Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Peace and Quiet Never Bodes Well

2014-05-08Uncategorized Standard

Emma’s getting to explore more areas of the house now without constant adult supervision.

Sure, we keep an ear out for her, and close some doors so she doesn’t get herself into too much trouble. But, we’ve noticed that she’s getting pretty good about not eating everything in Bjarki’s room, so we sometimes let her roam in there for short periods of time while we’re in some other room.

Today, I meant to quickly go downstairs to fetch some milk in a cup for her nap, but ended up needing to wait 10 minutes for the dish washer to finish because we were out of sippy cups. Something on the computer caught my attention, and in my brain I heard “oh, I can hear Emma, she’s fine”. A few minutes passed, and then … all was quiet upstairs.

I quickly filled her cup of milk and headed upstairs to find… (2 images total)

Emma, very happy having demolished half a toilet roll. Finally!

Animated gif of the proceedings follows…

FFF #13 – Elf Books and Arts Academy Graduation Show

2014-05-03Uncategorized Standard

[Written 5 and 6 May 2014]

This weekend’s FFF outing was super short, because yet again, the schedule was full. (The big kids practice three sports between them, and ALL THREE had meets this weekend!!!)

Once Finnur and the kids returned from the Saturday football and team handball meets, I basically grabbed the camera and ran out the door with Anna in tow, because she’d begged for a trip to the main Reykjavik library to get more manga books. We had about an hour before Finnur needed to be out the door for his own thing, so we had to be quick.

Once inside the main library, we discovered we’d inadvertently stumbled upon a small art-show opening, so we stuck around and checked it out. Once we’d satisfied our curiosity, we ran next door to Hafnarhúsið (the outing’s main target) where the current crop of Iceland Academy of the Arts graduates were showing their work.

The “elf books” at the library were adorable, and the Arts Academy show was hit and miss as usual. Incidentally, I realized belatedly that I’d seen elf-books during last weekend’s outing, on the walls of Cafe Loki. Small city! (33 images total)

The books Anna was returning on the self-serve counter, but what was that party in the background?

FFF #12 – Einar Jónsson Museum, Cafe Loki, and Hallgrímur’s Church

2014-04-27Uncategorized Standard

[Written 3 May 2014]

This week was so busy that I never managed to do a recap of last weekend’s FFF outing, but here at last it is!

The main goal (heh) this time was to visit the The Museum of Einar Jónsson, which is yet another place I’ve driven past a thousand times, but never actually entered. Happily, the museum is right next to the church of Hallgrímur (famous poet), which is always fun to take photos of, especially in nice weather.

It turns out this Einar guy was Iceland’s first (modern?) sculptor, educated in Denmark around 1900. I hadn’t realized, but I’ve seen his work all over the place – he’s responsible for many of the ‘main’ sculptures found around town.

Now, having walked through the museum, I’ll grant him that he was a really good sculptor, but not really my cup of tea. (Too religious, and dramatic.)

On to the photos! (83 images total, eeek!)

The museum building. From the museum website: “In 1909, Einar Jónsson offered all of his works as a gift to the Icelandic people on the condition that a museum be built to house them. This gift was not accepted by the Icelandic Parliament until 1914, however. The Parliament contributed 10,000 crowns to the construction of the museum, while a national collection yielded 20,000 crowns in private donations.”

Last Day of Winter

2014-04-23Uncategorized Standard

[Written 25 April 2014]

Summer officially began 24 April 2014 (Who decides these things?! And why isn’t it the first of spring and not summer!?!?), but the last day of winter was a beauty, so here are a few pics to commemorate it. (10 images total)

I dropped Emma off with her grandparents, and got this photo of them heading out for a walk. (Anna’s fetching something inside the car.)

Easter Day 2014

2014-04-20Uncategorized Standard

Easter Day finally arrived with its promise of copious chocolate and candy. First the kids had to find their eggs though… (28 images total)

NOT an Easter egg!

FFF #11: Ásmundarsafn and Te og kaffi at Borgartún 21A

2014-04-13Uncategorized Standard

I aaaalmost didn’t make it out of the house for an outing today…

First of all, I hadn’t formally planned anything (although I had an idea or two kicking around), and secondly, I was really tired for some reason. But, the weather outside was lovely, so after laying in bed for a bit, I rallied and kicked myself out of the house.

Today’s destination was one of those places I’d driven past thousands of times, but never actually entered.

It’s called Ásmundarsafn, or the Museum of Ásmundur Sveinsson. He was a sculptor, who built and lived in the house that currently houses the museum. Go here to check out his catalog owned by the museum.

I was duly impressed by the building itself, as well as some of his pieces. Ásmundur was probably a pretty cool cat in his day and age!

Alongside the works of Ásmundur were more recent works by other Icelandic artists. They were more hit or miss. (55 images total)

At the museum entrance. The museum sits on the edge of an outdoorsy sports and family area called Laugardalur (The valley of the hot springs – people used to wash their clothes there).

Behind Again. Ugh.

2014-04-13Uncategorized Standard

It looks like I took a mental blogging break. So now I’m behind again. Be warned that random stuff may appear in a random order. Or not appear in case my mental blockade keeps going. Ugh.Read more

Emma’s First Steps

2014-04-11Uncategorized Standard

[Written 14 April 2014] Emma hasn’t been all that interested in walking, probably because she’s an expert crawler. Recently I’ve been holding her hands and having her walk with me, and lately she’s even gotten pretty good at walking if I only hold one of her hands. This post is just to mark the occasionRead more

The Civil Confirmation of Hilmir

2014-04-06Uncategorized Standard

[Written 14 April 2014]

Finnur’s nephew, Hilmir, was civilly confirmed (as opposed to religiously confirmed) a couple of weekends ago. The ceremony was performed by Siðmennt (translation: The Secular Humanist Society?) and was apparently fantastic, as told by those in attendance.

Hilmir’s family invited a bunch of people to celebrate at the clubhouse of the the Seltjarnarnes golf club, and I was asked to take photos, which I did.

I won’t bore you with ALL THE PHOTOS (click if you’re curious), but here are a few samples (8 images total)

A family photo.

FFF #10 – Volcano House

2014-04-05FFF Standard

Soooo… The FFF had to take a couple of weekends off because I was limping along with an injured heel, and two-hour walking-fests weren’t really high up on the want-to-do list.

My heel is slowly getting better, although I did a stupid thing at gym again, and probably made it slightly worse (again), but that’s just the nature of plantar faciitis. It’ll take a while…

But I was getting antsy again, so I decided to finally visit a low-walking venue that I’d both seen on the TripAdvisor to-do list for Reykjavik, and driven past a few times, sparking my curiosity.

It’s called Volcano House (#20 on the TripAdvisor list), and is basically a tourist trap/cafe/restaurant/rock display/tiny cinema. I really doubt they get a lot of Icelanders through their doors, so I figured I’d fall on the figurative sword and see what the touristy fuss was about.

The short story is that the meat soup was filling, but on the salty side, the rocks were mostly pretty, and the videos made me wonder why the heck anybody would live in Iceland. Ever. And that the people that do are therefore nuts and/or ridiculously stubborn. Which, incidentally, isn’t very far from the truth. (41 images total)

The Volcano House lives on the ground floor in that house on the left. On my left is the Reykjavik Main Library, previously visited here.

The Volcano House lives on the ground floor in that house on the left. Unseen, left-ishly behind me, is the Reykjavik Main Library, previously visited here.