sight seeing and a smoothie/waffle party

Doro and I went to town today to do a bit of sight seeing while Erlend had to go to work. After we picked him up from work and had some dinner, we invited the whole family and some friends over for a party at our house. We got a blender as a Christmas present, so of course we had to try it out and what better way then to have a smoothie/milkshake party :-), we had banana-strawberry-orange smoothie and snickers or smash milkshake and a triple batch of waffles - good stuff :-)

 Doro, having fun with a famous Norwegian guy (they built him a statue but nobody seems to know who he is :-))

Erlend's parents being cute

DORO IS HERE!!!

The long awaited visit of my sister is finally happening! We picked her up from the airport tonight and she was up for going straight away to party, where we had lots of fun hanging out with our cousins, brothers and sisters. I love my whole extended Norwegian family and I enjoy so much to introduce my German family to them bit by bit!

 

 picking up the special guest

The off-centered spatula and the Wii

The first time after Christmas that I saw my precious niece Emma she came running towards me screaming, "You know what I got for Christmas?" and with the biggest smile on her face she announce proudly, "An off-centered spatula!!!" Now, while most people don't know (and it is not something that you NEED to know:-)) what that is, I knew that it has been Emma's deepest wish for a few months to have such a cake decorating tool that she had seen on her favourite baking show. I have not often seen a child being so excited about a Christmas present (her mom told me that she actually took it into bed the first night :-)) and it was so much fun to see her use it for the first time today - she decorated our dessert.

After dinner we played some Wii with Levi and Emma. It is a good work out and Erlend was surprised to be beaten by a 7-year-old :-).

 Emma and her off-centered spatula

the finished product - well done, Emma!

 Levi and Erlend battling...

... in baseball

game night

We had a wee game night with two other couples tonight, playing a game in which you had to mimic or draw a word. Playing that in Norwegian is quite an achievement for James, the gentlemen to my right in the picture, and me because you actually have to understand the word before you can mimic/draw it.
It was very close, but I am proud to announce that the girls won! :-)

"Dagmar" hits hard

The strongest storm since the "New year hurricane" in 1992 just hit Vigra last night.
There's some damage on buildings and quite a lot of trees that have fallen down.
Right now we are enjoying the power while we got it :-)
The storm calmed down during the day but is up and storming away again...we have to fight our way through the wind to town in an hour to pick up my antibiotics...pray that we will get there and back ok.

 This tree fell on the power line leading to our house...

P.S. Apparently "Dagmar" means peace and joy...hm

Christmas Eve

Last night we had a lovely Christmas Eve with family at my brother-in-law Helge's house. We had some good traditional food, devotions that reminded us about the real meaning of Christmas - Christ was born!- and then some not too serious singing and then present opening. Thank you to everybody who gave us awesome presents! We feel very privileged to be part of two awesome earthly families and even more so - to be part of the Christian family world wide!

Erlend being very happy about one of his presents :-)

As awesome as the evening was, it did not end to amusing for me....I officially now have what Erlend had a few days ago - fever, sore throat, headaches, cold sweats...not so fun.

What Christmas is about...

Saw this on the internet and found it so appropriate...

getting in the Christmas mood

The weather outside is nasty, so we decided to do something fun inside - some Christmas cookie baking!

 Erlend showed some unexpected serious pepperkake decorating skills  :-)

Weekendtrip final part

Here are the last pictures from our trip last weekend (Erlend called it our honeyversary, as it was our first wedding anniversary on the 18th).

 Erlend chilling with little Aisa cabin-style :-)

 celebrating one year of marriage in Bergen's "winter wonderland"

with our hostess Erna, Erlend's oldest sister

Thank you, Erna and Fred for being so hospitable!

Weekend trip part 2

Last weekend we also visited Erlend's oldest sister and her family. In the picture you can see me with their adorable youngest daugther (okay I admit it, the picture is not from this weekend but was taken in the summer, but we still haven't gotten our camera back....).

sick day

There is no other pictures that discribes today better than this

Erlend has been sick with headaches, sinus pain and I am guessing a fever.... he went to work but was send home by the boss. Probably not the best idea to drive a truck when you have the shivers....
Get well soon, baby!

Weekend away Part 1

We went away for the weekend to visit friends and family. Our first stop was our friends Daniel and Esther and their three lovely kids. They studied with us in England and we had not seen them since the summer. It was so nice to catch up and it was very special how both of the older kids still remembered us and greeted us with the biggest us hugs :-)

P.S.: More pictures will follow but it will be a while as I forgot our camera at my sister-in-law's house :-(...

going away...

...on a wee trip over the weekend, will be back with pictures on Monday :-).

keeping up the tradition

My mom always makes these around Christmas time, so I had to keep up the tradition, they are called "Hildaplätchen" and have jam in between two layers of cookie, all sprinkled with powdered sugar - what's not to like? :-)

one year ago...

... at your civil wedding I gave up my Papa's name (not a pretty but a good name, one that actually means 'to cuddle' in Norwegian :-)) to take on the name of a man I committed myself to for the rest of our lives. All it took was some signatures (well actually A LOT of them) after one of them all of a sudden somebody called me Mrs. Røsvik - I loved it and still do today :-)! Vielen Dank, Familie Kuhs, for giving me away and tusen takk familien Røsvik for taking me in! I love you all!

Santa Lucia

This morning before Norwegian class I went to the primary school here on our little island to see my nephew and his class mates sing songs and recite poems in honor of Santa Lucia (no, not the Caribbean nation, but the Christian martyr). I was very impressed with how well the performers did and how quiet all the other kids in the audience were.

Hot Chocolate at the beach

After dinner tonight we decided to do something fun. So we packed a backpack with two cups, a thermos with hot chocolate and a blanket and headed to the beach behind our house. We used the super cool mittens that a friend gave us that has two normal ones and one double mitten in which you can hold hands :-) (you can see it in the last picture). Sorry about the bad quality pictures, but they had to be taken with a lot of flash (darkness issues) and in a hurry (rain and wind issues).

6 hour meeting

We just came back from a lovely Sunday Bible Study/lunch/coffee meeting. Good to be in the Word and catching up with friends and family!

That's right

That's right, I know it is hard to believe but we actually do live in the area that is shown in this video (take some time to watch it  - 2 min). It looks incredibly beautiful in the movie and it is, at least on the days that it does not rain :-)

Thai, ginger bread cookies and banana bread

We had Markus and Sarah plus their kids and Grete over for dinner today and the title of this post tells you what we ate :-), we like having guests! :-)

 the kids enjoying some Haribo (Danke, Mama fürs Schicken :-))

we made these because my Norwegian culture study advent calendar told me to 

(tusen takk, Kristine :-))

Feierabend

I have no clue how to translate that title, but I guess it means "after work" and that is what Erlend and I are enjoying right now with a cup of hot chocolate and in our new pyjama pants - we love it! :-) And yes, Jon, that is a penguin on my shirt :-), it came with the pants :-).

painting...again

Today was another day filled with painting and it was the turn of the kitchen of my Norwegian parents. After I had painted the ceiling I looked like a lot (A LOT) if tiny snow flakes had landed on me, one even landed in my contact lens (not so cool!).
Now we will go and watch the Bayern München game - Go Bayern!!!

final touch ups

pepperkakemann

Today I spend the afternoon with my sister-in-law Marte and her kids. We decorated some ginger bread cookies. So much fun! Thank you, Marte, for ladysitting me :-)!

white blanket

Last night I couldn't sleep, I was tossing and turning and listening to the storm outside, thinking about how happy I was to be inside :-). There were a few lightnings, so I thought, as I wasn't sleeping anyways, I could watch the storm a bit. I peeked through the curtains and guess what I saw!?!? A beautiful white blanket of snow was covering our backyard. I actually woke up Erlend (which he does not recall even though he got up looked outside and said "Oh, I am glad the winter tires are on our car") I was so excited (what is it about snow that makes you feel like a little kid wanting to jump up and down? :-))
I took a shot out of our bedroom window this morning, but the snow had already melted a bit....

Sunday afternoon visit

After our Bible study in the morning we had our friends Janneke and Natalia over for lunch and coffee. We love having friends over for food, fellowship and good talks. Thank you Natalia and Janneke for a lovely afternoon :-)

julebord (literally "Christmas table")

Today we were invited to the house of Erlend's boss for a Christmas party. It is a very small company so there were only eleven people including us. I had lots of opportunity to practise my Norwegian and actually managed to understand most of the conversations and participate in some.
I did not take any pictures at the bosses house (did not know if that would be culturally appropriate :-)) so will just post the before/after shot :-).

Before the party, Erlend being silly, ready to go:

 After the party, Erlend too tired to be silly :-):

Norwegian culture study advent calender

My friend Kristine made me a very cool advent calendar. Everyday there is something that will teach me about Norwegian culture or that is very Norwegian itself. Yesterday she made me make a "Nellik-calendar" which is an orange full of 24 nellik (Nelken, and I don't know what it is in English) think and you can take one out every day of December until it is Christmas. I love my wee calendar, what a fun way to learn about Norwegian traditions. Thank you so much, Kristine, you are awesome! :-)

welcome home

Pictures from Monday night, Sarah and I picking up our men from the airport :-).

Didn't take us long to find them :-)

learning - studying - wrecking your brain

Language study - what can I say about it? It messes with your head, your emotions and your life!
One day you feel like you are getting a hang of things and you are making good progress and the next day you feel like you have learned nothing, you sound like an idiot and you wish those stupid people of Babel would never have tried to built that tower - reaching a tower that reaches to the heavens, come on, people, what were you thinking?!?!?! :-)

If any of you know somebody who is trying to learn a language right now, please, give them a break, a hug or a pat on the back, because learning a language is seriously humbling!
Why? Well, while you might be able to sound reasonably smart in your own language, now you sound like a 3 year old (and that would be the best-case-scenario, usually you might be closer to the 1-2 year old :-)). And you are always tired which explains, why toddlers need so much sleep - because they are learning a language! :-)

I know that I should be thankful, and I AM, for a wonderful language teacher,  a funny bunch of class mates and the most understanding husband in the world, but sometimes, I guess, on those days that make you feel like you will never get the hang of it, you want to vent a little bit and today, oops, that turned into the post of the day.

The picture of the day is showing the very cool online program that we are using in class. It goes along with the work book we are studying with.