You've got mail

This came in the mail today from Germany and is a result of our drive from England to Germany in the summer. Erlend is not proud of it even though he claims that the good side of it is that he is REALLY part of the Kuhs family now :-).

graut, grøt, porridge, Milchreis

Today, for the first time, I am making porridge all by myself. Norwegians love eating this with cinnamon, sugar, butter and sometimes some salty, dried meat. I love to eat it too, leaving out the dried meat part :-).

comments

Hi everybody,
we were told by several people that they had problems commenting on our blog. So we asked Sarah to use her super blogger skills and she changed a setting. Everybody should be able to comment without problems from now on. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say :-).

Greetings from Erlend and Anne

family waffle fest

Since Erlend's oldest sisters family were only here for a short time we tried to make the most of it and after having burgers at another sister's house we went to our place for waffles. But see yourself... :-)

Yes, Erlend has a big family, hence the triple recipe :-)

every seat was taken

 the kids got to watch a movie...

 which made seats available for those coming home from working late :-)

 little Miriam is fascinated by candles and we are all trying to teach her "fire is very hot!"

that was all that was left :-)

family BBQ

This evening we all gathered at the family house and had a wee BBQ consisting of hot dogs and s'mores :-)! As it got darker and colder, we all migrated into the house and we actually had a time off ALL the siblings with all the spouses in the same room - that does not happen very often - usually just for weddings or big birthdays :-). It was a fun time with lots of laughter and good talks.

In the picture you see one of your precious nieces enjoying her hot dog :-).

more nieces and nephew

Tonight at almost 10pm Erlend's oldest sister and family arrived here on Vigra, they drove all the way from Bergen to spend a few days with the family up here. We are so excited to have them here, they are an amazing family! Look at what the youngest (4 years old) wrote for me:

The second youngest gave us this all wrapped as a present:

We love having nieces and nephews! It will be so nice to spend some days with all of them in the same place.
Unfortunally Erlend has to work long days the whole time they are here :-( and another downside is that one nephew (the only German one we have :-)) is not here....but we look forward to seeing him in January!

painting

Today was another day of painting, first one room downstairs for which my mother-in-law has really cool plans (guest bathroom and other things).
James, my brother-in-law, who is also in Norwegian study right now, and I painted for a few hours, had some lunch with Pappa-in-law, painted some more, all accompanied by good talks and sharing about culture shock or better, "cultural observations" :-).
Afterwards the time of the bathroom upstairs had come...and I know what you think looking at the picture, "Did any of the paint make it to the wall?" :-)

Now we just need to do another coat and then we are done for the day! :-)

Monday Mission Meeting

Tonight we had a meeting where our friend Egil shared about the tribe he and his wife worked in in the Philippines. Erlend got to tell a bit about the Bible and Mission Training Centre in England and about the Youth Conference that will be there in March 2012. Erlend and I will Lord willing attend it and bring a bunch of young Norwegians with us, so that they can get a glimpse into the work NTM does and hopefully be challenged to missions.

sunday afternoon relaxing time

After a very nice Bible study meeting, going home and having dinner with Erlend's parents (BBQ chicken with potato wedges) and some ice cream and coffee afterwards - that is a sunday afternoon just the way we like it :-)

always be prepared

In true Boys Scout manner Erlend put the winter tyres on the car. We can see the mountains in the distance covered in snow, so he thought there is the possibility for snow down here at sea level, too.

 This is probably boring for Norwegians, but to my German and English friends - check out the spikes on the tyre!

kids Bible craft

I am helping out with a kids Bible meeting on Friday nights and today, after telling the story of Abraham offering Isaac we will make this craft together. For all the non-Norwegians, it says: The lamb died instead of Isaac, Jesus died instead of ______ (name of the kid). My sister-in-law Marte who thought of this craft captured the essence of the story very well, I think!

oreo ice cream

After another long day at work and helping at a Bible meeting, Erlend decided that he was too tired to make himself smile in the picture of the day, so that is why it is only the ice cream and not "Erlend and his treat" in the picture of the day. 

I know, it does not look good, but it tastes amazing. (Thank you, Esther, for teaching me how to make this:-)).

numbers and stuff

 I was wondering what the picture of today could be... I guess the main event today was that I finally got my D-number. I walked (in the rain and in, what felt like a hurricane, not wearing sufficient clothing) to the police station to show them my work contract and my D-number, so that they could give me a paper of some sort with which I have to go to another office where they will give me my P-number...I know, it is confusing, complicated and to some degree: frustrating
Anyways, when I got to the police station I was told that my work contract was not clear enough, so I have to go and change it and then go back to the police station to get that paper, so I can go to the other office....well, you know what I mean...

But I think I will just concetrate on the fact that I actually got the D-Number and be happy. Praise the Lord!

working hard

I am writing this post now because Erlend is not home yet :-(. He is working hard and long days and I am so proud of him!

I was working hard today, too :-), but let me explain...
One of our favorite things to do here in Norway is to hang out with our brother and sister Markus and Sarah (I don't know if I should call them the Røsvik junior family, which would make us the uhm Røsvik junior junior family...?!?). Well actually, we love hanging out with any member of Erlend's family, because, and I think, no, I KNOW people will back me up on this - They are awesome!!!
Uhm, anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, we love hanging out with Sarah and Markus so much that sometimes it feels like we should pay part of their rent :-). So I felt it was only fair that I would help a bit with their remodeling project.
While Markus was putting on the 3rd (!) coat of varnish, Sarah and I felt inspired to paint the hallway and while we were their we just painted the doors as well. I little chair was standing there (we had been using it as a "none-health-and-satelty-approved ladder") when we were finished, so it got painted, too :-).

Markus and Sarah have been trying to do this big project in the middle of their very busy every day schedule and it was so nice to be able to help them a bit and chatting (and occasionally even singing :-)) together while painting. I can't wait to sit in their finished living room and enjoy it!

For dinner my niece Emma and I made a Thai stirfry for the family. It was so much fun!

So now Erlend is home, yay!

Can you guess?

Can you guess what this is?...............................
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That`s right, it is a very empty, very flat Peanut Butter M&Ms bag that our brother (in law) brought us from the US.  (Thank you, Helge!) We only had it for about a week and now all those delicious m&ms are gone :-(.

To cheer ourselves up we will now engage in our Monday night tradition...

Can you guess what it is? :-)

Guests

Today we had Mamma Bodil and Pappa Erling and Brother Helge :-) for dinner.

double date

Today we took out Sarah and Markus for dinner. It was a long overdue thank you to the two of them. To Markus for marrying us in December and doing a AMAZING job, even though it was his first wedding. And to Sarah for being willing to let Markus go even though she herself could not due to visa problems :-(.

After a nice dinner we went back to our place for mousse au chocolate and coffee. Thank you so much, Markus and Sarah, for a wonderful evening and thank you, Mamma Bodil, for babysitting the pumpkins :-).

we are ready for the winter

Our bedroom does not have a heater (I know: unthinkable for Germans :-)) and we have been freezing for the last few days....so today we went out and got one, it is even a cool black one :-).

Nysnø, Neuschnee and the first snow

Erlend had this beautiful view on his delivery route today.

Norwegian classes

My brother-in-law, who is married to Erlend's sister also started learning Norwegian about the same time I did. He has joined us in our private lessons and it is so much fun.

Cool Rain Boots And Double Rainbow :-)

The weather this past week has been crazy, I never seen this much rain (not even after living in England for three years). The crazy part is not the amount of rain though, but how fast the weather changes and how it rains, when it rains. I am not talking about heavy rain or light rain, no I am talking about the direction in which in rains - yes, you have read right - DIRECTION! In Norway it does not rain from the sky towards the earth (like in every other sane country) but no, it rains from one side to the other, I am not kidding you! That does explain why nobody even tries to us an umbrella here, it would just get turned inside out and would not be good for anything...A cool result of this however is that Norwegians, who are very fashion aware have the coolest rain boots I have ever seen, like these...

  

they belong to my sister-in-law Grete

 A cool side effect of the qick changes of the weather is that there are lots of rainbows - sometimes even double once. This pictures is taken through a window, that is why you can see the rain spots on it.

not a picture but...

....I found this on a friends facebook page and found it inspiring!

conference over...

...seemed to be a fitting title for today, considering the last two titles :-).

After packing up we went to a nice cafe in town an treated ourselves to some hot chocolate :-)

Highlight of the day was when my precious nephew Georg told me that he was making a necklace for me :-)

Conference

Erlend sharing at the Conference we are attending this weekend. It is very nice to be here and to see what the Lord is doing in Norway and through Norwegians. Being exhausted from listening to A LOT of Norwegian is a small price to pay for that, I guess :-)

preparing for conference

Today we are preparing for the conference that we will be attending this weekend.

Erlend will be leading some of the meetings, I will help a bit with the childrens program and on Saturday afternoon our friend Kristine and Erlend and me will have the opportunity to share a bit about our last two years studying in England and also about our future plans. In the pictures you can how we feel about that time of sharing, I guess I would call it excited with a hit of fear and a bit of freaking out :-)

only funny for Germans...

Erlend bought this in the store today and I guess only Germans will find the name of this baked goody funny. I know that it would not sell well in Germany saying "Kake" on it :-)  (now everybody who is not German has to find out what "Kake" means in German. I will only say this much: In Norwegian it means "cake" :-)

Hello Kitty Birthday Party

Today was our precious little nieces first birthday party. The theme was Hello Kitty as you can see :-)
A bunch of "us girls" made these cake pops yesterday, it was a whole lot of fund and now all the other nephews and nieces dream about what theme they want for their birthday :-)

Weather

Today was an extremely windy and rainy day!

Erlend's work

Erlend got a job as a driver for a delivery company. (His bosses are Swedish and German :-))
Here is a picture of his cool work jumper.

Some cultural observations part 1

Living in Norway has a foreigner I can't help but notice things that are different compared to Germany. It makes me think about my own culture, too, about what is typical German and what is part of my own family culture (eventhough ancestor-wise my family is completely German, in our behavior and traditions we are not...) . I am sure when we move to Germany, it will be the same for Erlend....
Anyways, I just wanted to write a bit about things I have found so far, it is not that much, hence the "part 1" in the title. So here we go:


Norwegian last names are often the place where one is from. (like Røsvik is a part on the island we are living on)

My mother-in-law told me that people even use to change their last name when they moved somewhere else. Other commen last names are names such as Andersen, Petersen, Larsen and so on, with comes from son of Anders, son of Peter, son of Lars, you see a pattern? Yeah.
I concluded from this that it is very important here where you are from or who your family is.

That made me think about German last name and I realised that a lot of German last names like Müller, Schmidt, Bauer....have to do with professions, they tell others what you do.
It does seem very important to Germans what kind of job you have. In no other country that I have been to, it was as important as it seems to be to the Germans, to get an education, a degree of some sort. If you compare it to Norway again, here it is (from what I heard) not as important which education level you have, as long as you make a lot of money :-).

Oh yeah, and using that smile face reminds me of something else.

Norwegians use smiley faces excessively! Erlend told me that according to a survey, a lot of Norwegians consider it rude to not use smiley faces in, for example, text messages.
So if I use a lot of smiley faces in the future, it is only because I am adapting to a new culture and because I want you to know that I am not mad or sad but happy while I am writing :-)!

Okay, sunday dinner, cooked by the parents-in-law is almost done, so this is it for today!
Have a nice sunday y'all :-)!

beautiful

This morning we went to a Bible study at our siblings Grete and James' place. This is the beautiful view out of their window. If you look very close you can see me in the reflection of the window, trying very hard to hold the cellphone still, to take a picture...:-)

windows

Today Erlend helped his brother Markus to put in new windows at their house! (I am so proud of them, did not know you can do that yourself without professionals :-)) Now we will have homemade BBQ Chicken Wings as a reward for the hard workers :-).

I apoligize for the quality of the picutre, it was taken once again with the cellphone camera...