We're off to our cabin today. There's not enough snow in Oslo to go skiing, but apparently the mountains where our cabin is have gotten a lot. We're all excited about going skiing for the first time this year. And now everyone has downhill skis, too (well, Gaute has telemark skis), so we're going to do some downhill skiing as well as cross country.

The webcamera at our cabin has been having problems lately, but Gaute is going to fix it when we get up there today, so check back on http://langaas.net/nokia/nrc/glenna.php and you should be able to see what it looks like up there.

I wrote a lot about Christmas Eve, but I should say that Christmas Day was great, too. The kids stayed in bed until their official wake-up time of 7, and then we went down and opened the presents. Lots of good stuff - everyone was very pleased!! Santa brought a new flat screen TV for our new "rec room" in the basement, and Grandma and Grandpa Jim bought us a foosball game, so we are set now. The kids had a good place to set up the new Legos and Playmobil they got for Christmas, between playing with the Playstation and foosball game.

Kari and Grim came over about noon for a Christmas brunch, with buttermilk biscuits and bread and lots of good stuff. They stayed for a few hours, and the kids got to show them all of their new toys. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing - we were all pretty worn out!

And now we're off to the mountains. We'll stay there until January 2nd and celebrate New Year's up there like we have the last couple of years. New Year's Eve at our cabin is so nice. We eat fondue and the kids drink soda out of wine glasses. On New Year's Eve in Norway, people light fireworks, the cool kinds like bottle rockets and stuff like that. When it gets close to midnight, we can see that there are quite a few people up at their cabins, because the sky starts lighting up with fireworks - it's really cool!