Cabin in Randøy

Beautiful, beautiful Norway! I feel so blessed to have lived in such a gorgeous country. I pestered Barrett the whole year to request time with his work cabin and we were finally able to get there on Mother's Day weekend. 

To really get a sense of our adventures in Norway I always have to tell the funny stories of living/traveling without a car + 2 children. So there were two routes to get to the cabin, both of which involved considerable walking for carrying luggage. We could take our normal 20 minutes bus ride down to the pier and then either take a couple ferries and get off with a 10 minute walk to the cabin, or take a ferry then a bus and have a 20 minute walk to the cabin. Due to the timing of when we wanted to leave/feeding times/nap times we decided to take the bus option on the way there. The drive was amazing! You just drive on everyday roads in Norway and it's breathtaking. There is water everywhere and greenery and mountains and valleys, plus all the tunnels you drive through (which sounds boring but they have some pretty sweet tunnels here through mountains and under fjords). Anyway, after a couple hours of travel we pushed the button when we saw the name of our stop on the screen and the bus dropped us off. Here. In the middle of nowhere. The bus drove away and complete silence. We started laughing so hard. I mean you look at the map of where the stop is and where the cabin is in advance, but you have no idea what it will be like to actually push a stroller full of our luggage and two children while the other person drags a roller suitcase. We had to take a picture. Behind where this picture was taken is just forest.

A not-so-great backend view of me pushing through the canyon road. Notice the lack of sidewalks on this narrow, mountainous road:)

A huge bridge we crossed.

And the spectacular view of the fjord while on the bridge.

I love grass-covered roofs.

At our turn-off to the cabin there was a field of sheep.

It felt like we were in a movie. I had to post this video of the jingling bells to give the full effect.

2 busses, 1 ferry, another bus and a trek through the mountains and we made it to our cabin.

The view from the back deck of the cabin. We found out that they were just finishing a major remodel of the cabin, where they added this open deck with a glass railing. There was also a huge window in the living room so you could just sit on the couch and look out to this all the time. Amazing.

We invited some friends, but sadly no one could join us. So we enjoyed our usual weekend movie night. But first the DVD player was broken (because who watches movies at a getaway cabin, ha ha) and Barrett was determined to fix it. Which he did. I love my engineer husband!

The next morning Oliver woke me up really early to eat and let's be honest, I was pretty annoyed. But I came out to this amazing sunset (picture taken through that big window I mentioned) and my frustration and sleepiness diminished (a little anyway:) ).

The wind picked up that morning and it rained and rained and rained that Saturday. Oliver and I didn't even step outside. But it was still a very relaxing day with games, naps, Doc McStuffins, etc. etc.

Luckily, Sunday made up for the rainy Saturday. Barrett's company also owns a boat that you have access to while staying in the cabin.

Getting ready for the boat ride. Doesn't this picture make her look so old?

From the dock looking up to the back of our cabin.

View of the dock.

Seven-week-old Oliver in his infant life vest, ha ha!

I took a ton of pictures from the boat ride because of the beautiful scenery.

Can you spot the little white sheep on the hill?

We rode until we were too cold to ride anymore.

And too fast our weekend at the cabin came to a close. On our way home I told Barrett that if we had gone to the cabin sooner maybe it would have changed our minds about staying in Norway ;).

And as is Barrett's way, writing in the guest book became a creativity project. So if you'd like a recap of what we did you can just look at this picture. I didn't even need to blog, I should have just posted this.

Walking with our bags-only 10 minutes to the dock this time :)

Waiting for the ferry.

And our sleeping children on the ride home.

We had an amazing time! And did I mention it was beautiful? ;) I need to find some new description words. Thank you Laerdal for the amazing time!

Oslo

We knew after Oliver was born we would need to make a trip to Oslo to report his birth and to get a passport for him, if we wanted him to be an American citizen and to be able to leave the country :). No he is not a Norwegian citizen, sadly. Many people ask us, but that's not how they do it here. 

Anyway, we were excited for an excuse to visit Oslo. It's a 9 hour train ride so we decided to purchase tickets in the sleeper car so we could take overnight rides. We slept in the train on the way there and on the way back. Lily thought it was amazing! She still talks about and pretends we are taking the train to Oslo.

The train left after 10:00pm, but Lily was as energetic and happy as could be when we got her out of bed to go to the train. She collected all the blankets that they left on the seats while we waited for the train to leave.

 It was cramped quarters in there! We should have taken better pictures, but there's Lily's bed up at the top. Barrett slept on that top mattress and had to lift her to where she slept. I slept below and Oliver got to sleep on the floor :). There was literally no room next to me or at the bottom of the bed for a baby. Don't worry we made up a blanket bed so he wouldn't roll around. I don't know how we didn't get a picture of him sleeping on the floor.

I say this all the time, but I am SO happy we purchased this stroller before Lily was born. It is extremely durable and has carried all my groceries since we moved to Baltimore. But we have learned even more what it can hold with the trips we've taken since we've been here. We were able to load both of our bags of luggage and food, plus two children while still being able to use public transportation. Pretty amazing. And you can position the seats in all sorts of ways. 

Lily loved facing Oliver and was cute with him.

And it was great for sleeping on the go.

 

Although we went to Oslo because of the U.S. embassy, it was only an hour of our trip, and probably the most chaotic part. Our appointment was just a couple hours after we arrived. The tiny room was packed full of people, with literally no seats left, and here we come in with 2 children. While we were waiting Oliver got hungry and after some time of him crying and me looking around at where to go, some sweet older lady stood up so I could sit down and feed him. Then Oliver had a dirty diaper so we had to find a spot on the counter to change him. And shortly after, we look out the window and see our stroller rolling by, hahaha! It really was the only chaotic part of our trip and we were surprised how well both children travelled, but every now and then you get a laugh out of what can happen when traveling with young children. Hopefully some others found it comical to watch too.

With that out of the way we were able to explore. Our first stop was Akershus Fortress. It was a huge area! The surrounding wall went on forever.  It also had a long history, starting back in the medieval ages when it was used as a castle. We weren't able to go in the courtyard because they were filming a television show (boo!).

Then we went to see the Oslo Opera House. You can walk up the slanted roof.

 Barrett loves modern architecture so we got some good pictures of the building.

One of the funny parts about living in a foreign country is how they spell your name. I've had the hardest time with Lily and my name at doctor's offices. Good thing they are short and simple. But here is our Yates order: "Jatz" (Their "y" sound here is a "j")

Our hotel was really close to the royal palace so we walked around the gardens after dinner.

Off to a not so fun night sleeping in one hotel room with a newborn and a toddler, but we all fell asleep eventually and were ready to go the next morning.

We started the next morning at the Viking Ship Museum. We were highly recommended this museum and weren't sure about it, but when we got there we were so happy we went. It was really neat! They have 3 viking ships (from 800-900AD!!) that were discovered in the late 1800's by farmers. They were used for burials and were found buried deep in the earth. Because of how they were buried there are many artifacts still around and they can give a fairly accurate analysis of how the people died with the skeletons they found inside. It's hard to see it in pictures but the huge, old, wooden boats were really cool to see.

The Norsk Folkemuseum was also really neat. We could have been there all day. I didn't take that many pictures, but they have preserved a small town area from early Oslo and they have one of the first apartment buildings ever built with apartments decorated from different time periods.

Most of the reason we relaxed and had a lot of down time was because I had to feed Oliver (who was only 5 weeks old) all the time. But it made for some fun time for Lily and Barrett together. I always liked to see what pictures they had taken after I was finished.

This one was taken from a "selfie station". Have you seen these around? Haha!

We also saw a stave church at the museum. 

 The inside chapel. You can't see it form the picture but there is a balcony with benches.

 The carvings in the wood were so intricate. I can't imagine how long it would take to carve this entire place!

 Another reason we love this stroller: it goes on any terrain. Although this made me a little nervous.

Does anyone else loved European telephone booths? They were all over in Oslo.

The Fram Museum. The building was built around this Norwegian polar expedition ship.

While Lily was doing this...

 ...we were playing! This museum had some fun activity areas. 

This one makes me giggle every time I see it. 

We couldn't get Lily to take a picture in it when she woke up.

The Kon-Tiki Museum. I won't go into the history of this, but it was about crossing the ocean on a reed raft.

While riding the bus from the museum to our next destination we met a guy who will be starting his master's degree in Oslo in the fall. He was visiting with his mom and after watching us for a time she asked where we were from and started talking to us about when she was first married. The son was born in Switzerland and only lived there for a few months, but has always been intrigued about foreign business because of being born outside the country. The mom was also one of the first people I've talked to (outside of the Americans in our ward) who could completely relate to the difficulties of grocery shopping, traveling around with an "american stroller" rather than a pram, using public transportation and getting a passport and birth certificate for a child born abroad. We really enjoyed talking with them.

And finally we made it to one of the biggest attractions in Olso, Frogner Park.

 We knew it was a park full of statues, but this isn't quite what we expected, ha ha. But we took pictures of what Barrett and I related to the most??

It was a beautiful park! And despite what the pictures may look like, it was pretty cold the whole time we were there so we didn't walk around the park as much as we would have liked.

Going out to eat is very expensive in Norway so I was proud of myself for planning and packing food for our few days there. We only went out to eat 2 1/2 meals! We found a Hard Rock Cafe and spent as much on that one meal as I would have for one of my grocery shopping trips. Yikes! (And this was one of the less expensive places with a discount from our Oslo Pass.)

Anyway, we loved the feel in Oslo. We got to visit a lot of places, but it still felt relaxing and we had such a fun time with our new family of 4.