Saturday, January 2, 2010

Christmas 2009

Guri and her whole family came for three weeks over Christmas. Here we are eating pinnekjøtt.



Aksel used to work in a kindergarden and is now officially Anna's favorite uncle!





And her favorite auntie is Ingunn!





Doing the Christmas baking with Guri and Ingunn.



Opening Christmas presents. With the pool right outside our living room, Anna feels that a swimsuit is the clothing of choice for the occasion.



Enjoying some of the books and puzzles. We do a lot of puzzles with the kids, and the teachers at the childcare say that Anna and Edvard are the champion puzzlers at school! :-)



Aksel doing some engineering consultation.



Christmas dinner at the Norwegian Seamen's Mission.





We went to Sabah on Borneo to hike Mount Kinabalu (4095 m).



On our way up to the top with the guides. The guides carried umbrellas, and at first we considered that an extreme example of "fjols til fjells", but after two days we realized that makes sense for tropical hiking.



Guri, Aksel and me at the top.



Guri on top of the world.



So this is why they call it a rainforest!



Enjoying the pool after the hike!



We also went to Bali. We took the kids to the Zoo, Bird Park and Safari Park. The Safari Park was a lot of fun! Anna rode on a camel!



The playground at the Park was great!







Anna likes lions! Edvard is a tiger guy!



The Zoo was not very animal friendly, but fun for the kids. We even got to feed the lions and tigers.









The Bird Park was not that exciting, but we got some cute pictures.





Guri's family also went to Yogyakarta to look at Borobodur and Prambanan.





On New Year's Eve we had dinner with Jukka and Ika. Anna had a lot of fun!





And by now you all know what we do on Sundays!







Monday, December 14, 2009

Zoo, BirdPark and Pappa in Madrid

I was in Madrid for a conference, and had a lot of fun trying to find sites from the Spanish Civil War. I was fortunate to meet Stephen Drake-Jones who runs the Wellington Society of Madrid, and organizes historical walking tours in English. Highly recommended!

We walked around near Ciudad Universitaria. Here Stephen sits near a statue with bullet holes on both sides.



Standing in front of a Nationalist pill box in Parque del Oeste.



No pasaran! Then and now. Stephen helped me find this location. What you see in the background is Plaza Mayor!





We still go to the Zoo every Sunday.











Sometimes we go to the BirdPark instead.





Dinner with Terje and Elin from Sandnes who stayed with us a few days.




Al fresco dining at home.



Class pictures.





Anna driving.