A May trip

In May, when my parents were visiting, we drove a spontaneous road trip to Lyngør lighthouse and Arendal. We stopped in some other places by the road, the weather was not always nice to us, but I still think some pictures are worth showing.
A small waterfall not far from here.

Greta got these hedgehogs from the grandparents and made a good composition in the forest.

A lunch stop in the beech forest in Larvik.





Lyngør lighthouse



The guesthouse we stopped at in Arendal.

Arendal - the Norwegian Venice.



Risør on our way back home.

One of the warmest days!

We are really lucky with the weekends lately, great weather while it rains the rest of the week. It is really nice to spend time outside now, even hard to believe that days ago we were wearing jackets. Maybe we even got sunburnt? We will see tomorrow!!
The day were just screaming: get outside! Nice to have good weather so early in spring/summer. Tomorrow is another week, a short one for Greta and Santiago since they will go to Spain already on Wednesday.
This morning I decided to wash the car, and Greta wanted to help. So this was our morning. I also miss some fysical activity, it is less and less running and tennis every time, so this was the best I came up with today. So after me washing the worst part away on the gas station, we started the handwash. Greta loved it. I understand this, I remember we used to handwash the car when we were kids. She was really a great help. She likes to have the things clean. She never misses the oportunity to help me. :-)

Washing the car

Good Sunday activity.
Later we went to the open day at the water energy/station museum (I don't really know how it is called in English). They had lots of activities for kids, like the rocket making:

And sending it out in the space later:


The watermills and water tunnel:


Increadibly good weather:

The activity most kids enjoyed was playing in the big shallow pond, Greta was no exception.


At the end she told dad how much she loves him:

We also visited our old neighbour friends that moved to a new house, where Greta played with her friend and I got some baby experience again. The dads made dinner on a grill and we had it very nice together.
When we came home and Santiago was taking Greta to bed, I continued making my office room neater and make yet another intent to get organized - labeled the charging cables. We will see if this system works now.

It will not be very sad even if it rains tomorrow, since we had such a great time this weekend. How was your weekend?

The 17th of May

The national day started wery promising, no rain at all, and the happy child. So we headed to the town and had a good time watching the beautiful Norwegians everywhere. But Greta was just not in the mood, you can see on the second picture. So after a while she asked to please please go home, almost crying. Also, today is the last day the grandparents are here, so it will be sad for her to say good bye until the next time.

 After some resting and lunch at home, she was happy again, the sun came out, and we went for a short walk, basicly to the playground and paint with chalk on the road.

 She is a busy lady now, talking on a phone all the time. She even sent me three sms today: two of them empty and one saying "Call me later".

I hope you had a great Norwegian National day.

The tank top on the 17th of May

An easy top to make, made the day of my girl. In the morning she was really sad and was not in the mood for the natianal day celebration at all. But the life gets brighter when your mom makes you a pink top! Doli tank pattern.

Where have we been?

The week before easter we traveled to the Galapagos islands. This year we could not wait for vacations anymore and decided to travel to the warm place right away. This looks just like another world. We experienced lots of new things, but the best is the nature, the animals you will never see any other places, exotic fruit, the tropical rain, and the feeling of being in such an authentic place. It takes really a lot of time to travel there, to we needed to spend some time there once we did it. Two weeks went very fast, but we got an unforgottable experience. We travelled to Amsterdam, then to Guayaquil in Ecuador (with a short stop in Quito airport), where we stopped for a day, and continued our journey further. 2 hours from Ecuador we were in Galapagos Islands. We stayed mostly on Santa Cruz, several days on Isabela, and short day trips to Floreana and Bartolome. The tropical rain was incredibly good, but it damaged our camera and we could not use it for almost a week. Greta loved the animals, she was running after iguanas and crabs. The tortoises are huge. The sharks are exciting. The snorkeling is great.
I show you a couple of pictures so you make the idea.
The travel went pretty good. Greta enjoyed watching films during the flight, and slept happily the last 4-5 hours.

Our day in Guayaquil was also rainy, to say it some way. But it is beautiful.

Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. Near the fishermans bay, where sea lions and pelicans come to steal some fish from the market.

Tortuga Bay is the best beach I have seen (and Hauklandstrand in Lofoten in the North Norway), even walking for 40 minutes under the sun through the cactus forest could not stop us from going there three times.



Snorkeling is great with a child on the back )



 Greta observing iguanas on a beach on Isabela.

This is really a one in a lifetime experience, and I strongly recommend Galapagos for vacation if you like the real authentic places.
Good to be back home, too.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

We are back home

We have been to France and Spain in the last weeks, I will tell more about it soon, but now we just enjoy being back home, and enjoy summer and the last day of vacation today.