A Near Perfect Day

8 May 2013

The forecast said today would be even better than yesterday so I planned to have Kaleb skip school altogether so we could head to the beach and have a SUN DAY, but by the time we got everything ready to go to the beach (including making a bit of food), he’d already completed his big chapter test in math and some of his other homework.  He didn’t mind blowing the rest of it off for the afternoon, though.

Before we left, we took over some shrubs to Cousin Bjorn.  I rescued them last year from my friend, Sandra’s yard, and put them in pots on our deck, not knowing if they would survive the winter here or not.  Three out of the four did, so Bjørn said he’d give them a permanent home.  We are all about getting rid of things these days and each day we have to get rid of something.  We’d hoped Bjørn and the twins could join us at the beach, but he had his own yard work in mind, so they worked the day away, while we sat at the beach listening to the waves crash against the shore.  I so needed that. (Kaleb is sitting among the rocks in the photo above and very hard to spot - it's like "Where's Waldo?")

I’m now sporting a bit of red on my face, which couldn’t make me happier.  I’ve been sun deprived for far too long and between yesterday and today, I feel somewhat restored in body and spirit.  No more whining about the rain out of me, I promise.

We ate lunch out on an island about 30 minutes drive from our house.  It was warm and there wasn’t even a breeze.  Kaleb “skipped” rocks on other rocks just to see how many bounces he could get from one rock to another.  Kory stacked rocks just to see how many gravity defying balancing acts he could perform.  I collected shells and bits of driftwood for a home craft project I hope to be doing soon.  We were there for hours and it was wonderful.  Our missionary friend in the Bahamas called us on Kory’s cell phone while we were out there and her first words were, “Now Mickey, you can run but you can’t hide.”   She cracks me up with every word… still begging us to come back.  I honestly think she’d break things, just so we’d have an excuse to come back and fix them.  She’s a hoot.  It was good to hear a voice from “home.”

We walked around the cute little town of Alnes for a while before we ventured back to our condo.  I wanted to be gone as long as possible because before we left, there were people up on our roof spraying some kind of poison up there to kill any moss or other plant growth.  They were NOT being careful and they over sprayed so all the clothes I had just washed and hung out to dry on the deck (ugh) got a good dose of the poison.  The smell was permeating our place so I closed all the windows, took in the laundry and got out of there.  They apparently don’t know we like to be chemical free in our household, but this time of year in Norway, all the maintenance and upkeep things get done in time for 17^th of May – so every place is abuzz with spiffing up activities.

It’s an official day today where the Norwegian flag is allowed to be flown, since it’s the anniversary of the end of World War II and Germany’s occupation of the land, so flags were flying everywhere we went.  They do have a pretty flag and the month of May, more than any other month, it gets quite a bit of use.

When we got back, it was so warm on the deck we sat and had dinner outside – the ultimate thing for me and the smell of the chemicals was gone. The sunset tonight was spectacular… total eye candy and such a gift from God.  (I took the photo below while driving the car!)  I need to live on the memories of this day for many days to come as the weather forecast is for rain to return tomorrow.

Kaleb spent the night with Daniel tonight so I got to visit with Tina a bit when I dropped him off.  She told me about a hike she took today and all the stress around finding a newborn lamb with broken back legs from falling over a little cliff.  She tried to help it, but couldn’t, so she made enough phone calls to find out the owner of the sheep and he went to rescue it.  More stress for her, poor thing. 

I didn’t get home from dropping Kaleb off until after 10pm when most of the grocery stores are closed.  There’s one smaller store about a mile away that I had to zoom over to, since tomorrow is “Himmelfartsdag” (Ascension Day) and everything is closed.  I’m hoping we’ll get a hike in either tomorrow or Friday, but I’ll need to pack food for any such trip.  Our frig is so small I can’t stock up on a thing, so it requires daily trips to the grocery store.  The store I went to was totally packed with people and the shelves were nearly bare, so I guess I wasn’t the only one needing a few groceries.  We are so spoiled in America with 24-hour access to everything and shelves that never run dry, but I’m sure, given a few more years, things here will become more and more convenient, and the “charm” of living in a foreign country will be diminished.