Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

The Days Leading Up To Christmas: Surgery, Concert, Dinners, and Decorations

2015-12-17Christmas, Us Standard

[Photos from 17 to 23 December 2015. Posted on 9 February 2016. It’s freezing outside!]

Finnur landed on Monday morning, and got a couple of days of relative peace and quiet to reorient himself. Then we were off on the crazy roller-coaster known as the Days Before Christmas. Or as I posted on Facebook on Wednesday 16 December

Just mentally counted down what is scheduled to happen before Christmas, and what needs to happen before Christmas. The two aren’t exactly very compatible. Where’s a blanket I can crawl under and emerge from sometime in January?

The week before Christmas, i.e. on Thursday, Bjarki’s adenoids (nefkirtlar) were removed, and he moved in with his grandparents to recuperate in peace and quiet. That evening Finnur and out went out to have a fancy yuletide-dinner with my workmates. The day after that we went to a fun Christmas concert (Baggalútur), and then out to dinner again.

On the Saturday we celebrated the birthday of Anna and two of her cousins (to be seen in a different post), and then on Sunday I could finally start to actually prepare for Christmas.

The following days were a whirlwind of working, gift shopping, and wrapping presents long into the night. Finally it was 23 December, at which point the tree went up, and got decorated. And somehow we all made it to Christmas. (12 images total)

Thursday 17 December 2015

Bjarki chillin' with a book after waking up from anesthesia, after the doctor removed his adenoids (nefkirtlar). Shall we pile on the parental guilt by mentioning that he's probably had a nasal infection for the better part of the last couple of years? Hmmm...

Bjarki chillin’ with a book after gently waking up from anesthesia, after the doctor removed his adenoids (nefkirtlar). Shall we pile on the parental guilt by mentioning that he’s probably had a nasal infection for the better part of the last couple of years? Hmmm…

December Without Finnur

2015-12-02Finnur's family, Friends, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos from 02-13 December 2015, posted on 7 February 2016. Still on the couch.]

Finnur was in California, visiting his work mother-ship, from 27 November to 14 December. That span covers three weekends. Ayayay!

I’m collecting the photos I took during the first half of December here. I was hunkered down in survival mode, but still stuff happened. Crazy! (41 images total)

Thursday 3 December 2015

Emma loves mixing colors, and painting.

Lots-of-Snow Day & Christmas Photo Attempt #2

2015-12-01snow, Us Standard

[Photos from 1 December 2015, posted online 3 February 2016. It’s bad, I know!]

The weather forecast predicted so much snowfall on this day, that most adults who could work from home, did so, me included. So I said goodbye to the kids, and then had a lovely day working from home. It’s entirely possible that when I get back on my two feet, that I’ll try to institute a work-from-home day every month.

Once they got home, I put up the insta-photo-studio, manged to convince the kids to put nice clothes on, and then I took photos to use for a Christmas card. The card got made, but was never printed, and was only distributed online. Oh well, there’s always next year!

Bjarni came over for dinner, and then I took photos of the copious amount of snow covering the ground, after two days of snowfall.

Photos! (26 photos total)

Emma on her sled as I pulled her home from daycare that afternoon.

Christmas Photo Attempt #1

2015-11-29Us Standard

[Photos from Sunday 29 November 2015, posted online 21 March 2016. Happy 60th Birthday That Was Dad!]

December was almost upon me, and I still hadn’t finished taking Christmas Card Photos! Panic! PANIC!!!!

So, in a fit of insanity, I rustled up the it-sort-of-sometimes-works-but-not-really home-photo-studio, commandeered the kids into fancy clothes, and then made a total mess of taking photos.

It. Was. A. Disaster.

Everyone left the session unhappy, and I mentally kicked myself for all the mistakes I had made, up to and including the terrible background I’d chosen.

Thankfully, some friends had invited us for dinner, so we could take a bit of a breather from ourselves. Thank goodness for great friends!!!

But. Photos were still taken, and so here they are. Also includes a few non-photo-session ones. (17 images total)

How hard can it be to get a good photo of three kids? Pretty darn hard, it turns out!

Thanksgiving 2015

2015-11-28Friends, Thanksgiving, Us Standard

[Photos from 28 November 2015, posted online 21 March 2016. The thaw helps with blogging apparently…]

No sooner had Finnur left for California, when some of the ex-Californians got together to celebrate Thanksgiving! Oh, and it also SNOWED a ton overnight! (20 images total, HERE ARE ALL THE PHOTOS)

Very thankful ex-Californians about to eat a lot of great food.

Bjarki’s Advent Gymnastics Meet 2015

2015-11-27Bjarki Standard

[Photos from Friday 27 November 2015, posted online 20 March 2016. The spring meet is less than a month away..!]

I’m digging up old stuff again. And yes, this was the day Finnur departed on his twice-yearly, at-least-two-weeks-long, work-trip to California, an my life became significantly busier.

This was also the day Bjarki’s gymnastics group had their “meet”, where they show what they’ve been practicing, and get graded by judges. This was around dinner time, so Finnur’s parents adopted Emma for the night, and she got to sleep over. (I remember me and the big kids eating take-away pizza for dinner.)

The weird thing about this meet was that Bjarki’s group was the only one present in the whole gym! It must have been the result of some sort of a scheduling nightmare, because there were multiple groups running in the slot before his slot, and there were hoards of kids still to perform over the weekend.

But it was sort of nice having the room so peaceful, even though it was a little weird. (6 images and 1 video playlist)

Yup, the ONLY group there! This is them marching in.

Filling in the November 2015 Hole

2015-11-01Finnur's family, Friends, Us Standard

[Photos from 1 to 26 (!!!) November 2015, posted online on 16 March 2016. This is what guilt looks like!]

This past autumn somehow, slowly but surely, crushed me.

By the time the kids were taken care of by 9 pm, I was totally done for, and blogging (which I enjoy, darnit!) rarely happened. Documenting our busy summer months took half of forever, so when I looked back over the year in January, I discovered I’d posted ZERO things from November. That hasn’t happened in years…

Since November (and the autumn in general) still taunts me, I’m going to try and give it a little love. I hope you bear with me! (42 images total)

Sunday 1 November 2015

Anna wearing a fun mask her grandparents bought on one of their recent travels.

Quiet Time

2015-10-25Hrefna Standard

[Photo and text from Sunday 25 October 2015. It’s proof that I’m alive!] Yesterday was a day of catching up with family and friends, we hardly spent any time at home! Today’s been more quiet. I spent the morning finishing up my homework for an online course I’m taking, helped the kids go out toRead more

Ólafur Vilhelm Named

2015-10-21Finnur's family Standard

[Photos from 18 October 2015, posted online 21 October 2015. Time is on fast-forward!]

The same day as I returned from a week-long work trip to Canada, Steinunn and Einar hosted a naming-party for their second child.

Their older child, Þórarinn Víkingur, was named after his granddad on his mom’s side, so it didn’t come as a huge surprise that the new guy was named after his granddad on his dad’s side. The party was a great success with fantastic food, and a celebratory mood all around! (15 images total)

A cake with a name on it!

The Tail-End of October 2015

2015-10-19Us Standard

[Photos from 19 to 31 October 2015, posted online on 7 April 2016. The Icelandic political situation is depressing.]

Just photos from the tail end of October of last year. Bits, and bobs, as usual. (20 images total. Note the first version of this post only had 11, as it didn’t include Halloween.)

Monday 19 October 2015

A charging post was installed at my workplace, and I decided to finally test it out. It seems about as efficient as the one we’ve got in the garage at home.