early Christmas gifts

Today we got a HUGE package from our family in Norway! Erlend picked it up and come back with it during my language session. I had a hard time concentrating during the rest of the lesson because I just wanted to go and see what was in the package!

We had our own mini Christmas party during our lunch break and enjoyed thoroughly to unpack every single thing.

One of the first things Alia found was a book just for her and she loves it!

Is there anything else for me?

 Oh yeah, sweet headbands - maybe now people will stop asking if I am a boy!

Alia will not need any new clothes for quite a while!

Thank you so much to everybody who contributed to this package, we loved it!!!

Of course, my man was most excited about the meat

even the box and the wrapping paper provided entertainment for a long time

early

Today we bought a very abstract Christmas "tree" (that we can use as a lamp after Christmas) and I could just not wait to decorate it. I know, I know, it is not even December yet, but I think it is hitting us both more and more that we will actually not be with either of our families this Christmas... With no snow, no Christmas markets, no Christmas music playing on the radio, it is hard to feel like Christmas is coming close, so we are using any means to make ourselves feel a little bit more Christmasy...

the before picture

Alia "helping" pappa

 Christmas seems to be the time of year I find out about Erlend's hidden talents. I remember two years ago, he displayed, out of the blue, some mad gingerbread man decorating skills - and this year, who would have thought, I am amazed by how beautiful and efficient (very important to my German heart :-)) he can decorate a Christmas tree

 Done! Even though we might have to rethink our method of attaching the little balls, we just stuck them in there, and we have been hearing them fall back out onto the floor all evening.

Baby, it's cold outside!

This line from a popular Christmasy song has been stuck in my head because I have been so cold the last two days. I know what you are thinking, "Don't you live in the tropics?" Yes, we do, but somehow we seem to have adjusted to the climate rather quickly and all the rain and humidity makes us feel cold.

During our language session the other day, our language helper was so cold that I gave her one of our blankets. We were both surprised when we looked at the thermometer and it read 27 degrees Celsius - it felt so much colder than that!

This picture does not go at all with the topic of this post, 

I just wanted to put it up because she is just so darn cute :-)

brand new baby

Five days ago Erlend and I got some wonderful news: Our niece had been born! We are so excited for our whole family - what a blessing to welcome a beautiful little girl!

It is days like these that make it really hard to be away from home - we would so love to be in Norway right now and cuddle with precious little Lene.

We did get a little treat today though, even though it was not our own niece, we got to meet our neighbors 12 day old boy - he is a very handsome little fellow!

cutie pie - so much hair already!

three more cutie pies with not that much hair :-)

Any motorcycle she sees she wants to sit on

not wrong, just different #1

We have seen so many things here that are different from what we are used to in Europe. Most of the time we notice them because they are impressive, look dangerous or are just plain funny.

That is why we have decided to start a series which will be called "not wrong, just different". So whenever you see a post titled like that it will probably be a picture we took that day of something..., well different.

I want to stress that we don't want to make fun of the culture or the people living here in any way, in fact, it would probably be very interesting to see a blog of somebody from here living where we are from about the same topic :-).

So here you go, the first of probably many...

This is a cellphone store - there is a car parked inside of it!

mostly for Marte

This blog is mostly for my sister-in-law (while you are waiting for somebody very special to arrive:-)) who is a gifted seamstress and of course loves different fabrics.

look at all that fabric, Marte! this is were I bought the fabric I send you. On the wall to the right you can see mostly batik fabric, which, if you have been following this blog for a while, you know what it is.

What should I choose? (this pictures is not even staged :-))

 When we asked this very friendly saleswomen if we could take a picture she thought it was very weird since they are usually the once who want to take a picture with the white baby

 Last week we went to a restaurant with no cutlery, today we tried one without chairs. Alia loved it!

 She also liked the sauce that came with the steak - that girl refuses to eat any of the baby food I prepare with lots of effort for her, but she will eat almost anything that we are eating as long as it is small enough pieces - Hm, I think I am done spending hours blending and freezing baby food.

the last days

I just realized that I have not blogged in a few days so here just some pictures off of Erlend's phone from the last days

 our little biker girl

 This little friend of Alia is about 3 months older but she is quite a bit heavier and taller than him

(notice she is wearing shoes? she has started walking (of course we still need to hold her))

 grass patch at the side of the road? lets keep it there and just paint around it

 meeting new people who find whities very interesting

snuggles for pappa

 private snuggles for Mama

a crazy lady and duck

Today our wee family went to town to get a new charger for my cellphone which had gone bust, possibly due to a few uncoordinated attempt on my part to connect the charger to the phone. Oops.

We were so proud that we found what we needed, all by ourselves, without anybody who knows the language better than us - so naturally we felt invincible and wanted to take it to the next level - going to the market by ourselves!!!

As we walked around looking at the different stalls, a lady came up to Alia (she (Alia, not the lady!) was strapped to me in her carrier) and "kissed" her face.
They don't really give babies kisses here, they just sniff their face.... Anyways, that was not weird in and off itself, Alia gets loads of sniffs here, she does not usually mind.
She has excepted that she is a cute, white baby in a culture that likes cute, white babies, so she just rolls with the sniffs.

The lady asked for Alia's name and I told her, no harm in that right?
We just kept on strolling through the market when I heard someone shouting Alia's name.
Sure enough the lady was following us and saying something I did not understand (happens all the time these days) plus Alia. It kinda freaked me out so we decided to get out of there.

Our motorbike was parked a little ways up the street so we walked in that direction and the lady was still following us. Not strolling anymore, but walking fast, we got to our motorbike, jumped on and as we were about to pull out of the parking space, the lady came at Alia with an open safety pin and tried to poke her with it.
Erlend and I realized about the same time what was going on (Alia never did, thankfully). We both stretched out our arms to keep the lady from poking Alia and screamed NO and we drove off as fast as we could.

Hm, written down it might not sound as dramatic, but I for my part, do not have a huge desire to go back to the market any time soon.

After such an 'eventful' afternoon we needed some chill time, so dinner with friends at a duck restaurant sounded like a good idea. They have the best duck in town and Alia is already a fan.

the duck restaurant comes with live music

 who would not wanna sniff some of that cuteness? :-)

This concludes another day in our lives which all the good, the bad and the crazy!

normal life

Just a little post to make sure you all don't think that our life only consists of awesome trips and special occasions :-).

This is what many hours every day look like...

waterfall picnic

Today our "July-Team" went on an awesome trip together. We drove for about an hour through breathtaking scenery and then had a picnic at a beautiful waterfall, enjoying food, fellowship and playing in the river. We had so much fun!

living dangerous - walking over a bamboo bridge :-)

beautiful creation

of course we had to get a bit touristy and take some staged pictures

 she is getting so big and loves to stand as long as somebody is holding her

our teammates  - we are so thankful for all of them

picture dump

Enjoy some pictures that our talented friend Daniel took recently, mostly pictures of different trips he has been on with Erlend.

 rainy season

 bird market

 not sure if he was trying to mimic the expression on the dead fish faces in front of him?

 Aisa loves babies, Alia loves attention - good mix :-)

 The story I heard was that this luwak (the thing that poops the most expensive coffee in the world) was so cute, Erlend and Daniel wanted to buy it, until it 'emptied' itself on Daniel's shirt - well done, luwak! 

 

 buying stickers at the market (the loooove stickers here)

If you had to take a wild guess, what do you think is the most common mode of transportation here?

buzzing and pouring

Today we went to town and Erlend was feeling especially brave so he decided to have his hair cut by a guy with a buzzer and a straight razor. 

 The place was not quite a salon, more like a stall

 this is not all Erlend's hair, just in case you where wondering

looking just a liiiiittle bit skeptical

When we got ready to drive home on our scooter it started pouring so we had to wait for about half an hour for the rain to stop. 

 can you see how the rain is flowing through the rims? 

that is why they call this rainy season

relaxing

This past weekend we got to go to a bigger city with two other families and spend some time recharging and relaxing. It was so nice to have some time with out thinking about vocabulary, tutor sessions and time sheets (not that all of those things aren't WONDERFUL :-)).

For some reason I did not take a lot of pictures but here the ones I found on Erlend's phone.

on the way there Alia fell asleep in my arms, 

that does not happen too often anymore so I enjoyed every second of it

 Alia showing of her new 'drinking from a staw'-skills

 Erlend's highlight of the trip was a steak dinner

(he says it was one of his top 5 steaks he has had in his life)

Alia has decided to support "movember" (moustache + november = movember) to the best of her ability