Family Home Evening in Norway

Before Ann left Norway we took a drive after the children were finished school. We drove out to a place called Byrkjedal. It is on the way to where the nearest ski mountains are located. It is just a beautiful drive and when we stopped there is a little shop, farm (well really just a few goats), a restaurant, and a few little cottages where one could stay overnight.
Espen on the tractors out front.

A typical Norwegian Troll.

A-hoy.....This cool little ship was carved out of wood. I think the children have seen the Narnia preview a few times.

Mia steering another wonderfully carved vessel!

The 3 Billy Goats Gruff crossing the little bridge. As much as we looked and searched we couldn't seem to find the troll who lives underneath!

2 real life Billy Goats!

This is what the roof of the goat pens look like. All sorts of plants growing and it gives it a true fairytale feel. The purple heather was so beautiful next to all the different greens of the grass and moss.

This was the little "farmer's cottage" they had for us to go in and take a look. It was a one room cottage, and I think it was what they called a summer cottage, not used in the winter months. It was so quaint, the weather that afternoon was as still as ever, not even a whisper of a breeze. I couldn't capture it on film, but you are surrounded by tall rocky hills. I guess you call them mountains, they weren't the imposing kind of mountains that made a place feel frightening, but more of a majestic type of mountain that made the little place seem magical.

Not 5 minutes up the road from Byrkjedal was a place called Gloppedal. Apparently 10,000 years ago during the ice age, melting glaciers caused all this stone, boulders, rocks (what have you) to form this picturesque place. It looks over a little valley through a tiny fjord. The children of course had a field day here. Mia, on getting all wet at the previous stop by playing with one of those huge granite stones the rotate around in water, decided to fix her dilemma of what to do with a wet t-shirt was to simply go in her undershirt!
What a crew!

You can see that some of the mountain that was cut away from the glaciers have formed this incredible boulders.

Sabrina, of course, was everywhere, jumping and climbing from rock to rock.

Ann's Trip to Norway

What a wonderful weekend we had here at the Steffensen Hus! Our dear friend Ann Isherwood hopped over the pond and came for a visit. I first met Ann when I was on my mission in England and serving in Redditch which is located in Worcestershire, about smack in the middle of England.

This is a photo of 2 of the Isherwood girls (Ann's Daughters), my companion and I filling the Elder's car with shredded newspaper at about 5 am! L-R: Sister T. (Me), Rachel, Erin, Sister Faria!

Here is our Ferry boat, just leaving port as we pulled up, we seemed to have the timing down packed as we missed the Ferry both ways by about 1/1000th of a second!

The hike of all hikes. It was A LOT steeper than I remembered, A LOT longer than I remembered, but just as beautiful as I remembered!

World's own stair master. This is the steepest part of the trail, I think. It was quite daunting to look at from the bottom knowning you were going to have to climb UP that. About 1/2 way up I realized one scary thing, we'd have to come back down as well.

The TOP! Magnificent and well worth the hike.

Ann testing fate.

The next day we dragged our VERY sore legs out of the house and headed "Downtown". I haven't really been downtown since we got back to Norway so it was fun to explore a little and see new things, new shops and have a good time. Ann was very partial to this hat.

The harbor. Right behind us is the water.

The car we used while Ann was here.....just kidding, we saw it and had to take a photo though!

The 3 Swords. Not far from the city center, on the outskirts of town lies a monument of 3 swords. Apparently there was a HUGE Viking battle here, many, many, many years ago.

Ann loved this sign. It actually says "Relief Socoety" in Norwegian. Ann thought it said "Help a Foreigner." She was well impressed that we had an entire builten board dedicated to Helping Foreigners! It was a wonderful weekend, full of girlie chats, fun food, near death hikes, ferries, and the joy of being with an old friend.

We had a great time on Monday as we took a trip out of Stavanger near Frafjord, close to were the waterfall (earlier entry) is. We did another little side trip which will become the next blog entry. Right now William needs some attention from his mother and I have children trying to desperately make toast, snacks and basically destroy what little order I had left in that kitchen.

Prince William

Our little William has been given his own throne, if you will. His ever so handy grandfather as fasten 2 hooks onto the ceiling of the soon-to-be garage for one purpose only. To hang a swing for William!

I do believe he is pleased as punch!

This will give you a little prepective on how it hangs etc. There will not be a wall where William is now, it will be open to the "backyard", I do believe there are hook so he can swing the other direction as well. Also I have been told there will be hook for a "Porch Swing" around there sometime in the future. I've always wanted a porch swing even if there is no porch to be found, I'll take it!

William had an Al Fresco nap as well.

The great thing about having a handy man around is that what goes outside can be setup inside as well.

He loves it and I love it too....only what will be my excuse if the house isn't spic and span now?

Tires R Us!

Once upon a Sunday afternoon, after church was finished and dinner eaten, a drive was taken by two families in search of the perfect antidote for summertime boredom. One inspired parent knew of a place that would surely intrigue and enthrall even the toughest critics.

There were doubters at first, not sure of what was entailed at this unusual place of play. However, as time crept by and frail nerves became like steel the children found themselves in a special corner of the world where fun was to be had in every nook and cranny.

One..Two...Three....GO!

She was a brave little girl, and be sure, was not about to be out-done by her older siblings.

Espen playing hide-and-seek!

Sweet little Nora, she is Mia's 2nd cousin and her age.

Vegard (I think that is how you spell it) was like a member of the Cirque de Sole. Up and down those ropes with the easy of pirate, with a smile that is larger than life. He is Espen's age, and ask Espen "Will you be my best friend?"

Spencer in the background trying out his Jack Sparrow skills of flying from one ship to the other, sort of speak.

Espen flew like the wind and had so much fun that he need a little first aid at the end of the day for his newly made and popped blister!

Our resident high flying, never scared, dare devil girl. Sabrina loved every minute.

Kenneth and his cousin Jan (it is a boy name over here) not to be outdone by any of the children gave it a go. Successfully made it from one side to the other, not to shabby for 2 slightly greying dads.

First Day of School!

I wish I had photos of the day, but unfortunately for me Kenneth took off a little earlier than the children and me this morning. He set off with the Elders to hike the every popular, majestic Preikestolen! I plan on entrying his photos at a later date. However, on to the children and their historic day of school in Norway.
The children are attending a special school inorder for them to learn the language. I'm not sure how long they will be with this school. They say 1-2 years, but I have a feeling that by Christmas they'll be ready to go to the "real" school. Plus I really would like them to get to know the children we live around, so we'll see how things are come Christmas Break. We are so lucky that it is right around the corner from our house, so we walk about 10 minutes and we're there. The playground, unfortunately, leaves a little to be desired, but I guess they'll just have to use their imaginations a little more!
Sabrina and Spencer are in the same class, so that should pose something interesting. I need to get organzied because they have such focus on the language their math, writing etc will be lowered to an easier level. So we get to do "Homeschooling" as well this year. I'm excited to try it out as I have a feeling this is were we are headed for High School and later years of Middle School. Espen has a small little class with quite a friendly teacher so he seems completely settled. Spencer is of course the tallest in the entire school, but well, he would have been that if we had stayed in Provo as well!
So off we go on our adventure over here. Life has been BEYOND diffcult this last year. I'm really ready to see it behind us now. I hope that we'll find our way over here soon. I think having the older children settled more now will definetly help. Living a stones throw away from the missionaries has proven to be a great blessing. They are so fun and positive it has been great for the older children. Spencer just inherited a ton of ties the other day, and I don't think the Elders mind so much having us close. All our extra goodies seem to make their way over to them by the end of day!
Well, little Will has had it! I might be adding the odd entry now and again with just writing. I plan on making a blog book one day, and this is doing double duty as my journal as well! I don't think I'll ever scrapbook again!

Sand, Sand and More Sand!

Today we hit Sola Beach! The real beach, it has tons of soft sand! The kids haven't really ever been to a sandy beach, it has been quite a long time for me as well. It was sunny, not super hot, but warm enough to give it a shot. The breeze kept us on our toes, the water wasn't a friendly temperature, but we dug deep into our storage of nerves and off we went!

You can see Spencer running towards me, Espen and Mia just entering the water and Kenneth standing guard.

The little fish was loving this water, it was quite shallow for a long ways out, she dipped, swam, floated and dove down. She is our water girl, sometimes reminds me of myself. I don't think my mom knew how good she had it when we went swimming everyday of the summer. We would leave by 1:00pm and come home at 5:00pm, only to turn around and go back by 6:00pm for night swim! We would call out "Family", whether or not we had a family pass yet, and away we would go! Where have those carefree days gone?

Mia was quite brave to start with, then after a while needed to get warm!

Spencer wrote his name, I captured it just in time, that oncoming wave washed it all away!

Espen joining Sabrina for a swim.

Clutched fists to try to ward off the cool breeze that really nipped at you when you were wet! Notice that she still has her headband with flower in her hair!

Finally.....warm!

I don't think Kenneth's future lies in suntanning lotion commericals! Maybe more in being a "Blinding ray of sunshine!"

Will loved the sand after a while, at first he wasn't too sure.

But it was all too much to resist!

So away he went squishing it between his fingers, tasting a little as well!