May 2008:

Saturday May 31st

Today is my husbands birthday.

We have had guests for coffee and cakes this afternoon. Tonight we have barbequed trout in our barbeque house.

Yesterday I had a wonderful evening, too! I was on a trip together with my colleagues. We went to the home of one of my colleagues childhood, on an island. Here is a photo from the place where we spent the evening:

 

The weather was wonderful! I took this photo at 00.21 AM at night:

 

We went home by boat. We left the island at 1 AM, in the middle of the night. It was a wonderful experience standing on deck on the boat the entire trip home:

 

Hurtigruten were passing by us, during our trip home:

Read more about Hurtigruten here

It was a wonderful afternoon and evening. It's not very often that we are blessed with this kind of nice weather, with sun the entire day and night, and no wind.

 

 

 

Wednesday May 29th

After work today, I drove Joakim to a track where he drove hit ATV. Several other kids also were there, driving their ATV's and crossers.

 Here is a photo I took of Joakim today.

 

 

 

Thursday May 22nd

It's nothing much happening nowdays, so it's not much to write about in my blog. We are at work at daytime, while the kids are at school. In the afternoons I do housework, helping the kids with their homework, and work in our garden.

Tomorrow we are travelling by car for 6 hours. We are going to our brother in law's 40 years birthday party. We are coming home at Sunday.

 

 

 

Saturday May 17th

Today is Norway's Constitution Day. We celebrate our Constitution Day with children's parades, ice og saucages.

A noteworthy aspect of the Norwegian Constitution Day is it's very non-military nature. All over Norway, children's parades with an abundance of flags form the central elements of the celebration. Each elementary school district arranges its own parade with marching bands between schools. The parade takes the children through the community, often making stops at homes of senior citizens, war memorials, etc. The longest parade is in Oslo, where some 100,000 people travel to the city centre to participate in the main festivities. This is broadcast on TV every year, with comments on costumes, banners etc, together with local reports from celebrations around the country. The massive Oslo parade includes some 100 schools, marching bands, and passes the royal palace where the royal family greet the people from the main balcony.

Typically a school’s children parade will consist of some senior school children carrying the schools official banner, followed by a handful of other older children carrying full size Norwegian flags, and the school’s marching band. After the band the rest of the school children follow with hand sized flags, often with the junior forms first, and often behind self made banners for each form or even individual class. Nearby kindergartens may also have been invited to join in. As the parade passes, bystanders often join in behind the official parade, and follow the parade back to the school. Depending on the community, the parade may make stops at particular sites along the route, such as a nursing home or war memorial.

 

We have had wonderful weather today, and we have enjoyed our coffeee at our terrace, with guests, after watching the childrens parades.

 

Here is the parade in our town.

 

 

 

Monday May 12th

Except for Saturday, we have had bad weather for the last few days. But this means that I have gotten time to do some housework instead, during the weekend.

In addition to this, I also got time to do some scrapbooking.

I have ordered all the photos that we took on Cecilie's confirmation day, and now I am waiting to get these photos in the mail, soon. It was nice to get the photos from Fall and Christmas into the photo albums, before the photos from the confirmation is coming.

It's early in the moring, now, and I hope that we will have some periods with no rain today, so that it's possible to take a walk in the garden later.

 

 

 

Saturday May 10th

This is our first day without rain and fog for 5 days.

Today I have bought 5 new perennials.

We have been in our garden the entire afternoon.

In the evening we were sitting in our barbeque house, and enjoying delicious BBQ food. About 8.30 PM it started to rain agin. But at that time, we were indoors, so it did not matter.

 

 

 

Friday May 9th

We have had cloudy weather, with rain and fog for the last few days. We have been very lucky to have wonderful weather for almost the entire April, and beginning of May, but after 5 days with bad weather, I have to admit that I miss the sun and warm weather. It's not nice to work in the garden either, when the weather is bad.

This weekend it's Whitsun. Whitsun is a Christian feast, seven weeks after Easter. In Norway both Whitsunday, and 2nd Whitsunday (monday), are public holiday's.

We don't have any tradition for Whitsun. When I grew up, we used to light bonfire's and barbeque, and Charles and I also do this, when the weather is nice. We'll see what we will do, this Whitsun.

I have posted LOTS of photos from our garden. Check out my "Whats news-page" to get the links to the updated pages. Or go directly to my garden pages.

 

 

 

Thuesday May 6th

Now the confirmation is over. We had some rain on Saturday, but rest of the weekend, the weather was nice, we had no rain at the confirmation Sunday.

We have had a wonderful weekend! Lots of guests and delicious food. The confirmation Sunday was very nice. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Both Cecilie, as the confirmant, and the guests.

The first guest arrived at Friday. We had homemade pizza's when they arrived.

At Saturday Charles, my father and my two brother in law's went to wash the premises where we had the party, and to prepare the dinner. After this, I went to decorate the tables, together with several others. At Saturday, even more guests arrived, and at Saturday evening, we had a barbeque party, in our barbeque house.

On Sunday it was the confirmation day. We went to church at 1 PM. After the church service, we photographed the confirmants by the church. Then we went to have dinner and, after dinner, cakes and coffee.

Cecilie had wished for money for her confirmation. This is very common in Norway. She got lots of money, but she also got some jewellery, and a iPod. In addition to this, my mother had quilted a wonderful bedspread for her, and one of my sisters had made a lovely scrapbook album for Cecilie, with photos from the period when Cecilie was a baby, and until now. Two very personal gifts, that Cecilie really appreciated.

I have posted lots of photos from Cecilie's confirmation here, and some photos taken by the photographer here.

 

 

 

Friday May 2nd

Yesterday I continued with organizing and washing our house, preparing for our sleepovers.

Today I have planned to bake some cakes. I have a day off from work today too, and now, at 09.30 AM the first cake is in the oven. Later I am going to the grocery store, to buy a few things for the confirmation. In the afternoon, I am going to make 3 homemade pizza's, which we are going to enjoy when our guests are coming. Some of them has been driving for over 6 hours, while som others have been driving for over 8 hours, so I belive that thay will be both tired and hungry when they arrives.

Tomorrow we are going to arrange and decorate the tables in the house that the confirmation party is going to be. We must also get the cake that we have ordered from the bakery, and the flower decorations from the flower shop. We are also going to fry the meat that we are going to have in the dinner, so that everything is ready for sunday's confirmation party.

More about Cecilie's confirmation here.