After several weeks, we are starting to feel more at home here. The boys are in the third week of school and doing great. An we (Z&J) started language classes today.
I’m attaching several pictures. I never know in what order this crazy app will post the pictures! But here’s what I’m including:
-We take victories anyway we can get them. I got a haircut using my limited Norwegian and the hairdresser’s limited English (she did a lot better than I did!)
-We spent Saturday at a conference in a nearby town. It was a beautiful place. And bonus: they had English interpretation via headsets!
-Friday William was invited to a birthday party for a school friend. So while he was gone, we treated Daniel to McDonalds.
-Being from the southern US, we were unfamiliar with these big metal electric blocks that thaw the ground in order to dig a grave.
-Daniel was excited to help us grocery shop today, with a kid-sized shopping cart!
A few pictures from our first few days here. More soon!
Please be praying for William & Daniel as they start school on Monday!
We are settling nicely into our home and town. We have small victories and minor setbacks on a daily basis.
Today I was excited to make chili for dinner. That is, until I realized I don’t have a can opener. So I rummaged through drawers and came upon something…
Take a look at the picture. I have never seen anything like this before. I thought it must be a can opener, but couldn’t for the life of me figure it out.
Superman to the rescue… Zack worked with it and finally figured out how to use it. My hero!
I found out later from my aunt that it is just like one my great-grandmother used to use (hers wasn’t so rusty though!).
And for those who already expressed concern, we are all current on our tetanus shots!
We are renting the second floor of a beautiful home built in 1897. It has lots of windows, beautiful floors, and way more than any expectations than we had. The landlord has been great to work with so far, and we look forward to getting to know him and his family (including two sons not much older than our boys!).
Here is a sneak peak…
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| The view from the master bedroom |
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| Living room |
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| Kitchen (this is where God really knocked our socks off!) |
And now we can officially live up to our blog title!
The last week and a half were a whirlwind, to say the least. But here’s the short version: we got permission to travel to Norway, and we are here!
We arrived late Friday evening. We were greeted by several friends and are now in our temporary apartment in Oslo. It is good to be here… and a bit surreal!
Jet lag is a killer. We slept well our first night, mostly from exhaustion I guess! But it is about 4:30 AM right now, and Zack & I are wide awake. Guess it will just take time to get adjusted!
We will write more as we get settled. For now, here are a couple of pictures from our first day here.
Cheering for the Falcons, hoping they can pull off the W!
We are big Atlanta Falcons fans. Zack and I both grew up cheering for them (particularly in the era of Steve Bartkowski!).
We just had to find a place to watch their playoff game last Sunday. But we’ve discovered this to be a tough thing to do here when you have kids in tow – restaurants here that have bars don’t usually allow kids. But after a bit of wandering, we found a place downtown to watch.
A 1:00 east coast start means a 10:00 brunch for us! We enjoyed a nice meal while watching with lots of Seattle fans. Thankfully, our team came out on top! (Despite almost giving it away in the second half!)
We are looking forward to another game – and win – this weekend!
We won’t be leaving for Norway on January 26 like we had originally thought. We are still waiting for our immigration approval and it looks like it could still be a little while.
So we are going to be spending a bit more time in Vancouver. Not what we expected, but also not a surprise to God! We look forward to seeing what He has in store as we wait on next steps.
Here are some recent photos…
