We had such a great Christmas vacation. It was the first time in 5 months that we were able to leave our small city and see people we didn't recognize, so that was a plus! Mostly the best thing about the trip down was that we were able to spend lots of time with family and friends. And of course see some sunshine.
We went straight to Lier after arriving in Norway to meet little Mia. She was only a couple weeks old when we first met her and so super cute. As always Oliver had the warmest welcome for us with lots of running and screaming and scaring of each other. It's a great bedtime routine we tried to instill while we were down :) I'm sure his parents appreciated that.
A few days after we arrived my sister Steph and her family came to join us in Norway for Christmas. It was so great to get to see them again and play with Jack! Who has a mean slap shot I must add. We all stayed in Oslo at Oskar's sister's place, and it was really fun to be a tourist for a few days. Julie was unfortunately a little sick while we were there so she and Jack only got a couple days of playing together in. But Jack was really into all of her toys including the play kitchen. Although he kept trying to fix the sink plumbing instead of cook some food. :) He didn't like the talking James Brown or George W Bush, but can you really blame him?
Christmas day was spent first opening presents and eating chocolates in Oslo and then later opening presents and eating chocolates in Lier! We had an enormous dinner with about eight types of meat so I think Steph and Kurt were a little surprised that I'm still vegan in Norway. It was so fantastic to have them come to Norway for Christmas and to get to see them before they were soon heading back to North America (although we didn't know it at the time).
After Christmas Oskar and I spent a couple days in Oslo with our friend Henning. It was so much fun to walk around a big city and have the option of so many coffee shops and so many stores; I could have just window shopped all day. Then we all went back to Lier for New Year's Eve where we drank champagne and had fireworks. Ollie wasn't the biggest fan of fireworks but he came around a little bit towards the end; they can be a little scary if you've never seen them before. Come midnight we stood out on the balcony and watched all of town light fireworks. I have never seen so many in my entire life before! For kilometers you could see them going off everywhere and it was incredibly loud. All around us there was banging and it sounded strangely like a war zone. Of course Oliver wakes up to the thundering of fireworks, it was insane. I had never seen anything like it. Oskar and Henning assured me that this was nothing compared to when fireworks were legal (what??) when they were growing up! It was pretty awesome.
Then came Spain! Yeah.
Oskar and I spent most of the days we were in Spain climbing. It was so much fun to be outside all the time and wear only a t- shirt. It wasn't really that hot if you were walking around in town but when you're sheltered from the wind and standing against a rock face it gets pretty warm. I even got new freckles! We didn't try many new climbs but we did go over a lot from last year and this time I led them instead of Oskar. I can't say enough how amazing it was to be outside and climb in the sunshine like that. It was exactly what I wanted! It was great too to have Oskar's brother, Jan, come join us climbing for a day, hopefully we can do more of that again.
My friend Rebecca from Canada was traveling in Europe for a couple weeks just visiting friends and happened to be in Spain at the same time I was, so we of course planned a visit. It was really great to have a friend come visit and it's always nice to have a little bit of Canada around!
We had a lot of great dinners cooked in the outdoor kitchen, we went to the zoo ( it's a really awesome zoo) and we went on some shopping trips. When I told Erin that Longyearbyen has 2 clothing stores aside from the sports stores, she couldn't believe it. Especially when I mentioned that one of them is a Gant store. It was then understood why we wait to buy socks and underpants and jeans until we come to the mainland. We don't really have the greatest variety and it's all a little pricey :)
We landed in Norway late at night and after a mini Christmas of all the gifts sent from Canada (Merci!) and a quick sleep, Øyvind drove us to the airport. Flying in to Longyearbyen was very beautiful; The blue light had just come back to Longyearbyen the day we were landing so it was much brighter than I had expected. As the plane was starting to descend we were able to see the sun rays just beyond the horizon. It's coming so soon!
Shovelling snow in Lier.
Kjerringvik and the hot tub in Kjerringvik :)
Christmas eve afternoon we tried maybe four places to sit and have a coffee.
Oskar on some crazy climb.
Ollie's lunch!
We went to Valencia one day. We accidentally walked around the entire old town thinking we were going right through it! We went to a market and got some delicious food and then sat outside and watched people. My favourite thing to do!
This is the kids park in Albir, it's so much fun! They even have exercise equipment for adults so that you can work out and watch your kids play.
Harvesting from the garden! We brought 23kg back to Norway with us. Definitely worth it.
While we were at the zoo we rented some mobility scooters (they are for rent everywhere in Albir) just for fun. But I think the boys were a little embarrassed when they first started driving them.
Thank you everyone for a great Christmas vacation. We're looking forward to seeing everyone again soon!
Much love.
