[Written 29 August 2013]
As Þórarinn’s (Finnur’s dad’s) 70th birthday was rapidly approaching, the siblings organized a yard day at their parents’ house, to make it prettier for the upcoming party.
It was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny, and the grandkids had a good time in the yard.
[Written 28 August 2013] Anna’s not a big fan of taking care of her hair (#cough#mydaughter#cough#) so I decided to throw in the proverbial towel for long hair, and hauled her to the hair salon to get most of her hair chopped off. I confessed to her stylist that we were having some hairy issues,Read more
[Written 25 August 2013]
We didn’t do anything fancy to celebrate Finnur’s 39th birthday, but he did cook himself (and us!) a fancy meal. He got presents, and Emma got her first taste of rice. All in all an eventful day!
Finnur getting his birthday present…
[Written 25 August 2013]
We stayed with Finnur’s parents at their summer house, Brekkukot, by Laugarvatn from Saturday until Monday. On the Sunday the kids convinced Finnur to take them fishing, while Emma and I had a quiet time.
Finnur tending to the fishing equipment, while the kids look on.
[Written 25 August 2013]
My engineer/lawyer-sewing club (as opposed to the Ex-CA-living club) headed out to an impromptu camping trip the same weekend we were at Laugarvatn, and it so happened that they were a 15 minute drive away from us, in Miðdalur (Middle-valley).
Once we’d settled in and had dinner, we therefore drove on over and enjoyed a few hours in the beautiful outdoors with excellent company.
The campers (and one drive-in family from the city area) having their own dinner.
[Written 15 August 2013]
We very much love our house and garden, but they come with a penalty: there’s a lot of wood that needs staining, preferably ever year or every other year.
Last year we were staining some part of the wood-work pretty much throughout the summer, but this summer has been wet, wet, wet, so we were already well into July before the weather got dry enough that we could finally get some outside work done.
Now, we heard from a friend that the staining oil/paint is really quite toxic, so Finnur took it upon himself to be The Stainer (while I remained The Breastfeeder). Which meant that poor Finnur spent all the sunshine days staining all the doors and windows on the lower floor and balcony. And we totally forgot to take a single photo of him doing it!
Towards the end of the week, Finnur reminded me that we’d always meant to fix the mess we made on the house walls while staining the balcony last year, and since this job required normal house paint, I volunteered.
Come Friday, Finnur’s parents were kind enough to take the older kids with them to their summer house by Laugarvatn , giving us 24 hours of pretending to only have one kid before we followed them there. (And boy is having one kid a walk in the park easy!) 🙂
We used the opportunity to get Indian take-away (which the kids frown upon) and to paint. Yes, very exciting.
Last year, when we stained the balcony floor, we neglected to cover the walls of the house itself. As a result, the white-ish walls were covered in ugly brown streaks, which needed to be painted over.
[Written 15 August 2013]
For our second ‘summer vacation’ week we signed Bjarki up for the same horse riding school as Anna had attended. This was the last week the school operated this summer, and Bjarki’s group consisted of only four kids! (Apparently attendance drops off in July because people go ‘elsewhere’ for their vacation. Each group usually has 10 kids.)
Bjarki on Stormur.
[Written 11 August 2013]
We tried to grow some vegetables this summer in the garden, most notably carrots and radishes. We tried both sowing first inside and then moving the plants outside, as well as just sowing seeds outside. Here’s what’s happened so far:
This particular pot has parsley on the far end, which started out in small pots inside, and was moved outside sometime in June. It never managed to get any bigger though. I neglected to sow any outside. The plants around the middle could be weeds, or they could be flowers I sowed back in June. I’m waiting to see if they bloom before I’ll know for sure.
[Written 10 August 2013]
This day marked the first in a string of really really nice weather days. Anna made cupcakes, and two of my brothers (Pétur and Bjarni) came by to hang out in the hot tub. First though I had to get the patio chairs up and running, and look what I found on one of the armrests…
Hello nest of tiny spiders! Yes, I finally opened up the patio chairs (that have been stacked up against a wall during this wet and miserable summer) and look what I found. I asked Finnur to get rid of them and he relocated them to some other part of the yard. I found another nest that was unhatched, and threw that one in the trash.
The kids put down blankets on the deck and brought out some toys, and Emma. The cleaned patio chairs were used to create shade.
[Written 10 August 2013] The Monday of Week Two of this year’s Summer Vacation was a quiet one. In the morning we drove Bjarki to the horse riding school, because we’d gotten permission to sign him up for their last week of operation this summer, even though he’s a year under their usual starting age.Read more