Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Spring Gymnastics Show & 20 Year Reunion

2016-06-04Bjarki, Hrefna, Us Standard

[Photos from Saturday 4 June 2016, posted on Sunday 12 June 2016. Finnur’s traveling to Munchen for four days.]

My last Finnur-less day, for the time being, was packed to the gills, with Bjarki’s year-end big gymnastics show starting at 1 pm, then driving the kiddos to their respective babysitters, before joining my 20 year Junior College (MR) reunion, which had events beginning at 2 pm and lasting long into the evening.

And of course Emma starting the day by falling ill with a spring cold.

Being a third child, I took her temperature at noon (38.5 C/ 101.3 F), gave her fever-reducing medication, dragged her to see Bjarki’s show (It. Was. Amazing!), dropped Bjarki off at Steinunn’s, and Emma off at her grandparents’, and then reunioned until about 9 pm, at which point drove back to pick Emma up, and took her home. (Phew!)

The final numbers of the evening: 39.4 C/ 102.9 F, followed by another fever-reducer. (19 images total, 1 video playlist)

Bjarki, with the pineapple who wanted to be a dictator/king, and was thwarted by the other fruits in the fruit bowl (aka Ávaxtakarfan).

Haircut, Dresses, and an Idyllic Evening

2016-06-03Us Standard

[Photos from Friday 3 June 2016, posted online 9 June 2016. Sick for the past couple of days.]

This Friday was a weird one, mostly because it stayed warm-ish and idyllic far into the evening.

Most of the happenings happened after work. Finnur’s parents’ picked Emma up from daycare, so I could have 30 minutes to go dress-shopping with Bjarki as my fashion consultant. We then zoomed on over to the hair salon, where Bjarki got a haircut, and then more zooming happened to pick Emma up. I believe we took the easy way out and had store-bought sushi for dinner…

We spent the evening mostly outside, and getting the kids (Emma in particular) to go back into the house, was no easy task. (Finnur was still in California.) (8 images total)

(P.s. Anna had taken off earlier in the day with a friend + her family to go camping out in the country over the weekend!)

Yeah, fast charging degrades the batteries, but they’re so much fun (and free!). This is me and Bjarki outside the mall.

Chocolate, Photos, Books, and Weeds

2016-06-02Us Standard

[Photos from 2 June 2016, posted online 5 June 2016. It’s midnight and still bright outside! ]

Thursday was a busy day. I left work early to take Emma to see the doctor (see below), drove Bjarki to gym practice, nursed Emma’s broken spirit after the doctor accidentally drew blood, picked Bjarki up, took both kids downtown to say hi to Lotta who was opening a new photography show of hers, spent some time fruitlessly looking for a certain book in the library, second hot chocolate run next door, and then finally home! (13 images total)

Emma's hand sprouted a wart around the time she had chicken pox (the two may be related?). That afternoon the doctor drew accidentally drew blood while clearing away dead skin, which left Emma in such a state that I ended up giving her the Professor Lupin treatment, i.e. copious amounts of chocolate. It worked!

Emma’s hand sprouted a wart around the time she had chicken pox (the two may be related?) which refused to go away by itself. I’ve been taking her to see a doctor weekly, and that afternoon the doctor accidentally drew blood while clearing away dead skin. This left Emma in such a state that I ended up giving her the Professor Lupin treatment, i.e. copious amounts of chocolate. It worked for the most part.

Finnur’s Flying to California

2016-05-24Us Standard

[Photos from 24 May 2016, posted online 24 May 2016. I should go to bed soon.]

Today, Finnur took off on his twice-yearly work-trip to the mother-ship in Mountain View (Gaaah, don’t look at the pictures, doooon’t! Ack, too late. Now I want to go too!) He’s on the plane to Seattle as I’m typing this.

He’ll only be gone for 12 days this time around, instead of a full two weeks, and then some, because I need my sanity, and because the flight prices/schedules lined up that way. Thankfully, school is winding down, so we should all survive. Knock on wood!

Some media from today (4 images and 1 tiny video):

Anna showing us her artwork from this past school year.

Kids’ Spring Concerts

2016-05-17Guitar, Píanó Standard

[Images and videos from 17-18 May 2016, posted online 18 May 2016. 9 pm feels like 5 pm daylight wise.]

Since I last blogged (27 April), Finnur’s traveled to England with his football-buddies for a long weekend, I’ve traveled to Prague with my sewing club girlfriends for a long weekend, and we spent the last weekend (also a long one!) at the summer-cottage by Laugarvatn!

Add to that the usual mix of full-time work, three kiddos, and spring looming with a thousand-and-one projects that seemingly need doing (but don’t get done, they just loom), and there is little to no energy left for frivolous things like, say, blogging.

But, I’m putting my fingers down to post that the big kiddos just finished their spring performances, with Anna on piano, and Bjarki on guitar.

Anna is not a big fan of performing, so she chose a simple short-ish song. The final decision on whether she’ll continue next year will be made on Friday, but most likely this is it for her formal music education.

Bjarki, on the other hand, is less jaded, and is game for another year of guitar.

Enough chit-chat, on with the media! (2 videos and 4 images total)

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Anna went first with “Bláu augun þín”. I apologize for the substandard sound quality!

First Day of Summer, Nature, and Jigsaw

2016-04-21Friends, Us Standard

[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!

Nap-Drive and Emma

2016-04-17Emma, Us Standard

[Photos from 17 – 18 April 2016, posted online 27 April 2016. Evening light is upon us.]

We can still trick Emma into napping in the afternoon by driving her around for a bit. We like to do so before we’re having visitors over for dinner, or visiting someone for dinner. Usually she falls asleep in five minutes, but this time she was super wired, and took half an hour to nod off. Therefore I ended up in our back-country, which I found to be surprisingly pretty.

Also, this was the week Emma had chicken pox, and she spent most of it at her grandparents’ place. (7 images total)

Sunday 17 April 2016

Emma took a long time to fall asleep so I ended up in the back-country to our fair city. I’d never been there before! This is the parking lot where you park to go walk up on Helgafell.

Sandbox, Pippi, and Chicken Pox

2016-04-12Bjarki, Emma Standard

[Photos from 12 to 16 April, posted 17 April 2016. Laptop got plugged in.]

Some photos of Emma and Bjarki playing in the sandbox in the sun, Emma with a Pippi Longstocking (Lína langsokkur) hairdo, and Emma with chicken pox. Boohoo! (10 images total)

Tuesday 12 April 2016

Tuesday was a lovely day, and almost warm enough to skip a jacket… but not quite. The kids hung out in the sandbox for a bit, until we hit kitty litter.

First 2016 Trip to Laugarvatn

2016-04-09Laugarvatn, Us Standard

[Photos taken 09 to 10 April 2016, posted online on 17 April 2016. My laptop battery is dying.]

Finnur and his siblings share access to a summer house his late grandparents built at Laugarvatn. According to The Online Speadsheet, it was our turn, and since the weather forecast was nice, we decided to venture out into the country-side a bit.

Finnur busied himeself with fixing some piping issue under the house, while the kids and I erected the trampoline.

To help ease our loneliness, our friends Guðrún og Snorri (their kids were busy in town!) arrived around dinner time on Saturday, ate dinner, played a fun board game, and then took off after lunch on the Sunday.

Sunday turned out to be really nice weather-wise, a couple of kids ended up in the underwear on the trampoline, while I face-sunbathed, in a jacket, and under a blanket. (11 images total)

Saturday 9 April 2016

Mount Hekla seen from the patio.

Bjarki’s Spring Gymnastics Meet

2016-04-08Bjarki Standard

[Photos from 8 April 2016, posted on 20 April 2016. Random public holiday tomorrow.]

Bjarki and the other boys in his gymnastics group showed off what they’ve been working on this past winter, around dinnertime one recent Friday.

Yes, we’ve done this before, but I’m not sure we’ll do this again as Bjarki’s interest is waning. We’ll see how it goes, but we think it’s done him a world of good. (7 images and 1 video playlist)

The group of kids that were showing their skills that evening.