Oh, Tuesdays, you are lovely. 🙂 Life is crawling back to its regular non-yuletide-season self, and I must admit I’ve missed Tuesdays. I slept until noon*, lounged on the computer for most of the afternoon, and then took Bjarki to his swim-class at the end of the day and went swimming myself. Afterwards I nappedRead more
Today I played the part of family chauffeur. We (only) have one car (still), so if I need to be out and about, I need to confiscate the car in the morning when Finnur goes to work. Due to scheduling issues, he planned the day so that he would arrive later than usual, but wouldRead more
January 6th marks the end of Christmas in Iceland, and is called ‘The Thirteenth’. As usual, Finnur’s parents invited their offspring and families to have some hot chocolate and other goodies on the day. When we returned home shortly before dinner-time, Finnur then shot up the remainder of our fireworks, much to the enjoyment of the kids.
Here, have some photos!
Arriving at grandma’s and grandpa’s house. (And, hardly any snow, just frozen ground.)
A few observations now that I’ve taken the blood-pressure lowering pills for two days. 1) They are not placebos. As in, they do affect the body in a noticeable way. For example… 2) … two to three hours after taking a pill, I become quite sleepy. (Mental note: I should plan on napping for anRead more
So, I met with the midwife early this morning, and we agreed that it was time to try some blood pressure lowering medication. I got an appointment with a GP a couple of hours later (midwives can’t write prescriptions) and now I’ll be taking one pill per day for a few days before my nextRead more
Sigh. My blood pressure looked positively ‘normal’ for a single day between Christmas and New Year’s, but aside from that ‘normal’ day, it’s just been getting progressively higher, aka ‘worse’. Which is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy because as the numbers go up, I stress about them going up, which makes them go upRead more
Ok, this is technically a day late, but HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 🙂 Since it’s a new year and all, I figured it might be fun to look over the year the was – for this blog. First off, a tally of visits and pageviews per day: It does look like the blog has more visitorsRead more
[Written 2 January 2013]
We decided to do things a little differently this New Year’s Eve. In years and years past in Iceland, we’ve usually started the evening with Finnur’s family and then switched over to my (Hrefna’s) family around 10 pm and spent midnight perched up on a hill watching the crazy fireworks with them. As a result, Finnur hasn’t actually welcomed the New Year with his family in, uhhh, well over a decade (or even ever since we began dating 18 years ago?).
This year we therefore decided to just hang out with Finnur’s family for the entire evening, which was for the best because a) I was feeling extra tired and digestion-napped twice during the party, and b) my pelvis was feeling sensitive and wouldn’t have liked to climb or descend the usual hill for the fancy fireworks-view.
Here are a truckload of pictures from the evening!
Aaand just for kicks… Previous New Years Eves here: 2011 in Iceland, 2010 in Iceland, 2009 in LA, 2008 in LA, 2007 in Los Altos, 2006-1 and 2006-2 in Iceland, 2005 in Iceland, 2004 in Iceland, 2003 in Mountain View (Anna 1 week old), 2002 in Fremont, 2001 in Iceland, 2000 in LA.
Finnur lighting a few small fireworks in front of our house right before leaving for the big party at 6 pm. The kids are huddled behind him on the picture.
[Written 2 January 2013] After weeks and weeks of frost and rain but no snow, we finally got some white stuff on 27 December. (Last snowfall was in November apparently.) It kept snowing the day after, but this snow was very very wet, and with the ambient temperature hovering around zero, this is what happened:Read more
[Written 29 December 2012]
We can’t possibly fit my family and Finnur’s family and our closest friends into our house at the same time unless we can have people sit out in the garden – which is not really a possibility in December. We’ve therefore opted to do a birthday celebration with Finnur’s family on Christmas Day (which is Anna’s actual birthday), and then a party for my family and some friends at a later date. This year the ‘later date’ became Boxing Day (aka ‘The Second Day of Christmas’ in Icelandic).
To keep things simple, we invited people over for a brunch/lunch at noon which meant that prepping started the evening before (apple crumble and pineapple cheesecake), and we had to get up at a pretty early hour to clean and keep on cooking and baking.
Here are some pictures from the party:
Having already tried my hand at a ‘proper’ chocolate cake the day before, I felt it was fine to opt for easy way out this time. I used half of this package in the new cake-form Anna got from her grandparents the day before.