside to bike so Bjarki biked too while we chatted a bit.  Then it was time for final hugs.

Bjarki bikes off after his friend.

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A Sunday of goodbyes

Anybody spot a theme for our last few days in California?  Yes, goodbyes.  Nothing but agonizing goodbyes.  It’s good to know though that we’re almost certain to meet some of the Icelanders again in Iceland (since all vacations of Icelanders living abroad must involve visiting Iceland) and these days a lot of our non-Icelandic CA friends live on Facebook or in IM-land.  I’m sure departures like these were more abrupt in the ‘olden days’, but still, sniffles.

We began the day at a park close to where we were staying (Sarah and Augusto's house). We gathered there with the families of the local Icelandic 'sewing club' members for a potluck brunch.

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A Saturday of goodbyes

Our last weekend in California was predictably jam-packed with goodbyes.  Let the sniffles begin!

Augusto busy at the breakfast table. Sarah was busy by the stove.

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End of Kindergarten and YMCA

Kindergarten had its last day today, and so did the YMCA Kid’s Place where Anna has been in aftercare. There were a lot of hugs, emotions, and mementos.

Anna graduates from Kindergarten.

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Movers!

The movers from Peeters Transportation arrived 20 minutes early, at 7:40am.  They started with a survey of all our stuff. Then they started working.

The kids checking out the 40 foot container before they went to daycare and school

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Medical whirlwind, stuff for sale.

We’re taking Bjarki to see all his specialists before leaving lovely CA (today was the first really warm day in months!).  The GI doctor recommended continuing his anti-acid medication (long-term usage side effects ‘unknown’), and today was the eye doc’s turn.  He liked what he saw although he confirmed that Bjarki’s right eye drifts inwardsRead more

Taugatitringur

[July is here!  The move to Iceland is now frighteningly close and we’re all getting slightly nervous.  Well, ok.  A lot nervous. ] Þar með er júní runninn upp.  Það eru tíu dagar í að flutningafyrirtækið fjarlægi allar okkar eigur, fimmtán dagar í brottför til Nýju Jórvíkur og tuttugu og þrír í komu til Íslands.Read more

Tvær vikur í flutningsmenn

[Movers come in 2 weeks time.  I’m panicking.  Oh, and writing a paper.  Oh, and …] Á morgun verða 2 vikur sléttar í að herdeild af flutningamönnum ráðist inn til okkar og flytji innvolsið inn í gám.  Ég er nett stressuð, enda eftir að pakka heilmiklu ennþá.  Við erum búin að fylla 14 kassa, aðallegaRead more