Happy Birthday, Tante Aslaug

Tante Aslaug turned 86 aboard the ferry, Trollfjord, today.  We stopped in Hammerfest this afternoon where she took a sightseeing trip around the city and at dinner tonight one of her granddaughters that used to work on this ship, had flowers delivered to our dinner table.  The whole dinner staff came and sang the traditional Norwegian birthday song to her and she got an extra large serving of marzipan cake for dessert.  She was overwhelmed with all the attention.  It will be a birthday she won’t soon forget.

We had incredibly sunny weather today and even warm temperatures on the top deck when there wasn’t a cross breeze.  I’m sure everyone enjoyed a little snooze in the sunshine today as it was nearly intoxicating. 

I’ve been torn between wanting to be outside in the sunshine and wanting to be inside watching the “minute by minute” coverage of another Hurtigruten boat that’s going on the same route we are on, just a few days behind us.  Today they were in Aalesund and up in the Geiranger fjord.  The coverage of their voyage is addicting as they have 24 cameras on the ferry and they are zooming in on everything they pass.  Of course the locals have gone nuts for this so many smaller boats are shadowing the ferry and people that live along the shore are waving flags and holding up signs.  Every port where they arrive has been greeting them with marching bands and huge crowds (except Aalesund).  It’s absolutely 100% coverage with no commercial breaks.  I think it’s going to be 163 hours of nonstop filming to cover the trip from Bergen to Kirkenes.  We will be meeting that ferry tomorrow evening so I just made a HI KALEB sign to hold up, in case they zoom in on our ship, too.  Everyone on board is talking about it and the newspapers say that half of Norway is watching it.  They are so proud of their coastal ferry system, with good reason. 

I wasn’t able to get ahold of Kaleb all day as his phone battery was dead.  Finally, at midnight he called us when we were walking around the town of Tromsø.  He was just fine but had some stories to tell me when we get home.  He’s glad there is only two days left of school, I think. 

Tromsø was alive with all kinds of drunks in the middle of the night.  The sun was still shining brightly so it was a unique experience walking the streets at that hour.  We passed by one hotel where a bunch of people were out on the balcony and they started singing to us.  We stood there and listened for a long while as they found it pretty entertaining to have an audience.  I think previously they were just singing to the wind.

We also got off the boat today at noon in Hammerfest, the city that boasts it’s the world’s most northern city – even higher than outer Sibera.  It wasn’t a particularly cute town but it had a lot more going for it than Kirkenes.  Unfortunately, the streets were all ripped up as they are setting down new cobblestone, so walking the streets wasn’t terribly pleasant.  Hammerfest got hit the hardest during the war and every single building and house was destroyed so what it was like when Kory’s parents met there, will never be known.  Their engagement/wedding rings that I wear around my neck on a necklace were purchased in that town in 1939.  I couldn’t even find a jeweler today.  And we asked if there were any antique or thrift stores and one guy said there used to be but no one wanted to buy anything second hand, so it shut down.  I guess there wouldn’t be that much cool old stuff anyway if everything burned sixty years ago.  It’s a growing town, and it shows, with many large condo complexes popping up along the waterfront.  It has over 51 nationalities living in that town of only 10,000 people.  Just off shore on a small island is a natural gas processing plant.  They take the gas up from under the sea, freeze it down to 160 degrees Celsius and it reduces the size by over 600 times.  They put it on container ships and ship it to Spain and America.  Norway doesn’t even use it themselves but they sure employ a lot of people because of it.

Tonight, our ferry stopped in the middle of nowhere and a small fishing boat came right up next to it to deliver fresh shrimp from the sea.  Everyone enjoyed a feast out on the top deck.  This certainly isn’t a cruise ship, but the nice little extra touches they provide keep it from being terribly boring.  I still would rather be home, however.

Rain, Rain Go Away

Kaleb’s last day of school is tomorrow and then he is off to a church retreat for the whole weekend with some of his best friends. He’s like a stranger in our home as we haven’t seen him much this week, or since we got here, for that matter. Lord only knows what he’s being exposed to. He now knows all the Norwegian swear words, but fortunately, has the good sense not to use them. I think he knows the American ones now, too, as they are used quiet often around here. Uff da.




I picked him up from a friend’s house around dinnertime tonight so we could take the ferry across the fjord and have dinner with another relative that has a granddaughter three months younger than Kaleb. It’s so nice they can now communicate. They were sharing a crib the first time we were here visiting with Kaleb when he was five months old and they’ve been together every year since then, but this was really the first time they’ve played so well together. Kaleb’s Norwegian is very good and I finally got to hear him speak it. He won’t talk Norwegian around us at home, so it was fun to eavesdrop.



I went to my last prayer meeting this morning with The Praying Women. I’ll be back in the loop next April when we return, but it’s always sad to say goodbye. They are a good bunch of women who really do love God and want to be closer and closer to Him. We spent a half hour in soaking prayer. I fell asleep for a few minutes as I was so tired, but it still felt good. When I woke up I got a picture in my mind of all the books stacked around my desk containing all the family history for my friend Stuart. I thought how nice it was it was all written down, just there for the taking. Then I thought of the Bible verse that says God has written all our days on earth down and before one of them comes to be, he knows which one is our last. It was then I got the idea/picture of a book with several blank pages and I thought how sad it would be if I came to the part of the farm history book that contained information I needed, and the page was blank. I felt it was the same with my life, and my relationship with God. When I DON’T spend time in prayer or Bible reading or just being quiet and listening to God, it’s like that day passes and there was nothing written in the book – it was just left blank. I got very convicted of that thought because I’ve spent so much time reading the farm history books, that the last few days, I’ve neglected my Bible reading time. Oops. It was a swift correction and a good image for me to think about so I’m glad I took the time to listen to God today. I don’t want any pages missing from my book, that’s for sure. As much as I love journaling, I imagine God does too, so I need to give him something to write about.



I found out today that all the security personnel are on strike right now in Norway. I had no clue how that would impact me, other than some of the airports have shut down because there are no security workers. I also discovered later that all the cash machines are out of cash as there are no security people to bring more cash to them, so the whole country is feeling the impact. Maybe by Monday we can’t fly home, who knows. But these strikes tend to be over fairly quickly, so I’m not too worried. I’m just glad I have some extra cash right now, or I’d really be hurting, not being able to use our cash card from America to take out money. Ouch.



Cousin Odd’s daughter, Hege, was in the newspaper a few days ago because she was the first student in the history of her junior high school to EVER get “straight As.” They have a different grading system here, it’s from 1-6 (so it was all 6s). Most everyone is quite satisfied to be a 3 or 4, as that is average and what is expected. It’s rare to get a 5 and if that ever happens, a party usually ensues, but a 6 is almost unheard of – even in just one subject. It’s so opposite from America where everyone is expected to get straight As if they want to do anything with their life. Norway doesn’t have a prestigious university system, so there is no motivation to work hard to get into a good school. But Hege, she is driven by a force unknown. She loves to study and she is very smart. Last year she got nearly all 6s so this year she set her mind to trying to accomplish the ultimate goal, and she did. Everyone was astounded. The headline read, “The Queen of Sixes,” (she got 14 of them) and there was a photo with her smiling face holding up her report card. But the funny thing is, as we have been bragging about her to everyone we’ve talked to lately, they are all very concerned that she’s not well rounded enough, not social enough, not spending enough time with other kids her age, if her grades could possibly be so good. She spends too much time studying, in their opinion, and that’s not good for a happy life here in Norway. Socializing is everything. And now, our socializing is soon over. Sniff, sniff.

Eight Days and Counting...

My Pal Vestina sent me a message this morning saying she needed to sleep so she wasn’t going to school today. The Good Teacher Inga is in Northern Norway for something to do with her job, so she wasn’t there today either. I couldn’t find any reason to go, so I didn’t. I stayed home and in the same course of time I’d use to go to school and come home again, I was able to put together another one of them fancy digital picture books. I sure hope it turns out okay. I can’t read all the technical Norwegian words, but it looked fine to me on my computer. Soon I’ll have a show-n-tell photo book from our Easter vacation road trip along the southern coast of Norway. And I was so excited it took less than five hours to produce it, I ignored my dead butt and completed another one by dinnertime for the vacation we took in February to Italy. I’m on a roll. Of course, the only reason all that uninterrupted computer time was possible today was because Kaleb went home with Andre after school and Kory was over at Odd’s again completing the installation of his new bedroom ceiling. We were all so productive today! I wish I would have known about this digital photo album program months ago but I just learned about it last Friday, so the rush is on to get something done with all these photos I have taken before we leave Norway. I also wish I would have gone out and enjoyed the sunshine that came our way today because tonight the clouds have moved back in and it looks like rain. Oh well. The sun was shining in many of the photos I used today, does that count?

School isn’t out in Norway until the 23rd of June – way too long if you ask me. These last two weeks could have easily been knocked off in both my school and Kalebs. There is only eight weeks of summer break in Norway – not long enough. Kaleb had to turn in all his books today so he was whistling Dixie that his backpack was so light.

I would be packing up a few more things now except that we have more people coming over before we leave and I need the house to still look somewhat presentable. The closets and Kaleb’s room are pretty well packed away, but I can’t pack stuff we’ll need for the next week, or the decorative stuff. I hate living in a house that looks empty so I need to keep the things on the walls until the last minute. I hope I’m not sorry I’m waiting so long to do everything.

Kory and I were talking today about the incredible experiences we’ve had since we’ve been here and how lucky we feel to have been given this opportunity. It boggles our mind that we’ve been able to live here for free for so long. The entire year we’ve only paid a total of a thousand dollars for these last three month’s rent, and we’ve never paid a dime for utilities or electricity, just telephone and internet. I can hardly believe it – living in the most expensive country in the world for a year for a thousand bucks. Only God could orchestrate something like that. Most couples in Norway both have to work and one of their incomes just goes to pay the mortgage. Many homes also have apartments in their basements because any income made off renting out any part of a person’s residence is tax free money here and many families need the extra income it provides. It’s even expensive for Norwegians to live in Norway– not just Americans, but we’ve had it pretty good! The money we are going to be using for our European road trip was money I thought we’d be using to pay rent, so it’s a real treat that we get to use it on such a luxury instead. God is good!

I’m so thankful we’ve made new friends here, and hopefully not worn out our relatives. God’s used us to encourage others in their faith and to help connect a few people back up with God. We hope our lives here have made a difference. Kaleb has been able to enjoy an independence he’ll never know living in America. He’s free to ride his bike miles from home, be gone all day to a friend’s house and come home at supper time – just like Kory and I did as kids. He’s had to learn about schedules and getting up and out the door to get to school on time and he’s had to forgive time and time again when kids at school do things he doesn’t like. He’s grown up so much this year! Other than social skills and learning Norwegian, I’m sure he hasn’t learned a whole lot academically, but that’s not why we came. I can tell his brain is ready for a new challenge now though, so it’s probably good we are going home. One more year in school here would do him in. Now that he’s fluent in reading, writing and speaking Norwegian, he is bored out of his mind with the busy work he must do. He says he’s glad we are going back home, but I wonder for how long, once we are there. But in our little world now, we will have two places we can call “home.”

(Today’s photo was taken last Sunday – some of the tropical green algae color is still visible near this park in Aalesund.)