digging in

My friend Natalia and I have decided to study the book of Daniel together and we will be using a Bible study guide by Beth Moore. I am so excited to dig deep into God's Word and learn about my heavenly Father and people He used for His glory.

new backyard

We enjoyed some beautiful weather today which was perfect for going for a walk in our new "backyard".

Now who would not like to live here? 

hero of the day

May I introduce to you, our hero of the day, fearless cleaner of all things dirty in our old apartment, motivator, great listener and finisher! Without further ado, I give you......

Booooodil!!!

(Yes, you did guess right, this pictures is also taken at our famous bad taste party)

Thank you so much for all your help today, Mamma, we could not have done it without you!

they left

Something very sad happened today. Our brother, sister and nephew and niece left for three months. They have been such a big part of our lives here that it is hard to imagine it without them. The saddest thing about it is, that when they come back to Norway, we will be leaving...but then again, I always knew that Goodbyes would be my constant companion choosing the lifestyle that we have chosen. They don't get any easier, they are just as hard every time. But I love the fact that as Christians, there is never a final Goodbye.

So todays picture, in honor of those four people who are headed for warmer climates (if you are hearing a hint of jealousy in this, you are wrong :-)), is a product of last weeks bad taste party.
I truly hope that they are either not offended by me posting the pictures or that they are going to be so jet lagged that they are too tired to care that I did :-).

We love you and will miss you, but nevertheless hope you have an awesome time! 

Bring us back something pretty! :-)

spring? Is that you?

Is it save to say, that when we are outside enjoying ice cream with the kiddos, that spring is here?

pedicure and penalty

After a busy day of tour guide training, packing and cleaning, we enjoyed two very different and very typical girls and boys nights.

Erlend went with his brothers to see the Bayern München - Real Madrid game. (BayernWON!!!! finale here we come!!!)

while I enjoyed a pedicure while chatting with my American sister.

another Tuesday

Today was another day of putting things into boxes, changing our postal address and driving around delivering stuff to Erlend's family who are graciously taking some stuff off of our hands...
On one of the delivery tours we stopped to have some tea and cake at our sisters house and Erlend enjoyed listening to the story of Bartolomeus explain by our 1year-old niece, it went something like this: bla blalalalala do deidid oooooooh :-).

tagging along

Today we had the opportunity to tag along on one of the tours to Geiranger fjord that we will be guiding ourselves this summer. You gotta learn before you teach...

 our big very bus with our very cool bus driver

some of the beautiful scenery along the way

reliving our childhood days

We had two friends over and after dinner we ended up watching old World Disney Movies, specifically the songs that we liked. Oh how fun to relive some childhood memories.

to fun hanging out with friends you can just chill with (and who play with your hair :-))

Bad Taste Party

We were invited to our brothers birthday party today. It was a bad taste party and we went all out :-).

me featuring the classic unibrow and Erlend going for a new trend in beard designs called "the swoop"

first bbq of the year

We went to a little cabin with friends today and barbecued for the first time this year. We enjoyed good fellowship, food and the beautiful sunset.

2 years

Today exactly two years ago Erlend and I decided that we wanted to be together.
Thank you, Lord, for an amazing two years, all the highs and the lows and Your perfect timing!

 the sun was very bright, so we had to go for the silly picture

we went on a nice wee date

moving some more

I just realized that if we will have this blog for many years, I will probably have to start numbering the posts I name "moving". If our life will continue the way we are thinking right now, we will have moved 4 times within 2 years.
Anyways, today was another day of putting things into boxes, moving furniture around and being shocked at the amount of dust behind it...

Notice the children's book in the lefthand corner. It was a gift from Erlend's oldest sister when he was seven years old. It helped me in learning Norwegian (we actually had the exact same book in German at home) and now we have lent it to our niece who hopes to learn how to read Norwegian soon.

in our backyard

We had beautiful weather here today, so we went for a few wee walks around our island today. Erlend showed me some places he used to play at when he was a little boy.
On a day like this I understand, why Norway is such a popular holiday destination. The landscape here is just simply breathtaking!

These pictures are taken right behind the house we live in now.

Amazing, isn't it?

Secure and fake

Today we had the privilege of joining a Bible Study with some friends who are studying a book that is called "Secure in Christ". It is so good to be reminded of Biblical truths even though, language wise, I only understood about 70% of it.

Other than that I took a fake (or try out) Norwegian exam today, just to see what the one in May is going to be like. I was not impressed with myself.  Definitely will have to learn A LOT more Norwegian until the end of May.

And then both Erlend and I had to do a fake tourist guide tour through Ålesund for our boss, so she could see if we had enough volume in our voices to talk about "Jugendstil" and 418 steps up to a mountain while seagulls scream and cars drive by. We passed :-).

Missionmeeting

We had an excellent Bible study this morning and then some friends over for dinner and games. Then Erlend spoke about missions at a prayer house this evening. I am all proud of my man. :-) All together a great Sunday!

the moving has begun

Even though we had an awesome Saturday-morning-sleep-in, we got quite a few things done today. Washed the car, worked some more on the tourist guide papers, got rid of some old tires, cleaned the offices, had a wee waffle party at our house with three special guests and we started to sell our furniture and deliver it to people. I looove efficient days, oh how German of me :-).

Reading educates!

One of the many things we did today...

 "How does he do this reading?"

"Oh, yeah, I get it, just looking at the pages, easy!..."

Preparing for work

Anne and I have gotten a job as tourist guides in Ålesund.

So far today, we have mostly been gathering information so that we know what to say to the tourists.

(We forgot to upload a blog yesterday, so i thought I'd upload one today, and maybe Anne can upload one later this evening :)

Anne working with very very important information!!

Erlend

Norwegisch, Norsk and Norwegian

My Norwegian mamma told me that I could take a Norwegian test that would give me, if passed of course, a certificate, which would be good to have, if I ever had to apply for a family visa here in Norway. I thought, suuuure, that sounds like an excellent idea, but when I actually received the email that said, be there on the 30th of May so we can determine how much your Norwegian stinks (ok, it did not actually say that ;-)) I started to get reeeaally scared. (Yes, this is a cry for YOUR support in prayer, especially on the 30th of May!)
So now I am trying to fill my days with filling in pronouns, guessing prepositions and writing little stories which are entitled "My dream job" or something like that.
In a way it is great that both Erlend and I have to and get to learn a language just before we are, Lord willing, moving to a country were the language will not be so close to our mother tongue, so we have a test run if you will.

Tourist guides

Today we had our first training session to be tourist guides in Ålesund. It was very interesting and I learned a lot of things I did not know about that beautiful town. I am excited to showing people around, doing most tours in English, but also some in German, so that I get back into it before we move there.

Who wouldn't wanna show off that town?!?! :-)

slow Monday

We had a very nice, very slow monday. Erlend had friends over very late last night and another friend coming over today, so it was nice to sleep in and not have any plans. Following monday tradition we are now watching Top Gear. Papa, if you are reading this: We just saw the car that should be your new work car (because that would be the only chance for us to even come close to sitting in one).... the new BMW M5 oh my word....it makes me proud to be Bavarian :-).... I mean, just look at it....

Easter celebration

Today we had the privilege of celebrating what Jesus Christ did for us almost 2000 years ago. He did for us on the cross, paid for our sins as the perfect sacrifice, defeated death and rose from the dead! Thank you, Lord, for taking what I deserved and giving me what I did not deserve!

We met with our Sunday Bible Study Group. First we had an amazing brunch, then a little sermon by papa Erling, we ate the Lord's supper together and had a time of open sharing. What a blessing to meet with other believers and talk about our Lord.

Here come some pictures of today.

 I love brunch! notice the three different kinds of cheese to the right...I simply HAD to learn how to use a cheese slicer :-)

Beautifully set tables awaited us...Thank you, Grete and James for your hospitality!

Easter break part 3

Burning off all the good food we had the last days

 Erlend combining his love for s'mores with his love for playing with fire :-) 

 on the ferry over the fjord back home...

I should write about the ferries in Norway one day, they are absolutely necessary because of the many fjords in this beautiful country, but unbelievable expensive...

this is my cake for tomorrow's Easter brunch, can you guess which letter I originally forgot?

The message is why we have anything to celebrate tomorrow!

Easter break part 2

We went on a sightseeing tour to Kristiansund, Molde and Atlanterhavsveien between the two.
I'll let the pictures talk...

 The road that ends in "the nowhere".

 Here you can see were it actually goes

 Kristiansund in the backgroudn with a famous person's statue in the front

 Erlend posing for the statue they want to make for him, it will be called "best husband in the world"

 find the four snowballs, three were aimed to hit the fourth one

 no Norwegiean trip without kvikk lunsj

still happy together :-)

snow day

Having about a whole meter of snow outside, we had to go out and build a snow cave. Other than that we have enjoyed hanging out with friends and eating good food :-).