Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

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.

Foot Getting Better

2016-04-04Hrefna Standard

[Photo from Monday 4 April 2016, posted on 6 April 2016. Icelandic politics are still in turmoil.] Monday marked an important milestone, as I drove myself to work that day! And back home! It felt very adult. Walking between the car and the entrance took a while though… Today was day six of walking unassisted (no moreRead more

Birthday Party at Steinunn’s

2016-04-03Birthday, Events, Finnur's family, Us Standard

[Photos from Sunday 3 April 2016, put online on 5 April 2016. Politics in Iceland are insane right now. The mind boggles.]

It was a mostly quiet weekend. On Saturday I drove for the first time in about three months!!! To celebrate, I took Anna on a slow shopping trip for some outdoor equipment for the school trip she’s on all this week, and we also made a library run. Then we all spent the evening with some good friends.

Sunday was pretty quiet, but we did attend the birthday party of Steinunn and Einar’s one year old boy. (5 images total)

(After the party Iceland’s version of the Panama Papers reveal was broadcast, and the entire nation gasped. It’s been a wild ride since.)

I can drive again!! Freedom!!

Less Screwed!

2016-03-31Hrefna Standard

[Photos and post from 31 March 2016. Yay!]

After two false starts, the third time was the charm, and the horizontal screw was finally removed today. Yay!

It didn’t start off well, as I had to wait for over an hour after I arrived, because they ran into trouble with a more involved screw removal ahead of me in line. But, once they got started, it went really smoothly, and wasn’t painful except for the numbing (as always).

I could feel right away that I’ve got more range of motion in my ankle. Instead of being limited to second position (ballet style), I can now stand (crookedly) in first position, i.e. with my heels together.

Now I just have to relearn how to walk. Yay! (5 images total)

This was in me.