More walks around the lake

One Saturday morning in the middle of November (when it was a crazy polar vortex in America), the fall weather was perfect outside. We decided to take a long walk around our lake, and got to a new area I had never seen before.  The first couple pictures are in a wooded area. I loved the green moss sticking out of hundreds of leaves.

And then we found the most quaint little cottage I have ever seen. Complete with a grass roof, bubbling river flowing under it, fall leaves, outside, out in nature where you couldn't hear anything. Amazing! Barrett thinks you can rent places like this. We really should look into it.

A picture on our way back.

Barrett took these pictures from another walk he had with Lily. Aren't the swans here so bold?? I have never encountered swans that will just walk right up to you, especially when you don't have food.

I guess Lily thought it was funny since she was bundled in the stroller. She probably wouldn't have been quite so happy if she had been standing.

The Saga of the Washing Machine: Part 3

You didn't think there would be a Part 3 of this saga right? Yeah me either. In fact, I had planned to do a short, final post about how we have our washing machine back. But I think I have a curse. The other day Barrett told me that what he would be happiest to have back when we live in America again is the convenience of buying... everything really. I responded that easily my overall, number one excitement would be to have a normal washing machine AND even more so, American dryers back. I think it's the one adjustment I won't get used to over here.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I went to wash my towels, after a couple days in between of using the machine, and the door wouldn't open. The door is completely electronic. I can't even open it if I drop a sock on the ground and want to throw it in really quick. Once the cycle starts it starts, and it gets angry if I turn it off and try to restart the cycle, ha ha. There's probably some special way, but none of the translated words even relate to canceling a cycle. So at first I wasn't too concerned about it and turned the machine on and off a couple times, and then I ran two really short cycles thinking the door always opens automatically after a cycle is done. But to no avail. I would hear the sound of the door unlocking, but it definitely wasn't unlocked. I wish I could say I handled it appropriately. But I was frustrated and then became mad as I tried to force the door open. I think Lily learned some bad habits from my poor reaction to the door not opening :) I had only had the machine back for maybe 3 weeks. I thought maybe Barrett could help when he got home, but even the suggested fixes he found in the manual did not open our door :(. This was right before the holidays and our landlords left town for 8 days the day after Christmas. Luckily, they are very nice and trusting, so I spent the last week and a half unlocking their front door, turning off the alarm, then starting a load, and finally setting the alarm again before locking the door. Every time I had to change a load. I'm glad I was able to do wash and it was nice not to have to coordinate schedules to do wash (probably for me and for them), but oh how I miss sitting in my pajamas to do laundry or starting a load late at night without having to worry about going out into the cold when it's finished.

They're home now so hopefully we can start working on another solution soon. But until then, our neighbors can look out their windows again to watch the pregnant lady running in the street with her laundry basket and a toddler trailing behind.

Thanksgiving

This was our second Thanksgiving away from family. We were unsure what the celebration would be like since Thanksgiving is an American holiday, not observed here. But luckily, the Elders Quorum decided to plan a Thanskgiving retreat for anyone who wanted to come in our ward. They rented out cabins that the NATO base owns and we were able to stay in a cabin in Sirdal, a more mountainous area about an hour and a half away from Stavanger. It was SO much fun! 

Here is the little cabin we stayed in with another couple in our ward.

And this was the main gathering place where we ate Thanksgiving dinner.

It was cold when we arrived, but not snowy. However, we woke up to this beautiful layer of white.

After breakfast we wandered around the cabin area and got some gorgeous pictures. The air was so clean and crisp. It reminded me how much I LOVE being outdoors in the mountains. It was very peaceful. I was grateful we had even a short time to spend together in the serenity.

 All of the water had a thin layer of ice on the top. Barrett and Lily started throwing rocks and as you can see above some broke through and some just stuck, ha ha. They would try to break the bubbles like in the picture below.

Here's a short video.

After some socializing and naps we got to enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner :)

I got the recipe for a Czech apple cake from my landlady who is from the Czech Republic and decided to take this with us.

We've had fun swapping some recipes with all the holidays lately.

I decided to do a small Thanksgiving dinner on the actual Thanksgiving (we were in Sirdal the weekend before). I didn't buy turkey, but did brine a pork roast that turned out yummy. Almost traditional, ha ha...

And a little Thanksgiving activity we did with Lily.

And a picture to document our Thanksgiving!

Barrett also had a Thanksgiving meal at work, plus we were invited to one the following Sunday with some of Barrett's coworkers. (Which Lily and I ended up not going to due to missing the bus by literally 10 seconds as I was running to the bus. So frustrating! The annoyance of buses sometimes!) There are a lot of international people in Barrett's group so that dinner turned into a collection of turkey, stuffing, spinach lasagna, chicken curry, curry tomato soup, rolls, etc..... Kind of fun though. For not spending the holiday in America, we definitely got our fill of Thanksgiving, which helped to take away the homesickness, a little anyway.

Rainbow day

I am sure going to miss barnehage when we move from Norway someday. Just before Halloween they had a rainbow day with fun activities for the children. I dressed Lily up in all sorts of colors and she had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.

One of the activities was face painting, which was a little interesting. As you can see, there is a huge "butterfly" on Lily's cheek, well half of her face really, ha ha.

Another activity was eating all the different colorful fruit and vegetables.

I'll have to remember this idea if I every do a joyschool someday.

General Conference

General Conference was definitely a different experience in Norway. I didn't even remember there was a General Women's broadcast the week before because it shows in the middle of the night here. I was able to watch online a few days later. Growing up in Utah I never really thought about the adjustments other members of the church had to make to watch because I watched it on a local channel, live. And it is so much easier now than it used to be because of the internet. Last year we adjusted to watching it two hours later than normal, but since we're 8 hours ahead here the times are confusing. So we started the first session at 6:00 p.m. Saturday night, then watched the second session in the morning on Sunday. We attempted to watch the priesthood session too, but it wouldn't work for some reason, so we had to postpone that. Then another late session for Sunday morning and later in the week we watched the last session. At least we were still able to stay home in comfy clothes and make our couch as comfortable as possible to enjoy the sessions. I'm also grateful we can read the talks whenever we want because I already need a refresher on the amazing talks that were given!

Going out to dinner... memories of Norway

Before we moved to Norway we had heard/read that people don't really go out to eat here because it is so expensive. We hardly went out to eat in Baltimore so we didn't think it would be a big difference, but you definitely get used to having that easy option in the states. Especially after we had spent the whole summer with our families and friends eating out. It is relaxing, fun to try new places, yummy, and kind of a social thing to do. We did get milkshakes one time for a date night (which was about the price of going out to eat) but other than that we hadn't ventured out. One Saturday I wanted to get out of the house and I REALLY felt like going out to eat. We looked at options, prices, and with more deliberation that you would imagine, decided to go to a pizza place in the mall near our house, called Al Forno.

We ordered a pizza, that we easily finished in one sitting, and shared a soda and spent about $45. The pizza was very yummy so we were glad it was worth it. But we definitely won't be going out again for awhile, ha ha.

Visit to the Norsk Oljemuseum (oil museum)

Oil is a major part of Norway's recent history. Oil was found in the North Sea in the 1960's and has been a huge source of income for Norway since. We had heard about the oil museum and decided to go one rainy Saturday and it was actually a lot more interesting and fun than we thought it would be. And in true Norwegian family-friendly fashion, they even had a kids' play area. Here are some pictures from the day.

Lily by the kids' play area.