Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Summer Vacation Begins/Bjarki’s 12th Birthday Party

2019-07-10Bjarki, Finnur's family, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos from 10-12 July 2019, posted online 28 February 2020. Lots of snow falling lately, driving Anna to school in the mornings has been a bit adventurous.]

Emma finally truly graduated from daycare, as it shut down for its summer vacation. We were rather stuck-in-town though for the work-week because Anna kept working at horse-camp. Happily we finally managed to celebrate Bjarki’s 12th birthday, and even go out on a date night! (25-ish images)

Wednesday 10 July 2019

Hiking & Kayaking Weekend

2019-07-05Friends, Us Standard

[Photos taken 05-07 July 2019, posted online 22 February 2020. The days are getting brighter, finally!]

We spent an active weekend at house #2 on a gorgeous weekend in early July. There was trampolining, hiking (without water or food, silly us!), a water-balloon fight, and kayaking! How lucky we are to have such good friends! (55-ish images)

Friday 05 July 2019

Bjarki and a friend on the tampoline by house #2 in the evening sun.

Outdoor Activities as July Began

2019-07-01Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 04 July 2019, posted online 15 February 2020. Yesterday saw such high winds that most of the capital area closed down in the morning, and all schools were closed! It’s calmer today.]

We’d made the decision to not travel abroad for our summer vacation for the first time in many years, so this was an unusual July for sure. Horse camp played a big role, with Anna working there, and the other kids attending.

For the first week, the weather was super nice, which meant time spent outdoors. (15-ish images total)

Monday 01 July 2019

Our summer revolved a lot around this horse camp. Anna worked there through the city-work-school program, and Bjarki and Emma both attended.

Bjarki Turns 12 Years Old, Anna Bakes & Emma Plays

2019-06-28Us Standard

[Photos taken on 28 – 30 June 2019, posted online 24 January 2020. I’ve lost count of the ‘yellow’ weather warnings since December. Tumultuous weather indeed!]

Lo and behold, somehow it was Bjarki’s 12th birthday!! He opened presents in the morning, and then Anna had very kindly baked a cake for him to take to horse camp.

The following weekend was calm-ish, with Anna going all out making macaroons from scratch, and myself and Emma visiting the farm-animal-and-family-park yet again. (20-ish images)

Friday 28 June 2019

Bjarki in the car about to head to the horse camp with his yummy cake!

House#2 Progress, Endless Walks & Finally RAIN

2019-06-16Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 16 – 26 June 2019, posted online 20 January 2020. The weather is unstable. Very unstable.]

June was such a strange month. The sun would not stop blaring, and the weather was continually awesome, which seemed to render me unable to sleep, which made me anxious.

Nice progress was nonetheless made at House #2, particularly in getting the guest-house operational, and Finnur volunteered to drive up there to start staining the huge deck (which can only happen with zero children around).

I took a ridiculous amount of walks, as it felt impossible to just sit around at home in the evenings with all that sunlight going on. We bought a new car (!!!) after waiting patiently for a sturdy enough electric car, the kids went to their camps, and practices, and life just sort of stumbled along. (65 images total)

Sunday 16 June 2019

The kids at their favorite cafe in Borgarnes, Kaffi Kyrrð. We’d driven up that way in the morning to meet up with Finnur who’d stayed overnight at house #2. My brother Pétur, and his family then joined us a bit later in the day.

Dinners, Gymnastics, & Staining in the Sun

2019-06-06gymnastics, Us Standard

[Photos taken 06 – 15 June 2019, posted online 12 January 2020. It’s been a over a week of storms, they just keep coming, with wind/rain/snow.]

We kept having crazy fantastic weather, with barely a drop of rain. It was very conductive to walks and staining wood, and there’s So. Much. Wood.

Bjarki competed at a gymnastics meet, dinner was outsourced, we visited the farm animal & family park, the guest-house at house #2 got some attention, and Anna prepared starting her first ever summer job (45-ish images total).

Thursday 06 June 2019

Anna Graduates 10th Grade

2019-06-05Anna, Us Standard

[Photos taken 05 June 2019, posted online 27 December 2019. The rain is taking all our snow away. New Year’s Eve fireworks weather is not looking promising. ]

After eight fine years at our local school, it was time for Anna to graduate from 10th grade. Two days prior, the whole graduating group (70-ish kids) had gone on a graduation/team-building trip to the north of Iceland.

The trip was a roaring success, and they arrived sleep-deprived and weepy with emotion a few hours before the formal ceremony. At the graduation ceremony itself, hardly an eye was left dry in the house, as parents and past-and-present teachers talked, gifts were given, hugs were exchanged, lovely words were written in yearbooks, photos were taken, and food was eaten. (35-ish images total)

Wednesday 05 June 2019

Daughter and father, at the graduation ceremony.

The Blazing Sun of June

2019-06-01Friends, Us Standard

[Photos taken 01-04 June 2019, posted online 26 December 2019. Happy Holidays to all! Been a month since the last update as yuletide-prep ate my blogging time.]

Being six months behind on blogging means that at the peak of darkness, I’m rediscovering life near the peak of brightness. There could be a worse fate!

Apparently, walks around the neighborhood loomed large in the everlasting sunshine, and ongoing drought. We also managed to visit house #2, where more progress was made on the guest-house, thanks to crafty friends! (35-ish images total)

Saturday 01 June 2019

Team Building, Gymnastics Show & Graduation

2019-05-29Finnur's family, Us Standard

[Photos from 29 May 2019 to 31 May 2019, posted online 24 November 2019. After a warm spell, we’re back to slightly freezing temps. Finnur heads back to Iceland from California today.]

My group at work has gone through a lot of managers in a short amount of time. As the third manager in four years took the reins (and Excel duty), it was, yet again, time for a bit of team-building. This time the fun-committee decided we should go fishing on a boat, and finish off with a darts competition!

The next day was a public holiday, with all three kids participating in the annual end-of-school-year gymnastics show. This year the theme was superheroes, and what they do is have all the different groups do a particular hero and then rotate them over five shows, so that everybody gets to participate.

The third busy day in a row, we (the adults) attended the graduation party of Finnur’s nephew from junior college. I took some photos of them out in the grassy field behind the church, and got my first insect bites of the season! (45-ish photos total)

Wednesday 29 May 2019

Walking aboard the white and blue boat there on the right.

Plants & Graduations While Solo Parenting

2019-05-18Friends, Us Standard

[Photos from 18 May – 28 May 2019, posted online 10 November 2019. There’s a huge storm heading our way, disrupting Finnur’s plan to fly to California today…]

Every year I pay a tariff to the gardening gods, and buy a bunch of summer flowers, because I’ve never managed to get my $hit together enough to grow my own. This year we got flowers from Ikea.

Finnur went off to work in London for a week, missing Emma’s “graduation” ceremony from daycare. That also meant I was responsible for dinner, sigh. Emma went to visit her school-to-be, Anna tackled her last exams at her ex-school-to-be, random spring walks continued, we attended a junior college graduation, and basked in the sun, not knowing there would be zero rain for six weeks! (50-ish images total)