Photo Day

It was over 60 degrees today and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day. I love the fact that the weather along the coast of Norway is so unpredictable and it changes like it does. Up north, down south and in the center of Norway, they just have snow all winter long, but here we get snow, sleet, rain and warm sunshine, all within the month of January. Today was exceptional though and everyone was out enjoying it. Many cars got washed today (including ours) and a lot of mountains were climbed, I’m sure. Kory hasn’t done any exercise whatsoever since we’ve been in Norway so I’m a little hesitant to go climb any mountains for fear it will do him in, so he settled for fishing today with Kaleb (see photo of Kaleb trying to unhook his line from some seaweed). Still no fish, but at least they tried and there’s always hope. I stayed home and opened all the doors and windows and got some fresh air throughout the house, while cleaning it up a bit and doing some laundry. I so wished we could have done something incredible today to match the weather, but we did do something that was good. We only have 22 Saturdays left in Norway and I want every one of them to be memorable.

My pal Vestina and her boyfriend came out with all his fancy camera gear and he took some family photos of us down by the beach. It took an incredibly long time though and Kaleb was worn out and stopped smiling about half way through. Minde, the photographer, just wanted to practice on us and he had a lot of good ideas for family photos, so that part was fun, but he’s yet to figure out the attention span of a ten year old that owns electronic devices, so that part wasn’t so fun. Just how long a kid can be torn from their toys, especially when a friend is hanging out in the wings, is a level of knowledge about photography that one can only get from experience. The whole ordeal took several hours and over 200 photos later we were finally done. In most of the photos I think I look fat, Kory thinks he looks old and we all think Kaleb looks bored. Other than that, the background scenery was spectacular and Minde does an excellent job with the camera! We did get a few fun photos that will be worth framing and will be good memories of our time here in Norway, so that was the goal, and we accomplished it today. It turned out to be a Saturday that we might remember even better than most of them, since we’ll have the photos to look at for years to come.

Tobias patiently waited all afternoon to play with Kaleb and he sat quietly behind the scenes and watched the photo shoot, so tonight we treated both boys to a few games of bowling. We had family game night last night with Sabina and Tobias at our house playing games til late, but tonight I really needed to get out of the house. Kaleb and Tobias have been playing bowling on Tobias’ Wii (an electronic game) so we thought we’d see how they handle the real life version. There is one bowling alley in all of Sunnmøre (this entire region) and it has a whopping 12 lanes. I was worried on a Saturday night we might not get a lane, but there was no problem with that. The problem was finding balls and shoes that fit, so we had a wait for a few games to end before we could begin ours. Above each lane in the bowling alley is a piece of paper tacked up for all the world to see just who holds the record for the highest score on that lane. The scores range from 258-290, and according to Tobias, no one, in the history of the bowling alley, has EVER bowled a 300 in that place. I’m sure it would be front page news if someone did. Considering how many world records, and Olympic gold medals, and amazing accomplishment the Norwegians have achieved over the years, it just seems incredible to me that no one has bowled a perfect game in the local bowling alley. Now there’s a mountain yet to climb. I’d take on the challenge myself, if I was any good at bowling, but I didn’t even come close tonight with my high score of 118. If the bumpers wouldn’t have been up, I’m sure I would have only gotten half that amount. But we all had fun anyway, and that was the point. Bowling in Norway isn’t cheap though (like most things here). Kaleb and Tobias bowled 2 games each and then Kory and I joined them for the last go-round. Between the shoe rentals and the price of the games, we were out over seventy bucks. Maybe that’s why no one has bowled a perfect game… perfecting one’s skill would empty one’s pockets. I still get sticker shock over how much things cost here but for the most part, I just don’t look. I buy what we need and thank God we have the money to pay for it. I set out the cash for that week’s allotment and when the money’s gone, it’s gone, and we have to wait until the next week to spend anymore. A few times I’ve spent the whole week’s budget on the first day of the week, but then I like the challenge of making it through the rest of the week without spending a kroner. It’s like a game, and when I make it to the end, it feels like I’ve bowled a 300.