Sand Gard

Last weekend we went to visit a farm called Sand Gard. This is not just any farm - it is the farm where a potential homebirth midwife lives! Her husband is the one doing most of the work and running the daily activities at the farm, so she is free to do all the activities that a homebirth midwife does. Sand Gard is about 30 minutes drive from where we live and it is open on the weekends for selling fresh bread and other baked goods as well as organic eggs. As you can see from all the cars below, it is a popular spot on a Sunday afternoon.
We all really liked her. Okay, well Bentley didn't get to come on this visit because we didn't want him worrying the chickens. But the rest of us really liked her. She said the right things and had a very calm, competent demeanor. We were most impressed when we learned that she was the sole midwife for Princess Martha Louise of Norway when the Princess decided (controversially at the time) to have a homebirth in 2005. How cool is that?
I am still learning about options for birth here in Norway. Most women have babies in hospitals that are run by midwives. However, its going to be hard to beat the option of giving birth in the privacy and comfort of home, so that is my/ our preference. But I am keeping an open mind and will be visiting a new birthing center in early June which is downtown Oslo. I still have a few months to go yet...

New skills

The finger has found the nose! It requires intense concentration in order to really get in there, but we have made it to the nose-picking milestone. And yes, she does try and eat her findings.That's where her next new skill comes in. Actually, its not a new skill - its a new (Norwegian) word: ASHHHH
She has been saying this word so carefully and repeatedly all the time the past couple of weeks and finally we found out what it means: YUCK! She must be hearing this word at barnehage several hundred times a day as she happily attempts to suck on gravel, chew dirt and then eat her boogers that she digs out. Rhodri would say that she takes after her mother....

A happy pre-bathtime swing in the backyard this evening (below)

National Day - afternoon

The story continues... we had to rush home because the neighborhood parade started at 1pm and went right past our house! We went out to join our neighbors and watched the parade go by. The tradition is that as the parade passes you, you are supposed to join in and continue along the route until the party at the end. Rhiannon loved seeing our neighbors in their fancy clothes and watching the parade go right past us.Here is the marching band that has been practicing for the past several weeks going past our house. It was followed by the local barnehage (not the one Rhiannon goes to) and various other groups.
The end of the parade route was at the local school where there was food, games and socializing. We stayed for about 45 minutes and then went home to prepare for the next activity.
The final activity of the day was a BBQ with our close neighbors set up in our private playground area. Everyone brought their own food to grill but we shared salads and desserts. After dinner there was a big soccer game which most people participated in (though not Rhiannon or me) and other games.
All the dogs were free to run and play and beg for scraps, so Bentley had a really great time! Rhiannon also did some begging - she is mad for strawberries so she was climbing up next to anyone that had them visible.
Rhiannon loves the sandbox so when she was dissuaded from begging for strawberries, she was happy to come play here. You can see the soccer game going on behind her and the picnic tables to the left of the pitch.The games and BBQ went on from 4pm until about midnight. I ducked out around 7:30pm to put Rhiannon to bed and then I took a bath and was not keen to go back outside. Needless to say, National Day was absolutely exhausting! Fortunately the next day was cold and rainy -- such a contrast to this fantastic day. We stayed home and laid low all of Friday.

National Day - morning

May 17th started out with a clear sunny sky and a cool wind blowing. We caught the 9:00am train into Oslo and met our friends Leendert and Annike who are both Dutch but have lived in Oslo for 10 years (we work with Leendert). They had already staked out prime real estate at the Royal Palace so that we would have the best view of the big event of the day -- the Barnetoget (which means "Children's Parade"). Nearly every single person in the city was dressed in their finest clothes, and those that had Norwegian national costumes (called "bunad") wore them. Here is the Minx and her Daddy in front of the fountain at National Theatre.The city was absolutely gorgeous with everything in full bloom
It was pretty crowded along the parade route, but especially up by the Palace. We were right in the front row, though -- straight up from the lady in red (below).
When the parade arrived at the Palace, the King and Queen (by the red banner), along with the Prince and Princess (back to the left), came out to the balcony to watch.Then the thousands of children started marching past with their schools. Everyone flying their flags and many of them playing musical instruments.
We watched the parade for about 30 minutes and then abandoned our prime viewing location for others to enjoy. After awhile, everyone looks about the same! We walked down to Aker Brygge (the waterfront) and had some ice cream, then took the train back to Asker for the afternoon activities. The parade went on for hours because every school in the area was marching in it. I was so glad that we went to the effort of getting dressed up and going into Oslo because it really was amazing to see the whole city looking their best. I think Rhiannon enjoyed it too although we left her flag at home (intentionally)! She was the subject of several people's photos when she wanted to sit down and suck on bits of gravel while wearing her fancy dress.

The day before National Day

Today was Norwegian National Day and it was such a big event that I cannot even begin to post photos of it or tell about it! I will first post some photos of yesterday (may 16) when Rhiannon's barnehage had their own National Day celebration (since of course today it was closed). The teachers told us to have Rhiannon "dressed up" which we interpreted as wearing the national outfit. However, it turned out that she was the only one wearing it! Everyone else was most likely saving their good outfit for the real National Day and instead wearing just dressy clothes on May 16th. At least she wasn't old enough to be teased.
Getting ready for the parade
About to start walking...notice the Minx pestering some much larger little boy with her flag! There was a lot of flag poking going on this day.
Here is the school parading through the neighborhood. There were several other parents there and we just walked around the block singing (okay, I didn't sing because I don't know Norwegian songs!) and shouting "hip hip HooRAH!!" with great enthusiasm. Rhiannon liked the "hurRAH" part a lot and would wave her flag while shouting this.

Number 2 on the way!

Well, we are adding another Lewis to the clan in early October! We have known this for awhile, but today was the ultrasound. We did not peek at the gender so the new Lewis will be a surprise to us all. I have been already feeling a lot of movement for a few weeks now but I am also still feeling the nausea - yuck :-(
I am 19 weeks now -- almost halfway there -- and I am already quite large!

Preparations

Well, its all happening here now! Everyone in Norway is busy making preparations for "Norwegian National Day", which is on May 17th. There are mandatory community clean-up events going on at home, at school, and at work -- called "dugnad". There are new flowers planted all over, lawns mowed, roadside trash picked up, cakes being baked and all sorts in preparation for National Day. It seems this holiday is even bigger than Easter (which was pretty big!). We have been participating in all this of course, and otherwise we are just ticking along at school and work. Here is one of the 10 seconds that Rhiannon kept the headband on her head...
You can see our lawn hasn't been mowed but its nice to have lovely green grass for Rhiannon and Bentley to play on.
We went to the "hundelufting" (leash-free dog area) yesterday at Semsvennet lake and Bentley got to play with lots of other dogs.
Semsvennet is such a beautiful place and yesterday the patchy dark clouds made the lighting spectacular (although you can't really tell from this photo). We learned from a fellow dog-owner that this lake has the largest variety of fish in all of Norway -- 22 species!

Inside the canoe

This weekend my friend Rob came to visit from Massachusetts. As soon as he arrived in Asker, we dragged him into the canoe for some Saturday afternoon paddling. Rhiannon loved being carried down to the dock inside the SS Meerkat!
As soon as we were out on the water, the Minx fell asleep even though she was mostly standing with her head propped up by the life jacket! I think she liked the motion of the rocking canoe and the sound of water going past us. It turned out to be rather windy and choppy out on the fjord though, so once we got out from behind the shelter of the Konglungen peninsula, we headed straight for the Holmen Fjord Hotel for some tea and cakes.
One of Rhiannon's favorite places to play lately has been this blue plastic bin. She climbs in and out and in and out, bringing various items (shoes, finger puppets, snacks...) along and cackling to herself all the while. Maybe she is pretending to be inside the canoe?

Mid-week holiday

Hurray for mid-week public holidays! Today was Norwegian Labor Day so we were all off work and school and everything was closed. Since today was Tuesday, that meant that most people took Monday off and at least part of last Friday as well in order to make a long weekend out of this holiday.
We didn't, but we did play hookey yesterday (Monday) morning...we got up as usual and got ready for the day, took Rhiannon to barnehage and then raced off to play golf at the Asker Golf Club! Yesterday was a stunning day with clear views over the Asker valley and down to the fjord, sunny and warm but with a crisp breeze that reminded us we are in Norway. It was a perfect morning for skiving off work and sneaking in 18 holes. I hadn't played golf in about a year so it took me a few holes to get going. And of course, there are no golf carts in these here parts so it ended up being a lot more walking than I am used to (sad to say!). We finished in time to get half a day of work in at the office (which is a mere 2 km from the golf course!) and then we had all day today as a real holiday. Nice!

So today we hung around the house and then went exploring to a nearby lake that we had never been to called Damtjerne. We hiked through the woods up onto the top of a cliff and then around the lake. Sun-heated fir needles laying on damp earth smell the same here that they do in the North Cascades, I am happy to report. It was so lovely to smell warm forest smells.

Daily life images

Here are some recent pictures from just around the house in our daily life.
Rhiannon LOVES the vacuum cleaner! She pushes it around holding her hands and head over the vent so that it blows her hair straight up as pictured below.
Occasionally I try to put a hair clip in Rhiannon's hair. As long as she doesn't notice me putting it in, the clip will stay there for awhile. But on this day she noticed herself in the mirror and then she noticed the clip in her hair - of course she pulled it straight out.
As we are getting the final bits and pieces ready for nursery school and work in the morning, Rhiannon usually pesters Bentley.

A day at the beach

Saturday was forecast to be sunny and warm so we planned an all-day-at-the-beach day and invited 3 other families to join us: Phil & Emily, Henry& Elianne and kids, and Richard & Elaine and kids. Of course we brought the SS Meerkat, our trusty canoe! When we arrived at about 10am, it was cloudy and windy and cold. We made a little nest in the tent for refuge, but the Minx was way more interested in playing with sand, rocks, shells and the rest. Eventually the sun came out and it did warm up and we basked. Here is our camp with the Hvalstrand diving platform in the background.
Rhodri, Phil and Richard went fishing for a long time and then came back and let Richard's son Alex climb in for the photo below. The "three oafs in a boat" situation led to some reportedly sketchy moments when they encountered speedboat wakes and the SS Meerkat got excitingly tippy.
Rhiannon really wanted to go in the canoe as well, so we took her out for her first ride! She was so entranced by the water flowing past the boat that she forgot all about her cookie until we were back on land. Sadly, we don't have a photo of this outing but there will be others. Rhiannon wanted to keep the life jacket on until we had to leave for the day!
And she kept climbing into the canoe as we were getting the car packed up. I think she is hooked!
But the BEST part of the day was that she was fast asleep for the night by 6:30pm and slept all the way until 9:30am Sunday morning! I think we will be having more days at the beach...

Language barriers

The Minx has been talking more and more, but we usually don't understand what she is saying. We were thinking that it was just normal baby talk babble, but then found out that she was actually saying "Look!" when she said "[blah blah]...... SAAAAW!" Its just that she is saying it in Norwegian. So she may be saying other things now too but we just don't understand.
Here she is post-bath in her Welsh dragon bathrobe - not quite settled down for sleepytime just yet!Last week I was away on business (to the Canary Islands, so dont feel too sorry for me!) so Rhodri was holding down the fort all week. When I came back, I found out that the Minx is very obedient when one speaks in Welsh to her -- she sits down, holds out her hands to be cleaned, and other tricks which I am only just learning about! Although I always speak in English to her, I realize that this dose is just a small fraction of what she is hearing the rest of her waking hours. However, at the moment when I need her hands to be cleaned, I have been asking her in Welsh to hold them out (after saying it in English gets me no where)!

Definitely Spring

Now it is really spring!
Last weekend (April 14-15) was warm and sunny, with sunrise about 6am and sunset around 9pm! We spent the weekend mostly around the house. All of our neighbors were outside playing, riding bikes, wanting to borrow Bentley to go on walks, jumping on the trampoline that was set up for the summer season, and just sitting around soaking up the sunshine. Here are 2 of Bentley's admirers who come by everyday to brush him after they get home from school.Here is the Minx talking to herself and playing in the sandbox up at the playground behind the house.

Auntie Sioned's visit and some canoeing!

The big news this week was that Auntie Sioned (Rhodri's younger sister) came to visit! She arrived on Monday night and left Friday afternoon. We had a really great time with her and fortunately the weather was gorgeous the whole week -- after the snow melted on Tuesday morning.Rhodri was able to take some time off and explore Oslo with his little sister. We enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine in our backyard with tea and biscuits (cookies)
Rhodri and Sioned took the canoe (called the 'SS Meerkat') out on the fjord Friday morning while I was at work :-(
We also took the SS Meerkat out today (Sunday) although Sions was already back at home. Our friend Emily came with us and we took turns hanging out with Rhiannon and paddling in the canoe. We actually have lifejackets for all 4 of us to go but naptime took precedence. Here we are loading the canoe back onto the car while Rhiannon eats some gravel.
Here was the naptime hangout spot with the launching dock in the background. This great beach is about 5 min drive (30 min walk) from our house and today it was packed with families BBQ'ing and playing in the sand.

Crashing

Rhiannon has been really into crashing her wagon lately...

Goodbyes and a false alarm

This weekend (Thursday) we said goodbye to Grandpa and Grandma Gans who had to go back to California. We had a great time with them and we already miss them :-(
On Wednesday night before they left, we went out for an early dinner with Phil and Emily which was a grand success. The Minx prowled around the restaurant saying hello to whoever would smile her direction and kept the entire place entertained while we dined.
Then after enjoying nearly 2 weeks of warm temps and lovely sunshine, we had a surprise on Easter Sunday -- it snowed nearly a foot during the afternoon. Maybe Spring is not quite here? Rhodri had only just arrived back home on Easter morning so we all got to enjoy this snowfall together. We had Phil and Emily over for a 'proper' Easter dinner and it was so lovely to enjoy good food, good company and beautiful falling snow.

Crackers

While Rhodri was gone last week, I started a new technique to squeeze a few more minutes of bedtime in after Rhiannon woke up but before we went downstairs for breakfast: feeding her crackers in our bed. Yes, this technique produces a LOT of crumbs on the sheets, but it's worth it. Here she is bathed in early morning light...