Poor Anders

Anders is sick today. He threw up in his bed last night, and one time this morning. He's been lying on the sofa, half asleep all day. Poor little guy. The stomach flu has been making its way through his class, so I'm not too surprised, but it's never fun. Hopefully, he'll be feeling better by tomorrow. And, hopefully, the rest of us won't get it (yeah, right...).

Watch this video

My favorite blogger, Dooce, posted a link to this video on her site, and Johan and I just watched it. It is really cool - check it out!

Busy, busy

I haven't had time to write on my blog lately, because I've been working on a group project. It's a project about recycling plastic, and it's interesting, but it's taking way too much time. It's making me crazy!!!

I can't wait for Christmas vacation....

Tuesday

Not much going on today...I don't have any regular classes today, but at 2:00 I have an AV-kurs. It's a course where we get "certified" to use the audio-visual equipment at the college, something we need to do because we're working on a project about recycling which is to culminate in a presentation. We're supposed to be learning about video editing today, which could be interesting. Unfortunately, I've been to similar courses at good old Oslo University College, and my expectations are not high.

I'm going to call soon and make an appointment for Anders and Johan to get their hair cut this evening. They have both been begging me to get their hair cut as it's getting in their eyes and annoying them. And, being the good mom that I am, I only waited about a month before deciding that I would make that appointment.

Cabin Weekend

First off - it seems like Annika's husband is doing a lot better now.

We had a fun weekend at the cabin. We were only there for about 24 hours, but it's amazing how it really feels like we've had a mini vacation. I love it up there, especially when the weather was as gorgeous as it was. We haven't had any snow in Oslo yet, but up there there was a bit of snow on the ground. The boys were LOVING it!

Finally got my Sun Valley poster framed and hung up!




Anders' bag that he had packed to take with him. With his climbing rope and tooth fairy pillow.




Snowball fight out on the deck.



The climbing rope came in handy!




First tracks...




Johan wanted to take a picture of me :-)



Back home to dark, foggy Oslo.

Change of plans

Since I'm writing this blog right now, then you probably realize that I'm not on a train on my way to eastern Sweden (although they probably have internet on the train now).

Annika called this morning and said that her husband was really sick last night. He was going to go to the doctor today, and she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to go after all. He wanted her to go anyway, so we went ahead with our plans. We met at the train station a half hour before we the train was supposed to leave. Just then her husband called and said the doctor wanted to admit him to the hospital. She felt like she wanted to stay here to be with him, and I'm glad she did, because it wouldn't have been the same kind of trip if she had been worried about him the whole time. They're worried about him because he's been sick a lot this fall and really rundown and they're thinking the big scary C. But it could be that he just has a bad urine infection. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

So, anyway, now I'm going to go up to the cabin this weekend with Gaute and the boys. We're leaving tomorrow morning, so it'll just be a short trip, but I'm looking forward to it.

Peter Pan

Peter Pan was fantastic last night. It was one of the best productions I have ever seen, with Peter Pan and Wendy flying across the stage. We had such a good time! (And by the way, I think Gaute wants me to mention that when I was in York last year, he took Anders and Johan to the theater!)

I'm off to Sweden tomorrow. I have a Swedish friend, Ulrika, who moved back to Sweden this summer, and another I and another Swedish friend, Annika, are going to visit her this weekend. We're taking the train there - leaving tomorrow afternoon and coming back Sunday evening. She lives south of Stockholm - I think the train ride is about 5-6 hours. I'm really looking forward to it!

Gaute and the boys are headed up to the cabin while I'm gone. It's been snowing up there, and I think the boys are excited about throwing some snowballs around. Here's the link to our webcam up there.

November 14

Today Anders, Johan and I are going to the theater. We're going to see Peter Pan. A whole group of us from Johan's class are going together, so it should be a lot of fun. The production has gotten good reviews, and it's always fun to go see a play. Espen's not going because he has football practice, and Gaute's not going because he'd rather stay home :-). They're not quite as in to the whole theater thing as me and the little guys. Their loss...

The latest on Espen

Gaute took Espen to the hospital on Friday for a checkup with the surgeon who did his operation. And she said everything looked pretty good. He was able to focus his eyes together when looking at things close up, which was the primary goal of the surgery, and he was able to focus them better when looking at things at a distance as well. Still not a hundred percent, but definitely a good result. The only bad news is that she wants us to put this ointment in his eyes at night to keep them lubricated, and Espen refuses to do it, so it's a struggle every night. He is quite a stubborn little guy. It is so much fun....

Almost Molly's birthday

My little sister Molly is turning 22 on Monday, and I'm dedicating this blog entry to her.

Molly was not even 2-years-old when I went away to college, so we've never lived together. Since there is a 16-year age difference, you would think that we didn't have much in common and didn't speak to each other very often. But we do.

Molly spent the summer with us here in Norway, and it was so much fun. We did lots of fun stuff (despite the worst summer weather in 40 years, or something like that), and we all miss having her around. She has been talking a bit about coming back and staying here again next year, and we were all so excited!

I love you and miss you, Molly, and I hope you have a fantastic birthday!!

Rainy Thursday evening

I was going to go on a walk this evening, but it's pouring rain, so I decided not to. Except I'm thinking that I probably should anyway (isn't that why they invented rain clothes?)...So, I decided to put off the decision and post a new entry to my world-famous blog.

Except, I don't really have much to say, except that it's raining and I'm not walking...

I know, I'll make a plug for my very, very favorite blog of all time - dooce.com. If for some reason any of you have not checked out Dooce yet, then DO IT NOW! It's the first thing I read when I turn on my computer every day.

Now, I'm going to go look for my rain boots.

Ut på tur, aldri sur

A common saying in Norwegian is "ut på tur, aldri sur" - roughly translated - out on a hike (skiing, biking, etc.), never sad. For most Norwegians, spending their Sundays out in the forest is an important part of their week. And as good Norwegians (or wannabe Norwegians) we try to adhere to this as often as possible.

This last Sunday, we even got Kari and Grim to go with us. The weather was gorgeous - a nice crisp fall day. We weren't alone out there, but we ended up at a little lake by ourselves. Kari and Grim had taken donuts with them, and I had made shortbread cookies and hot chocolate, so we had a nice little picnic up there.



We went on a hike two weeks ago, also. Unfortunately, we didn't make it out last weekend, because it was pouring rain, and, more importantly, Gaute and I went to a party Saturday night and were pretty tired on Sunday. The week before that, we hiked up to the top of a hill not so far from our house.

Blogger is having some problems right now, so I can't upload the pictures from that day, but I'll try to do it later.

Johan the nerd

Johan put on a pair of Gaute's old glasses and did his best to look like a nerd. He did a pretty good job....

Halloween

October 30th

Tomorrow is Halloween - the big day...

We just finished carving the pumpkin, the seeds are sitting in a bowl soaking, waiting to be roasted and salted tomorrow.

Anders and Johan have their costumes ready to go (an alligator (Johan), and a guy dressed in black with blood all over his face (Anders)). They've each arranged with friends who they can go trick-or-treating with.

Espen is passing on trick-or-treating this year. In addition to the fact that he is way-to-cool for it, he has football practice tomorrow night. I'm going to make sure I have some candy saved for him when he gets home, though.

TGIF

It's Friday afternoon! And we're going to a party tomorrow night. Some of the parents are arranging a party for the parents of all of the kids who are in 4th grade. More than 70 people will be there. They had the party last year, too, and it was really fun. They rent the football clubhouse which is just up the street, everyone takes food with them, and they hire a dj who plays really cool 80's music ;-). It was a blast last year, so I hope it lives up to our expectations this year, too!

The two little guys are going up to Gaute's parents to spend the night on Saturday, but Espen and his friend Jacob are going to be home alone here. I think they are pretty excited - big plans for frozen pizza, chips, Coke and a DVD...A 12-year-old's dream evening!

Substitute Teacher

Today and tomorrow all of the teachers (and the principal and staff) at Korsvoll school are in London, team-building and attending various courses and such. Thus, they have asked the parents to step in and be the teachers for two days. And, what do you know, somehow I ended up being one of the volunteers in Espen's class...

The two other parents who were there with me today are both researchers, and they wanted to do some type of research. Great, I thought, I'm all over research - not! It worked out really well, though, I have to say. We did various types of research on food, and my group looked into what is in food, and how many calories and grams of fat and stuff like that an average 7th grader eats in the course of a day. They got pretty into it, and it was fun working with them. It makes me excited to have my own class....

Still alive

I've been seriously slacking - Facebook has taken priority over my blog lately, but I'm going to try to be a bit better at updating this.

So, what's new? Well, a lot, of course...I spent a week in Glasgow from the 8th to the 16th of October. It was a school trip to learn more about the Industrial Revolution, and for us students to get to know each other better. We had a fun time, although I wasn't terribly impressed with Scotland. Everything was so dirty!




Espen turned 12 on October 1st...

...and he had a new operation on his eye on the 15th. He was a having some trouble reading, which is not surprising, so after consulting with the doctors we decided to try again. It seems like things are a bit better now when he is looking at things close up, which is the most important. I'm not sure if this last operation was the right thing to do, though. The eye which they did the surgery on is still not looking great...We'll see how it turns out.

The invitation we sent out today for Anders' birthday party on Saturday - better late than never! But what a great picture of him...

Anders feirer 9-års dagen!

Look Ma, no tooth

And, finally, Johan lost his first tooth. After much wiggling yesterday, it finally came out right before bed last night. His tooth fairy pillow finally got a tooth in its pocket. And he was pretty excited to head off to school this morning and announce that he, Johan, was now a member of the lost tooth club.