To the beach!

We've been in Little Haven on the Pembrokeshire coast since Friday, and we have had such a great time -- hard to believe our week is nearly over already! Gabriel, Rhiannon and Tryfan running running, Tryfan always a few paces behind them.
Here is the beach at low tide between Little Haven and Broad Haven.
Very happily digging in the tide pools. The Little Haven point is in the background with the houses on it.
Rhiannon and Gaby taking a break, eating ice cream in the sun.
More ice cream in the sun. I took this photo right after the 3 of them "cheers"-ed their ice cream cones together.
The top terrace (out of 3!) on Saturday afternoon: kids playing, adults reading the paper and drinking cups of tea, all of us enjoying the stunning location and sunshine!
We have been 4 adults and 3 kids Fri-Sat-Sun, and then Nain Beryl came on Monday, then Taid Trefor came today (Wed). Our daily regime is: hang around inside watching telly, drinking tea, eating breakfast until about 9am, then everybody head out to the beach in rain gear, come in for lunch and a nap, then go back out to the beach in swimsuits (with the addition of wetsuits after a few days), then in for tea and snacks in the late afternoon on the terrace, followed by dinner and all that. Great life!

Old friends, new babies

We are 2 days into our trip, and so far we've had a great time. First we flew to London on Wed midday, rented a car, and drove to Bristol to stay with old friends Gareth and Rachel and their new baby "JJ". Here are the troops on the play airplane at Oslo airport - they had it to themselves for the first time ever and made full use of the cockpit.
It was very rainy and stormy during our 1.5 hour drive to Bristol, but once we got there we had lovely weather - perfect for sitting outside. We gave presents to the Baby JJ and then let the kids run wild in the grassy back garden, trying to chase the resident kitty cat.
Rhodri and Gareth's longtime friend Huw came over for dinner and the 3 Welshmen were happily chatting away in cymraeg for the evening while Rachel and I talked about babies :-)
On Thursday morning we visited my longtime friend Polly and her 5-day-old baby boy (as yet unnamed). The last time I saw her was 5 years ago when we ran the 2-day KIMM mountain orienteering marathon as partners. Since then we have both become Mamas, and it was so wonderful to reunite. No photos unfortunately, except for those in my memory.

From Polly's house, we went on to the very small village of Rudge less than an hour's drive from Bristol and we stayed at the Full Moon Inn for the rest of the afternoon and all night. Our longtime friends David and Jen drove up from Southampton (~1.5 hrs drive) to meet us for playtime in the beer garden and then dinner. Their two kids Katherine (4.5) and Jonathon (2) played with our two while we adults hid under the cover of umbrellas and took turns mediating conflicts.
After a hugely successful and delicious dinner in a dining room we had all to ourselves, we put all the kids in the bath and started the bedtime routine.
Everyone got into their jammies and bounced on the bed for awhile, then we gave kisses and hugs all around and said goodbye. Thank you so much Dave and Jen for coming up to Rudge to meet us!

Hanging around

Yesterday and today I stayed home with the kids since barnehage is closed. We've had long but fun days - picking more strawberries and blueberries which the kids have found around the yard (Tryfan especially loves berry hunting); taking Bentley on walks around the neighborhood, all 3 of us holding hands on the quiet streets in case a car or bike or another dog decide to share the road with us; riding bikes around the neighborhood - Rhiannon on her pink bike (always with a baby in the babyseat) and Tryfan riding behind me on my bike. We don't take Bentley on these outings - that would be way too dangerous! But mostly we have just been hanging around the house, unpacking boxes in the garage and moving stuff around. Here are the urchins doing somersaults (aka roly-polies) on some bubble wrap packing material in the gravelly driveway.

Today we also ran some errands together - first we went to see Dr. Weekend and Dr. Heidi near our old house (actually their names are Dr. Viken and Heidi his assistant). I made an appointment because Rhiannon hasn't been hearing what we have been saying lately! We wanted to find out if her affliction was just a 3-year-old spell of not listening, or if she had earwax buildup or what (turned out to be a bit of earwax). Anyway, it was a good visit because "Dr" Heidi loves kids, especially these two, and they both instantly bonded with her. The kids were so good, sitting still with Dr Weekend looked in both of their sets of ears, that they each got a green ring to wear.
After the doctor visit, we took Bentley to his farm where he will stay for 10 days while we are in Wales! Yippiee! We are flying to London tomorrow and then driving west to visit friends in Bristol and Southampton (sort of) before continuing our journey to Little Haven on the Pembrokeshire coast of south Wales. We are spending a week at this house with Rhodri's mother, his sister Nia and her family, and hopefully Sioned and Rhodri's dad as well. Woohoo!! We cannot wait!

Serious berry harvesting

I recently invested 100 kroners (~$15) in a berry picking tool. These Norwegians are serious about picking berries, I tell you! So I took a couple of hours today and went on my own little adventure in the forest, equipped with a backpack full of empty tupperware containers, my new tool, a map, a compass, and Bentley by my side. Great success! I came back with my containers filled with wild blueberries (and leaves and small green berries), a wet and tired dog (i let him jump in the lake), and stamps from 3 orienteering controls that I had located. Here is Tryfan holding the berry tool and eating blueberries as I was washing them.
Close up of the gorgeous blue juicies! This photo shows a disproportionate amount of leaves because I was in the process of separating the berries out and most of them had sunk to the bottom. These lovelies turned into a delicious blueberry cobbler for dessert tonight. Yum!
The fabulous tool! It looks to me very similar to the claws of a bear that would be raking the bushes for berries, except that there is the handy storage compartment behind the claws!
I could not believe how many blueberries carpet this forest, and it's only 5 minutes run or 10-15 minutes walk from our new house! Plus this particular forest is on the flanks of the mountain Vardaasen (the one with the ski slope that was visible from our last house, but the other side of the mountain) and there are several lakes in the area, and it is just so wonderful. I love exploring this area. And today was my first day doing any sort of orienteering in 5 years! It felt so good to run thrashing around in the bushes and trying to find my way to the control stations that are permanently installed in the outback of Norway from April - October. There were a few moments of wondering if I still knew how to read a map and follow a compass, wondering if I actually was in the location that I thought I was, but I didn't get too lost. I reckon this won't be my last adventure in these parts...

Strawberry picking and our first house guests

Today was the last day of barnehage for the year - hurray! It is only closed for 2 weeks summer holiday, but we figured we would get a few hour jump start on it. I picked up the kids at 3pm and met my friend Fiona with twins Magnus and Finn to go pick strawberries and then come to our house for dinner. Our first house guests!
We had a good time picking in wet (though not rainy), cool conditions - perfect for berry picking - although Tryfan wanted to go touch the tractor the entire time (which was up at the top of the hill while we were picking at the bottom), while Rhiannon and the 'big boys' just ate and ate and ate. Anyway, we came away with about half of a case of lovely strawberries.
On the way back to the car, the kids found a big mud puddle and did some satisfying jumps in it, which splashed Rhiannon inside the car she had found. But she decided that she would rather suffer the muddy splashes on her face than give up the car for one of the boys to take over!
Back at the ranch, the kids ran wild in the backyard and then inside once the rain started to come down. By then the Daddies had reunited with us and we all had pizza and homemade (Fiona's) cheesecake. Hurray!
Its good fun shouting 'baesj' (poo) really loud in someone else's house

First days in new house

We are slowly getting settled in our new house. Last week was so hot, and then on Sunday (July 5th) it rained all day and the house finally cooled down to a comfortable temperature. During that entire time, I couldn't find my camera battery charger and so couldn't download the photos of these nuddie cuties! Here they are eating lunch at our dining room table before we purchased an grownup-sized one.
This was our first meal in the house -- I think it was on Thursday night (July 2nd).
The very popular playhouse in the backyard! We moved the play kitchen out here over the weekend -- I hope to be served many pretend meals on the tiny picnic table in coming months because it is quite a nice spot.
First night here, Rhiannon reading stories to Tryfan in her bed.
For the most part, the transition hasn't been too bad. Of course, the kids haven't been sleeping that great due to the unfamiliarity of their rooms and also the heat. But I think we are out of that phase now. We really like this house -- the backyard, the kitchen, the living room, the bedrooms, the bathroom, the garage and the location! In fact, there isn't much that we don't like about this house. We do miss our old neighbors though, and the wonderful lekeplass that we shared with them. Once we finish unpacking boxes, I will post some photos of the house.

Hot days with boxes and no internet

We have had a heat spell with temps in the 90's (F) -- not much incentive for unpacking boxes except to jump in the lake at the end of the day! Here is Tryfan when we picked him up from barnehage the other day. We forgot to send his sun hat so he had to wear Rhiannon's!
More later, we haven't had internet until now...

The New House

We have been moving for the past week and a half now, and we are ready for it to be finished, especially with all this hot weather we have been getting (85-90 F everyday)! First we started moving out of the old house into the temporary apartment on June 22nd, then started moving into the new house on June 29th. We are now all done at the old house (as of today) but still living in the apartment while moving into the new house. Confusing! Good thing all 3 residences are within a 5 mile radius. Here are the troops twirling in Rhiannon's new purple bedroom
And here is Tryfan peeking out from the deck into the huge kitchen area.
It's a great house, owned by a Norwegian man and his American wife and their 3 children (12, 9 and 8 years old I think) who are living in Louisiana for 2 years. Unlike our previous residence, this is an 'enebolig' (a single family dwelling aka detached house) and it has a big lovely backyard with a playhouse, a slide that is built into the hill, a sandbox, and a spacious deck. We have met most of the neighbors already, as our new landlord arranged a get-together a couple of weeks ago that involved strawberries and ice cream on a warm Friday afternoon. I think tomorrow will be our first night spent there and we are really excited!

Dining date

On Saturday afternoon, we were invited to Sofia's house for dinner starting at 4pm. It was another very hot day, so we lathered in sunscreen and walked over. Rhiannon decided to wear her butterfly wings (and why not?). Here are the troops in the elevator -- always great excitement to push the button and then hang from the little rail inside the elevator.
Here is Paer, Sofia's daddy. He is quite a character, with his apron and oven mitt and proudly displaying his "Swedish welcome" mat!
This was about the closest I got to the girls - they were off riding bikes, swinging from the trees and picking wild strawberries while we adults sat in the shade and enjoyed fine foods and wine. Rhiannon is wearing a borrowed riding helmet because there was only 1 bike helmet to wear but 2 vehicles to ride (1 bike and 1 scooter). Tryfan kept trying to play with them but was consistently turned back. I think he is used to it though because he wasn't too sad.
Fortunately there were 4 kitty-cats at their house that Tryfan got to chase around and try to touch.
For most of the time we were there, the kitties were in their enclosed porch area of the house so they couldn't do much damage to Tryfan (or vice versa) and this worked out pretty well for everyone. Good thing Bentley stayed in the apartment! It would have been a total nightmare if he had come along with us because he looooves chasing kitty cats.

Hands

Tryfan has been imitating absolutely everything Rhiannon does and says these days. He follows her everywhere and almost always wants to hold her hand. He says "hands!" during these times. Here they are walking from the car to the apartment after barnehage on Friday afternoon. The dirt and sweat is kind of camouflaged in this photo...
Rhodri had a late meeting on Friday so I took the kids out for a pizza dinner in downtown Asker. Rhodri met us afterwards and we had ice cream cones before going back to the (hot) apartment. This photo was taken after Tryfan had a very loud meltdown for some reason related to the ice cream, so the scene here looks deceptively peaceful.
Poor little guy is at a stage where he is trying so hard to communicate but just gets really angry sometimes that he cannot translate his wants and needs into words (or so I am guessing!). But he is saying new words everyday and it is so cool. He loves counting. Tryfan can count to 14 in Norwegian (coincidentally the number of kids in his class so I suspect that all the kids can do this) and 10 in Welsh and English. He hasn't figured out the concept of 1 number per item, but he points to things and counts to 3 usually before moving to the next item (animal, rock, grape, shoe).

TGFF

Thank Goodness For Finnsrudvannet!
Its been about 80 F/ 26 C here this week, and while it is wonderful to have such warm weather, we really are not used to such warmth! And so we seek refuge in the grassy shade at Finnsrudvannet, one of the three lakes near Asker golfcourse. Lots of familiar faces from the barnehage crowd come here regularly, so there are plenty of small kids sharing shovels and buckets at the water's edge. We went here three days in a row this week, which is something of a record for us. But our penthouse apartment living quarters that face southwest gets really warm in the late afternoon and Finnsrudvannet is the closest place to swim (besides the fountain downtown Asker), so the easiest thing to do is pack a picnic dinner and go straight from barnehage to the lake. Yay for summer!

Downtown Asker

We've moved to a temporary apartment downtown Asker for a week while we transition to the new house. We are in a 3-bedroom apartment just above the Trekanten shopping center - so handy! We went to the fountain to play in the water at the end of the day Monday before getting settled in for the night.
There is no 'real' bathtub, but there is a plastic kid's bathtub that these two can just barely fit into at the same time.
We are very grateful that Bentley can be with us during this time too, especially since we had expected that no dogs would be allowed.
The packing and moving has been going okay - we've had gorgeous weather the past few days so I'd much rather be bustling around inside and outside, running errands and taking Bentley on bike rides to the fjord than be sitting in an office! Let's hope the rest of the week goes okay.

Final days in the hood

We've had a string of full and emotional days...packing, cleaning, organizing... getting ready for our move to a temporary apartment on Monday. We had a "Farewell party" for just a few neighbors in the common front yard area.
Here are (l to r clockwise): Harini w/ Riya, me, Lasse (in the sunglasses), Hedda, Tone, Harald, John-Harald, Anne, Laila, Gaius, Snorre, Rhiannon, Ida and Atle w/ Emma (not visible in his lap). We had cakes and wine and jello from 3-5pm on Sunday afternoon. It was warm and lovely and we were happy for that but sad to say goodbye.
On Saturday, our friend Michel came over to help move stuff around and look after the kids a little bit. Rhiannon loves Michel, and Tryfan loves Rhiannon, so it wasn't too hard for Michel to look after them.
Today we are moving to the temporary apartment...watch this space.

Fri day

Today the barnehage was shut for a planning meeting, so I stayed home with the kids. In Norwegian they call this a "fri" day, as in "free" day. But it was also a Friday today. Hence the pun.
Anyway, we invited Rhiannon's friend Yasmeen over at long last, after many months of her begging and pleading for Yasmeen to come over to our house. This is the infamous Yasmeen of the past year that every scratch or bruise has been blamed on. The little ordeal several months ago that resulted in Rhiannon having her mouth washed with soap? Yasmeen taught her that phrase. But now that I have gotten to know Yasmeen's mother, it seemed like the social thing to do to have them over on this "fri" day. They had a great time together jumping on the trampoline, see-sawing, sliding, swinging, and eating a picnic with the rest of us.
Here is the gang of us picnicking - Rhiannon, Yasmeen, Yasmin, Beate, Samah, Abudi and Tryfan - a Welsh/ American/ Chinese/ German/ Palistinian picnic in Norway.
In other news, we are preparing to move. We may be moving out as soon as Monday, which means that this is our last weekend in the neighborhood! This is one of the several things going on in our life just now that is causing us quite a lot of stress and unpleasantness which I cannot go into here, but that is one of the reasons why this blog has been quieter than normal these past couple of weeks :-( Oh well. Soon enough this will be a memory so we are trying to keep our chins up.

Weekend away

Very early on Friday, I flew to London Gatwick to work in the Company office there for the day, then spent the gorgeous weekend with various friends in the area. It was so luxurious to fly solo without worrying about keeping kids behaved, fed, and slept and just to worry about me! I spent Friday night with Patrick and Sarah, who were our close friends here in Asker before they got transferred to Gatwick, and had a joyous reunion with them spent dancing in the kitchen while the kids rollerbladed through the house pumped up on lollipops and blue Thomas the Tank Engine cake frosting. Always interesting to visit other families and experience the household dynamics!

Then on Saturday I migrated over to my old friend Tracy's house for a "Desert Island Disc" party that started at 3pm and lasted until ~1am. The requirements for this party were for each attending person to submit 8 songs that they would choose to listen to while on a desert island, and they had to be submitted enough in advance so that Tracy had time to put together a playlist on his iPod with everyone's songs on it. Sounded interesting, but actually it turned out to be far more interesting than I expected. Each person had not only different musical tastes, but also a different interpretation of the scene they imagined while on a desert island.

One guy figured that for him to be in such a place, he would have had to been shipwrecked and therefore in a mindset that was distressed, bewildered, overwhelmed. Therefore the 8 songs he chose were ones that he would want to listen to in that situation. Another guy imagined his desert island scene to be one of choice, laying in a hammock with a mojito in hand, and therefore his songs were waaay different. And so on and so on. The playlist was on shuffle, and it was a small enough gathering that when each new song came on, there would be speculation as to whose song it was (usually a wrong guess) and then an explanation as to what that song reminded them of, why they chose it, and so on. Fantastic! I flew home Sunday afternoon and had a fascinating conversation with a gay Norwegian man aged ~50 who was living in Buenos Aires after making his fortune in publishing new age self help books to the Norwegian masses, but coming back to Oslo to visit family after several years away. I returned to the house in time to put the kids to bath and bed, and felt totally rejuvenated and inspired by all of my social interactions and also by reading loads of English magazines (another luxury in this land of norsk).

Sommerfest

Thursday was the annual "Sommerfest" at barnehage and everyone was looking forward to it. The event was a huge success: a multi-song performance by all the kids and their brave teachers sporting Abba outfits followed by awards and a BBQ. Tryfan stood in the front row with all the other tiny people and looked bewildered. The song that their class sang is called "Bjornen sover" ("The bear sleeps") and the performance consisted of all the 1 and 2 year old kids curled up on the ground with their knees tucked up and their heads laying on their hands while the teachers sang about the bears sleeping. Then at the end they all jump up and make claws with their hands and shout "Roar!". It was very funny but I don't have any photos from it. Tryfan is wearing a brown striped shirt in the photo below.
Here is some footage of Rhiannon dancing to her favorite "Mamma Mia" song. I don't know where she got those moves, but they are pretty funny!

At the end of the above video, you can kind of hear that something else had started to happen and it was all the teachers running out from behind the building to sing and dance in their snazzy outfits! Solveig is in the yellow glasses and she is one of Rhiannon's teachers, as is Camilla with the short dark hair in the middle. Bente, who is in white between Solveig and Camilla, is one of Tryfan's teachers and so is Anna in the dark hair on the far right. So it was a grand performance that generated much laughter and applause.

After all the singing, dancing and dining we were ready to go home and wind down! But it was really fun.

Three and a half

Rhiannon is exactly 3 and a half years old today.
She is turning into such a big girl! I am sorry to say that I don't know exactly how tall she is, but she seems to be a tiny bit taller than her buddies -- maybe 98-100 cm tall? And she weighs 17.5 kgs (~39 lbs). She is recently very into wearing skirts or dresses every day and she wants her hair in "big" braids. I have started braiding her hair, but she just gets mad when I do because the braids are not big enough. That's when I throw in a pitch for eating all of her dinner, brushing and washing her hair, and getting lots of sleep because that is how to grow long strong hair which can turn into big braids.

Anyway, Rhiannon is very independent. When I see her with other kids, I see that she does what she wants to rather than what other people are doing. Sometimes those activities coincide and she seems happy to play with others (making sand cakes and trying to sell them, riding bikes, playing mama and baby) but other times I see her go off on her own and swing or just dig in the sand. I doubt she is unusual in this way, but I am happy to observe this. Sometimes. When her independence takes the form of resourcefully finding a stool to climb up and unlock the front door, then put her shoes and jacket on and get her bike out of the shed to ride around on the driveway...we are not so thrilled. But she is not trying to be sneaky or naughty, she just knows what she wants and she gets on with it! Part of me is proud of her for this, but the rest of me is very worried.

Her favorite activities lately have been doing jigsaw puzzles, reading "magazines" (actually just books) in bed, singing Mamma Mia songs, jumping on the trampoline, and looking after her baby "Maria Isabel". She loves watching "Hwyl Cwac Cwac" (a Welsh cartoon about a duck) and "Mary Poppins" but the TV doesn't get switched on very often these days when it is light outside all the time.

Our little Rhiannon is a very social girl. She is scarily comfortable asking questions to people that she doesn't know very well (usually "what are you doing? where are you going?" type questions in Norwegian) and then carrying on a conversation with them. So she knows the names of all the parents of her classmates at barnehage and she recognizes their cars too! She also is very good at tractor-spotting: Rhiannon can spot a New Holland tractor (her favorite make) from an impressive distance.

Rhiannon gets very excited by berries or juice of any sort, she doesn't like mushrooms or tomatoes, and her favorite food is still pølser (hot dogs) with ketchup. She always eats her breakfast, usually most of her lunch, and sometimes all her dinner but that one is a struggle. She is good at sleeping though - 11 or 12 hours each night is the norm and there is no fight to get into bed. She is a little sweetie most of the time, but she is of course fully capable of being a grouchy irritable little skunk also! I guess she is just doing her job of being a three and a half year old :-)

Into the skogen

In August when the new 'schoolyear' begins, Rhiannon gets to be part of the "utegruppe" at barnehage! This means that every day for one week a month, she and 10 of her playmates get to take a taxibus out to the "skogen" (forest) and hang out at the barnehage camp all day. This evening was a special introductory visit to the forest camp and it was from 5:30 - 7pm for all the kids who will start this in August. Here we are walking up the trail from where we parked the car. It is about 300 yards or so from the pavement.
The path climbs up a little hill to a semi-open area where the barnehage has set up shelters that are used all year long. Here is the lavvo (tipi-type) tent, which has a wood burning stove to cook on inside (& heat the place in the cold weather), as well as wooden platforms and animal skins to sit on. All the people are sitting around a bonfire pit that is also used to cook on. This evening we all grilled polser (hot dogs).
Here is the fire pit with the outhouses in the background. The one just to the right of the people is the "baesj" house and the little structure at the far right is just for girls to pee in. The boys have to stand in a certain place behind the two outhouses and pee down the hill. All this was carefully explained to me by one of the teachers.
Here is Rhiannon using the pee facility. Although she is sitting on a log, there is foam padding to protect bare legs. As you can see from the smile, Rhiannon was quite happy to pee in this new place. And there is room for 2 people to go at the same time, which is probably pretty fun for them as well. Both Sofie and Sofia (Rhiannon's two best buddies) are in the same group, so we are all happy about that.
There are also some small stumps with hammers and nails laying around for the kids to practice on (!!!). Here is Rhiannon in between Christian and Christina.
This place is pretty amazing. The whole concept is pretty amazing to me, actually. Letting small children play with real nails and real hammers without supervision? And teaching them how to build fires and use knives to whittle? (Although the teacher explained that they don't let the kids light the fires -- they just learn how to build them properly.) Wow. The whole purpose of this, of course, is to let the kids learn how to play without toys and to respect the natural world.
Only the big kids get to do this for the last 2 years (out of 5) that they are in barnehage. So the 4 year olds (Rhiannon's class, although she is the youngest) spend a year going 1 week a month and then the 5 year olds spend 2 weeks a month. They go everyday regardless of the weather and they cook full meals on 2 days of the week. The property that they have set up their camp on is private property - an old woman who gave permission for this particular barnehage to conduct their activities on year round. But most of the barnehages in the area seem to have their own camp that they go to like this, and it is such a wonderful idea. Wish I could go, too!

Not much to report on

After the glorious weekend and holiday, we had a week of cooler-and-slightly-rainy-but-still-pleasant weather. And that continues. This past weekend we stayed around home for the most part, playing outside with Gaius and our other neighbors. Tryfan and Gaius act very shy around each other but they desperately want to play together! Here they were kind of starting to take turns giving the ball to each other and it was really cute.
We haven't had too much to report on lately. We've had some things brewing here on this end (NO I am NOT pregnant!), and thus the reason for our week of silence. All will be revealed in coming days...

Off to a good start

Today was a public holiday -- an excellent way to start the new month!
We had a day very similar to the past two, but with the variation of hanging out at Beate's house as well as at the lekeplass and our house. It was such a lovely scene: Beate and I sitting in the shade talking while the kids played in the water, on the bikes and in the tent, stopping every now and then for some cookies and juice. Here are the troops with Yasmin.
Eventually we made it back home for an early dinner outside on the deck. But soon the troops were stripped back down to nothing and playing in the water again. Tryfan figured out that he could climb into the little tub of water and Rhiannon soon followed suit (or lack of, in this case). They laughed and sang and splashed and made such a ruckus that our neighbors on the non-Gaius side came out to see what was happening. Fortunately they are a friendly sort and we had a chance to talk about golf and bike rides in a neighborly, over-the-fence type of way.
Earlier in the day, Rhiannon convinced Tryfan to lay down and pretend he was a baby so that she could be the Mama and put him to bed. She let him eat raisins in bed so he happily laid there nibbling his treat while she attended to her other babies (Maria Isabel and Tiny Maria, not pictured).
Now the kids are fast asleep and some high clouds have moved in to cool off our 80 F/ 25 C day, bringing our lovely weekend to a close.