Our Last Day...

I hardly slept a wink last night. I tossed and turned with thoughts of all I’m leaving behind and all I must think about for the weeks ahead. I couldn’t have been more tired today, or sad, or worn out. Good thing I got so many hugs.

We slept at Odd and Turid’s last night so I was up before eight and over cleaning the last few things out of our house. It took me all day to clean it, even with Turid’s help. I can’t believe how grungy things can get in places we never see. But now the house is clean, we’re out and the next chapter begins. I wonder what God has in store for us. I was a little peeved with Kory as he spent some time last night “relaxing” with Odd and a glass of wine while I was slaving away at the house. And then this morning he was “relaxing” for two hours over coffee while I was at the house slaving away. It wouldn’t have been such a big problem except we were on a time crunch today and the clock kept ticking away – along with my patience with Kory. Kory’s bosses had invited us to a farewell party at five, but My Pal Vestina wanted to have coffee with me and say good-bye at three. It’s so hard to get work done when there are so many people to see. So Kory’s “relaxing” ended up cutting into my Vestina time and I wasn’t too happy about that. But once the day was done, all was clean, everything tucked safely away in storage, and the car loaded down for our road trip, I forgave him (sometimes it takes a while).

My Pal Vestina looked stunning today with her tanned body inside a white cotton spaghetti strapped sun dress. We went to a park and sat in the shade and talked. We watched the kids playing in the water and rowing their boats across the lake on this unusually hot summer day. I was so glad to have a cool break from all the hustle and bustle and especially glad to have time with Vestina before we left. As usual, she had “news” for me. She told me she’s been seeing a guy, very casually, but she’s sure she has feelings for him. When she told me who it was, I grinned from ear to ear. She’s “almost in love” with Kim. He was a substitute teacher in our Norwegian class. He’s from Korea but was adopted as a baby by a Norwegian couple. He is the most mild mannered, intelligent, kind and funny guy. He’s very respectful and upright. I couldn’t have hand picked a better guy for her so not only did I give her my seal of approval, I gave her my blessing. I hope something develops, but she said they haven’t even kissed yet – they just sit and drink tea and talk about all kinds of things. I love that. She so deserves a guy like Kim and he couldn’t go wrong with her. So that was a happy note for my exit. I’m so thankful Vestina respects my opinion, so she was VERY happy today when I gave her the thumbs up. She’s something else. I will miss her terribly as she’s been so good for me. Norwegians are pretty serious folks and I don’t think I would have laughed even a fraction of what I did this year, if it weren’t for Vestina.

So I only had about 45 minutes to say my good-byes before I had to run pick up Kory and Kaleb to go to the BBQ at his boss, Jonathan’s house. It was so sweet for Jonathan to have a party for us – they invited other co-workers and their kids, so Kaleb loved running around playing with the others. The food was fantastic and the summer weather we had today made for another wonderful outdoor summer evening. Kory was so lucky to work for those guys (Espen is on the left, Jonathan on the right in the photo). He got to decide when and how much he worked, and even the kind of work he did, so it was one of the biggest blessings we had in living here. (It was especially nice that Kory could earn some Norwegian money to help supplement our income, too). Kory found the way Norwegians build things very interesting, so even though he came home tired, he liked the work. He has the greatest respect for Jonathan and Espen’s work and ethics, so that was additional icing on the cake. Now he’s looking forward to retirement again, but they offered him his job back anytime we might be living in Norway in the future. He’ll be like those professional boxers that keep coming out of retirement for the next big gig – except it would ONLY be Jonathan and Espen that could ever get him to come out of retirement again, I’m sure.

We went to say good-bye to Tante Kari tonight before ending up at Odd and Turid’s again for an evening of wine and much discussion. Odd and Turid may meet up with us in Copenhagen in a few weeks, so that would be fun. Odd used to live there so he could show us around. I get a lot of razzing from those guys about my obsession with daily blogging, (Turid calls me a blog-a-holic) but they just don’t understand my need to express myself. I will continue to write every day, and now my hope is, as we travel around, that I can find an internet connection to post the blogs. Prayers are appreciated.