{"id":41942,"date":"2024-12-27T09:54:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T09:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/?p=41942"},"modified":"2025-06-07T12:07:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T12:07:34","slug":"us-visitors-summer-house-games-fireworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/us-visitors-summer-house-games-fireworks\/","title":{"rendered":"US Visitors @ Summer House \/ Games \/ Fireworks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[Photos taken 27 – 30 December 2024, posted online 07 June 2025. We’re on the other side of a stormy few days, and the nights have been cold. Some plants sustained damage, but most doing ok.<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decided to move everybody up to the “summer house”, as we’d have more actual beds there for our US visitors. The conditions were mild enough for the “middle”-big car to make it up to the house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As luck would have it, we discovered upon arrival that our “big” electric car was refusing to charge, which put a serious damper on any sight-seeing plans as the car had just enough charge to get back to town. In case it was just a case of cold, we got permission to park it inside a nearby barn to thaw overnight, but no luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After marathon game-sessions, and a snowball-y walk to the lake and back, we drove back to town a day early. That meant we could go watch the nearby “official” search-and-rescue squad fireworks show nearby. Our visitors then spent a day visiting museums, while the rest of us rested!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday 27 December 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Cheating a bit, this is a photo from the following day. We arrived when it was dark, so there was nothing much to photograph.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Our guests all VERY AWAKE at noon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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By dinner time, we’d gotten to the summer house, and Emma had ventured out into the snow for a bit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Easy dinner coming up, glad to have a big table! I believe we had hail coming down on us at the BBQ!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Myself (newly hailed on) with Anna (no hail).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Sheri the Shark got the best seat in the house!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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One of the many post-dinner games in progress! (At the bottom of the image: I tried practicing the Set-game, but had no hope of catching up to the pros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A cozy time at the end of the day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Saturday 28 December 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n
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We woke up to some more fresh snow on the ground. With a car on life-support, our options for activities was quite limited.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Easy fall-back, more games!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Shortly after 1 pm, we managed to herd everybody (except Finnur, who sacrificed himself to make lunch) out of the house, for a walk to the lake, and back.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Heading down the hill but also making snowballs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Some people did not bother with snow pants!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The sensible one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Running to escape Augusto approaching from behind with a snowball in hand!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We oooh-ed at the lake for a bit and rolled some snowballs on the ice. The sun was hitting the other side of the valley on the upper left, it wasn’t high enough in the sky to touch the lake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Target practice. A quick check online confirmed that we were about at peak-sun height that day. Yes, our house is in shadow from the mountain for a few months each winter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Bjarki was feeling toasty after all the snowball action, and decided to shed a few layers on the way back.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The not-so-sensible one continuing his under-clothed trek. He walked dressed like that all the way back to home-base.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The return trip was slow going due to fierce snowball fighting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Back at home base, snowballs still flying!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The poor unhappy “I’m not charging right now, leave me alone”-car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We arrived to a fancy lunch buffet! Then we chilled and\/or played more games.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Dinner was a delicious turkey, yum!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The game-crowd going at it hard!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sunday 29 December 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Yet more snow had fallen overnight, so I went out to scrape it. (The mid-sized electric car, in particular, needed some scraping help to clear the way up to the road, so that was fun.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Shortly before 2 pm we all drove back to town (a day earlier than planned).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The big car had spent the night in a heated barn, hoping to thaw some sense into it, but no luck. We picked it up, and thankfully it made it all the way back to town.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Waiting for Finnur to show up at the parking lot by the car-dealership\/shop. He’d driven slowly to conserve the battery. You can see that the dealership has hot-water-heating under their parking lot (uses the run-off from the house itself).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A proud dad playtesting the newest version of one of the many games<\/em> being written by the youngster next to him.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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It was well impressive, although the controls were a wee bit confusing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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After dinner, some of us dressed warmly and walked a little ways to see the “official” fireworks display of the local search-and-rescue squad. They’ve historically done this on New Year’s Eve, but apparently decided to try something different this year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We had a blast! <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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An animated gif of a small portion of the 6-minute long show, wait for it to load \ud83d\ude42<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Three red “suns” signified the end of the show. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The wind was very cold and blowing straight at us on our way back. People employed different strategies to combat the cold!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Brrr, cold!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The old folks played a bit of pinochle, and I got this bizarre hand! I’m pretty sure I took the bid, but I’m not sure if I made it!?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Monday 30 December 2024<\/h2>\n\n\n
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We woke up to a lot of fresh snow on the ground, so I went and cleared the cars and the parking lots as usual.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The scraper had helpfully taken the snow off of the drains. They kept doing a really good job!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Myself picking kiddos up from the movies. Our guests had spent the day visiting museums under Emma’s supervision<\/a>. She apparently wondered how they’d survived all this time on their own!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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My exercise this holiday season was pushing snow around! The public parking lot finally all clear.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A screenshot of the friendly Playstation puzzle came Carto<\/a>, that I managed to finish over a few days as the game-crazies were busy playing their intense games.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photos taken 27 – 30 December 2024, posted online 07 June 2025. We’re on the other side of a stormy few days, and the nights have been cold. Some plants sustained damage, but most doing ok.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

We decided to move everybody up to the “summer house”, as we’d have more actual beds there for our US visitors. The conditions were mild enough for the “middle”-big car to make it up to the house. <\/p>\n

As luck would have it, we discovered upon arrival that our “big” electric car was refusing to charge, which put a serious damper on any sight-seeing plans as the car had just enough charge to get back to town. In case it was just a case of cold, we got permission to park it inside a nearby barn to thaw overnight, but no luck.<\/p>\n

After marathon game-sessions, and a snowball-y walk to the lake and back, we drove back to town a day early. That meant we could go watch the nearby “official” search-and-rescue squad fireworks show nearby. Our visitors then spent a day visiting museums, while the rest of us rested!<\/p>\n

Friday 27 December 2024<\/h2>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Cheating a bit, this is a photo from the following day. We arrived when it was dark, so there was nothing much to photograph.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friends","category-us","post-container col-md-12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41986,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41942\/revisions\/41986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}