playing cards

We have enjoyed a few more quiet days after the wedding and one of the things we really missed in Norway was playing games - we do that A LOT with my family.

 ticket to ride - Erlend and Mama's favorite

Alia needs to learn as early as possible how to play cards in this family

big brother got hitched

Yesterday my brother got to marry his beautiful girl Steff!
It was a great wedding, God honoring service, wonderful people and of course an exciting Champions League game!

we feel blessed that we were able to be here for the wedding

almost all of the guests watched the game down stairs - I am guessing 95% were Bayern München supporters :-)

promised picture

Here comes the picture of the sending service we had last sunday and one more picture because it is so cute :-)

 over 60 people came - we were so touched!

Cousins meeting again

last day in Norway

Yesterday we had an amazing "sending service" at our home church here in Norway.
Stay tuned for pictures which I will post as soon as my photographer brother has sent them :-).
We enjoyed the whole day so much and want to say thank you to everybody who was involved in making it so special, but most of all we want to thank God for blessing us with so many people who stand behind us!

Today was the perfect last day of being in Norway. We had amazing weather, but I let you see for yourself...

   

beautiful just outside the house we got to live in these past few weeks

in the afternoon we went on a boat trip to town

     

Doro and I got to sit in the front of the boat - awesome!

(sorry, about the weird format of the picture)

Alia liked it better inside the boat

 20 min later - beautiful Ålesund

we felt extremely cool driving into the harbor by boat - 

taking a picture like tourists made us a lot less cool I guess :-)

 then our parents invited us for Chinese for lunch - yummy!

 the evening was filled with goodbyes :( and packing 

look how sad Alia is about leaving

 but then I told her that she would get to see her Oma, Opa and Oma Dora tomorrow and then she was very happy :-)

sunshine and sightseeing

We had beautiful weather today so it was the perfect day to take my sister to town and do a bit of sightseeing. Our former jobs as tourist guides came in quite handy, even though I realized how NOT interesting some of the things were we used to tell to our poor tourists :-).

 great view of Ålesund from Aksla, one of Norway's most popular view points

 in the distance you can see our little island "Vigra"

 after sightseeing we were invited for dinner at L&M's house, had delicious food and while enjoying hanging out with family (tusen takk, M & L) 

Here a picture of all 11 cousins on the Norwegian side

 Doro having some cuddle time with Alia

It is so great to see how much all of Alia's aunties love her

Of course farmor has to get in some cuddles, too

17th of May

Today is a National holiday in Norway, they celebrate constitution day! So everybody dresses up in their national costumes (which are a lot more decent than the Bavarian ones), walks in a parade and eats lots of (pretty bad, sorry!) sausages.

We had a great day, enjoying sunshine (YAY!), fellowship and food (we had good cakes and then some amazing home-grilled chicken and hamburgers - thank you, Markus!).

Here just some pictures - of course, as always on such occasions, taken by my brother-in-law.

 Alia's firsts 17th of May - she does not look too excited

 that is why she spend most of her day sleeping - her tactic to avoid too much stress

 the in-laws of the Røsvik family who are foreigners - I appreciate them so much because then I am not the only weird one :-)

 by marrying Erlend, I gained four new sisters - love those ladies!

the parade

 we were allowed to just join the parade and walk to the school where everybody met up

Erlend after eating a sausage (having eating German sausages for the last year...)  - the face says it all

afterward we enjoyed good food and hanging out at Markus & Sarah's

 Doro enjoyed seeing some Norwegian culture 

She is here, again!

My sister Doro is here to visit us! She visited us last year as well, which makes her the number one visitor we have had here :-). We are looking forward to spending the next days with her, and also the whole Norwegian part of the family, because Erlend's oldest sister is coming any minute!!! Yay for family!

Alia woke up just to welcome her auntie

Tupperware Party

That's right, you have read right, I threw a Tupperware Party tonight! I remember when I was a teenager and thought that going to or throwing a Tupperware Party was the most boring thing you could do, but I have to say, after starting our own household I can sure see the value in Tupperware...

It was so much fun to have girlfriends over (Erlend left the house, there were just a few too many women for him to handle :-)) and to chat, have some snacks, shop and even bake (and eat) a yummy cake.

 Vigdis, the Tupperware lady, explaining stuff

 Alia liked all the colored things :-)

Perks of being a hostess - you get lots of free, awesome stuff

On a totally unrelated subject, here is yesterdays photo - we had Kristine and her parents over for lunch after church and it got so hot in the apartment that Alia was only happy with nothing on but her diaper - preparing for Asia she is and yes! she is getting chubby - YAY! :-)

Molde and 80 years

Yesterday we went to Molde to visit our friend Kristine and to see our friends Adina and Jon Arve who just had a baby girl 4 weeks ago. It was so much fun to hang out, compare the two girls, share stories... Thank you so much, Kristine, for making this happen!

you can't really tell from this picture, but Alia looked HUGE (and bald) next to little Emmelin 

(and yes, I know this sweater looks unflattering :-))

Today we were invited to a birthday party. Erlend's uncle Paul is celebrating 80 years of life. It was a really nice party that made me see once again how awesome the Røsvik family is, even the extended one :-).

 the birthday "boy" and his beautiful wife

 Erlend translated for the American wife of the oldet son, while he held his speech

(love how many foreigners are in this family)

 my very cute in-laws

no dessert tables like the Norwegian ones!

avskjedsfest part 2

James sent the pictures that he took today already - so enjoy.

 a good crowd over 50 people came, so much more than I expected

 After a sermon and some music Erlend got to share about our plans

 and Markus shared about our organization

 during the coffee  break we got to enjoy talking to people

(you might notice that Alia is starting to have a bald spot at the back of her head - she just wants to be as cool as her Norwegian grandpa :-))

 we also got to eat lots of amazing cakes

 Norwegian specialty - bløtkake

 the woman behind the scene, who made it all happen - Tusen takk, tante Åse!

 I even got to see my former fellow student, who is also German

 Alia was given this cute head band - Tusen takk, Dorthe!

she was as always a good baby, chilling, eating and sleeping

avskjedsfest

Today we had a missions meeting, that was a good bye party for us at the same time, at the local prayer house. Thank you so much to all who came and all who put so much effort into making this a very special evening.

I just took one picture because I was busy holding Alia and talking to people, but my brother in law took loads of pictures and promised me I could use them on the blog, so I will post those as soon as I get them.

these were the decorations and Erlend's aunt told me that they chose them to resemble Erlend and me and the little flower is for Alia :-) - so cute!