New Years Eve 2008

It's New Years Eve and we're about to go out to see the fireworks display. The girls looked really pretty in their dresses - as can be seen. Happy New Year everyone (anyone?)! Here are more pictures from tonight.

Pells' Knitting

I've just created a new blog for my knitting and crochet stuff, what I've made and what I'd like to make. It's called Pells' Knitting.

Best Christmas ever!

I think last night was the best Christmas Eve I've ever had. It was quiet, calm, happy and it was our own. The girls and I dressed up in our national dresses and Bob put on his piggy tie and we had dinner together around six, a leg of lamb (courtesy of Kristín Lára) with sauce, rice and veggies, then fruit and ice cream and after that we opened our gifts - all but one. We let the girls leave their biggest parcel until this morning, it's a Thomas the tank engine train and road track, a huge thing that covers half of the living room floor - almost! We put it together this morning and they've been playing with it most of the day. We also got Sólveig Lilja a little camera and she's been playing with that a lot, taking pictures of very poor quality! But she's happy. The rest of the day, what was left over after we put the track together, we've spent looking for and downloading drivers and software for that camera!

The girls stayed up until around nine o'clock last night. After we'd put them into bed, we watched Batman, the Dark Knight. Or I did, Bob slept through it! It's quite a good film, darker than the first one, but Heath Ledger is absolutely brilliant in that film! He's without a doubt the star of that film and does deserve the academy award for it. What a shame, that guy is no longer alive.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you all, wherever you are!

The girls and the Christmas tree

Bob and the girls put up the Christmas tree the other day and decorated it while I was at work! It's quite nice, and the girls wanted to have their picture taken by it. Here's that picture, taken this morning.

The Yuletide lads

A few of them have arrived already, today it was Askasleikir's turn. I put in entries for all of them two years ago, here. Then I didn't have pictures of all of them, well, I didn't and I don't have them all but I have two more now then I had then.

The moon

I took this picture of the moon when I came home from work today. Pretty cool, isn't it?

My Christmas present

Bob has been working on my Christmas present and I quite like it. This is it.

Missing the girls

We took the girls to the farm yesterday and left them there, since we were going to this company Christmas do last night. And we miss our girlies :'( But we or one of us will go and pick them up later on, Bob is doing his paper round right now and I'm studying.

This Christmas do was a waste of time as I think we both knew it was going to be, not long after 9 o'clock we were both almost falling asleep! We were home between 10 and half past 10, both exhausted! But we thought that we should go, we don't often go to company things.

But it'll be good to get the girls back home. And I bet they'll be happy with the gifts we got them yesterday :)

Christmas decorations

The window is Píla's place (or one of them). It took her a couple of days to accept the crap that I put there but now she's OK with it as you can see.

Skirt finished - knitting that is

I finished the knitting part of the skirt last night and my dear husband gave it a ten out of ten :) And I have to say that even now, before I hide all the ends and wash it and get it all ready, it looks pretty good :) Now I'm taking a knitting pause until after the exam, which is on Wednesday. After that I can do the vest and Heiða's other vest and the wrist warmers for the girls and whatnot. Cool!

Indy!

I've sent off the things I was making for Heiða. Sent the parcel off yesterday, she should get it around mid next week I hope. She's going to get me a pair of boots in return, these to be exact. Then we also ordered the Indiana Jones collection, with all the Indiana Jones movies.

Since I've finished Heiða's knitting I've started something for myself. Got wool yesterday, for two items, vest and a skirt and it only cost around three thousands. That's not bad.

I'm taking the girls to the farm after their judo practice today. We're going to make laufabrauð and Kristín Lára says she's going to feed the lambs some hay. We're probably staying over night, it'll be good practice for the girls since they'll be staying there with their grandparents next weekend.

Laundry room - progress

We've put the cabinets up and tidied up the laundry room. But we still have a lot of work to do there, arrange the washing machine and tumble drier and then make the shelves where the washing machine is now.

More knitting

I'm still knitting a lot. Now I'm working on a vest for my friend Heiða and another friend of mine has asked for one. Then I might make one for myself! It's made of wool and looks pretty cool I think. I may finish it today - or I may not. I've also made a jumper for Bob, I think it's ready now, I laid it to dry yesterday morning and I think it should be dry now. I'm really enjoying this :)

Laundry room

We're working on the laundry room now, right now it's a horrible mess, like this, but hopefully we can put up the top last cabinet today. Then we can put the stuff that was in there back in and it will then look a bit better. Then we are going to move the washing machine up against the freezer, put the tumble drier on top of it and then make a cabinet next to that and get a new work surface. So far we haven't bought any wood or anything, just used what we had, until yesterday, we got some chip board to make that cabinet and we will need new work surface. We'll probably get that from IKEA, we'll sort that out today.

Toothless tinker

Sólveig Lilja has lost two of her baby teeth already, the first one a few weeks ago and the second one on Friday. And the first two of her adult molars are coming up. She's growing up, our little girl. She's changed a lot as well, she's always been a bit cheeky and sometimes quite naughty but now she's changed into a very good little girl, she's very protective of her sister, looks after her and takes care of her and she tries to make sure no one is left out. She's still no angel but she's changed.

Kristín Lára however is still a little bully towards her sister, but like she said the other day, she is trying to do better.

Sólveig Lilja - the artist

We went to the farm last weekend and Sólveig Lilja got to play a bit with my camera. Interesting pictures she took, you can see them here.

Knitting

I've been knitting and crocheting a bit lately, first a few neck warmers (or as Bob calls them, jumpers with no arms and no body) and now, I've just made a pair of wrist warmers (or, gloves with no fingers) for myself. I made neck warmers for the girls and they look so pretty with them :) Here are more pictures of the things I've been making.

My new sewing machines

I've just bought a "new" sewing machine. For a long time I've wanted to have an old Singer sewing machine and now I've stumbled across one, in an antique shop down town. It doesn't work but it's beautiful. It's 90 years old. A couple of weeks ago I also got my late great aunties old Lada sewing machine. I'm not sure how old that one is, probably from around 1940. They are so pretty and I am so happy with them both :) Here is the rest of the pictures of them.

Sólveig Lilja 5

Sólveig Lilja is five years old today. She woke up early, 6 o'clock. I took the afternoon off and prepared for the party. She had invited three of her friends and the family of course. I think they all had fun but she was very, very tired when they'd all gone, and was in bed not long after seven o'clock. Here are more pictures from today.

Poses

Took a few pictures of Kristín Lára the other day. Some of them are very good, but this one is my favourite. Here's the rest.

Silver - or even gold!

The semi finals were yesterday and first France beat Croatia, with two or three goal. Then it was Iceland and Spain. After seeing France play two days earlier, I knew that they have a fantastic team, but they never stood a chance against Iceland yesterday. We beat them 36:30 and we are in the finals, playing for the gold tomorrow morning! The boys cried and a lot of people cried with them. That is fantastic and you bet I'm watching that game!

Heiða called me on msn yesterday, they are coming here on Thursday. I'm looking very much forward to seeing her and having her here for a bit. Unfortunately, they are going back on Friday again.

I have managed to sell three of my school books the other night and that made me a few pennies. Which is very good, even better is that I don't have to buy a book for this last course.

Handball

I watched the Icelandic handball team play Poland in the quarter-finals in the Olympics this morning. The girls watched some of it with me, Sólveig Lilja stated that I wasn't supposed to shout so much but I told her that under the circumstances it was allowed to shout. Why? Yes, a medal was at stake and we still have a chance of getting one! Which is not bad, for a nation of this size. We will play either South-Korea or Spain in the semi-finals, on Friday.

Sólveig Lilja didn't get into it at all but Kristín Lára was starting to! But I bet they'd both rather be watching the Teletubbies!

"Ást á rauðu ljósi"

Last weekend there was a town festival here in Akureyri and they changed all the red traffic lights according to the theme!

Bread

A few weeks ago I got a recipe for bread with no flour, no yeast and no sugar. I've made it a few times and it is very, very good. Thought I'd post a picture of it.

Another slight change of plans

After having got together some figures for the Paris/Italy trip, we have again started talking about going to Orlando. That has always been very high up on our list of priorities and now we are looking at doing that next year and Italy some other time. The main reason is that the Italy trip would have been centered on Bob and I mostly and way less things for the girls to do, but Orlando is fantastic for kids of all ages. So we decided to see if we could save up for a good family holiday in Orlando next year. We will see how it goes. It's not exactly cheap though and we have to save up a lot for it!

Last time we were there was in November 2000 and then I took these pictures.

Change of plans

We have changed our plans slightly. Well, quite a lot actually. Our original idea was to fly to Paris, spend a couple of days there and then take the train from there through Stuttgart, Salzburg and Brennero down to Modena but we soon found out that that was going to be too long for the girls and too expensive. Then we thought of flying from Paris to Milan and spend a few days in that area and then take the train to Rome and stay a few days there, but we've gone off that idea and are just going to spend a bit more time in Paris, then fly to Milan or Venice and spend a few days there. Just concentrate on those two areas this time and then maybe take a trip to Rome, later on, just the two of us.

But Venice is still the most important part of our trip. We're definatly going there and spending two or three days there. That's a must.

Picture is from the Wikimedia Commons.

The morning snuggle

Kristín Lára usually wakes up way before her sister. If Píla is in here when Kristín Lára comes down stairs, they have a sit down and snuggle on the sofa. Here they are having their morning snuggle, both seem very happy with life.

Modena

Modena is, after all, the home of the Ferrari. Not that I am a fan of the F1 team though but Ferrari is a pretty car as you can see.

Paris

We've only just started planning this trip next year. We are definitely going to Paris and this time we will probably go up the Eiffel Tower and we are certainly going to see Mona Lisa again.

Pictures are from the Wikimedia Commons.

The Pells Train Tour 2009

We have started to plan our holiday for next year. The plan is to fly to Paris and stay with Patrick for two or three days, visit Mona Lisa again and some of the places we didn't go to see last time. From there we plan to take the train down to northern Italy. We are going to take a few days doing this and possibly go through Stuttgart, München, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Brennero and Verona before we arrive in Modena where my friend Pamela lives. My friend Andrea lives in Stuttgart and I would like to see her again after too many years. Our main stops - apart from Paris and Modena - will be Stuttgart and Salzburg. Stuttgart mainly to see Andrea and because it's a good place to brake up the trip to Salzburg (we don't want to travel too long per day because of the girls), and Salzburg mainly because we want to see the place were Mozart was born and I've been told that it's a beautiful city.

We also think the trip from Salzburg down to Modena is too long for the girls so I found Brennero and thought that would be a good place to stop over for a night on the way. It also seems to be an interesting place, in the Alps, on the Austrian Italian border.

Paris is obviously a big stop for us. We both love that city. Modena is our other big stop for several reasons. Pamela is one. Milan and Venice are two others. We want to see the Last Supper (which is in Milan) and that's a good day trip from Modena. Venice should also be a good day trip from Modena. We will travel through Verona which is the city of Romeo and Juliet and we will stop off there for a bit. Then I'd like to go to Lake Garda and definately see my friend Claudio.

Right now we are trying to work out costs of this trip. Flights, trains, accomadation, attractions, food and all that. Then we know how much we have to save up to be able to do this.

Anna has left

Anna, our RES exchange student, left this morning. She'll still stay for three weeks in the country, first one in Reykjavík and then two in the West Fjords. Then she's off to the States again.

It's been a real pleasure to have her with us. Sólveig Lilja got the choice of two girls and she picked Anna and she couldn't have made a better choice. I took these two pictures this morning before we dropped her off to school where a bus waited to take them to the airport.

On the farm with Anna

The girls and I took Anna to the farm on Saturday. It was quite wet but we still took her down to the waterfall - and we got wet of course! Here are more pictures.

Kristín Lára's birthday

We had a little birthday party for Kristín Lára on her birthday on the 30th of June. Here's a picture since then, Jón Birgir had to help her blow out the candles.

Anna

Like last year, we took in a RES student for just under a month. Her name is Anna, she's from Irvine, California, and she seems to fit in well with the family. She came to us last Saturday and the girls immediately adopted her as can be seen in this picture.

Eurovision

We've been watching Eurovision tonight (and Tuesday and Thursday as well) and the Icelandic entry has been doing really well. We'll see in about an hour how well.

Happy birthday

It's Bob's birthday today. Happy birthday sweetheart. We got him a book, Njála (one of the Icelandic sagas) in English, and then we made him a birthday cake.

Back home

We came back home from England yesterday. We went there on Saturday 3rd and stayed in a cottage on Ford Street for a week. "Auntie Pammy" (Bob's sister Pam) came back with us and she is staying for a week with us here in Akureyri.

We had a good week, we did some shopping, mostly clothes for the girls, picked up some goods that we'd ordered from Amazon and had sent to Pam, and did some sight seeing. The weather was fantastic, mostly around 20°C but on Saturday when we drove back to Stansted, it was 26 or 27°C! Then we came back to the wind and rain in Keflavík with it's 7°C. Quite some change.

We went to the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, it was OK but not much more than that. I think it can be done so much better and hopefully they will. Then we went to Paignton Zoo which was very nice. We saw lions, elephants, monkeys, birds and a lot of things. Rode on a little train and Sólveig Lilja put her hand on a stinging nettle and she didn't like that one bit! We walked around Tavistock a bit, they played in the Meadows and let out some steam. The last day we were there, we went to Trago Mills, where most of the attractions were closed but we got to see the model trains and that was really fantastic.

Right now I'm uploading pictures to a Tavistock album on Picasa.

I passed!

I'm supposed to be working but I just had to write this little entry. I've got results from both courses that I took (one isn't official yet, I've only got the estimated marks) but it looks like I passed both of them. That's fantastic, I didn't think that I'd pass the financial course at all so I am very pleased.

And now back to work.

Feeding time at the zoo!

Sunday lunch just finished, see pictures!

Solla stirða

We have our own little Solla stirða (Stephanie from Lazy Town).

Nice visit

My cousin Örn and his family, came over for coffee yesterday. They are here skiing and I called them and asked them over. Örn and I are planning a family reunion at the end of June so this was a nice opportunity to talk about that a little bit and it was also very nice to see them.

Terrible tests

My tests were on April 9th and 11th. I stand a chance of passing the first one (and I hope I will - results will be in tomorrow), but the other one I don't think I stand a chance at all. We'll see.

No words needed

Kid on the floor

That's how we found Kristín Lára the other night when we went to bed.

"No, he's an old man"

Bob was teasing the girls just now. "Who wants a slapped ass?" he said, and Sólveig Lilja said no to all his suggestions (she, her sister, both her parents and the cat). Then he asked "does afi want a slapped ass?" ("afi" = grandfather), and the answer was "no, he's an old man". Man, did that make us laugh!

We went to the farm yesterday morning to "help" feed the sheep. We were back around noon, we've done this a few times now, go there early in the morning and come back around lunch, and it is quite nice.

I had my exams last week, the first one, human recourses, was OK, the other one, finances, was horrible. I guess I'm going to have to resit that one - although I do not want to do that. But that's probably better than sit another course.

I've been calling my cousins, Kári's (my mother's elder half-brother) sons about the family reunion in June. It's been fantastic to talk to them, I've never talked to any of them before, and the major purpose of this family reunion, is to get to know them. I've made the first step in doing that by talking to them all, and it's been very good. All five of them seem to be very nice men.

Anniversary

It's our anniversary today. This day, 8 years ago, I wrote that first letter. This day, 5 years ago, we got engaged. And this day, 4 years ago, we got married and had Sólveig Lilja christened. To celebrate our anniversary we've been to Nettó and we're going to go to Rúmfatalagerinn ("the cheap store") later on! We were going to go to Reykjavík to my cousin's son's confirmation but since the weather isn't very good and the girls and I are all sick, we decided not to go. Sólveig Lilja started on Saturday, we went to the farm that morning and kept my parents company while they fed the sheep. We've done that once before and I'm sure we will do something like that again. Anyways, Sólveig Lilja was complaining about her legs hurting before we left but she said it would make her feel better to go. Well, it didn't. Sunday night her temperature was almost 40°, which is quite a lot. I called my friend Bettý then, she's a nurse at the children's ward in the hospital so I sometimes call her for advice. Monday morning, Kristín Lára was sick and I wasn't feeling to good either. And last night I felt really bad. I'm better today but we decided not to go to that confirmation anyways since the weather isn't very good either.

Sisters

Bob took this picture of the girls yesterday. Quite nice.

Home, sweet home

It's good to be home! I had a flight home at 18:30 last night but because of strong winds, all flights yesterday, until early yesterday evening, were canceled. So after work I just went back to Hrefna and Þór's place and sat there, talking to them, when I got a text message saying departure was at 19:15. That was just after six and I grabbed something to eat and then left. The flight wasn't any bumpier than any other and the landing was one of the smoothest landings I've ever experienced! We landed around 8 o'clock and Bob and the girls were there to pick me up. The girls were pretty glad to see me, Sólveig Lilja insisted on holing my hand saying "I want to have you" which coming from her means that she wants me to be with her. They were pretty tired though since they are normally in bed around 8 o'clock, so it didn't take them long to fall asleep.

The poor old lady who drove into me last week has to pay for our car. Or her insurance company rather. Called them earlier on and they asked me where I'd go to have it fixed and I told them that and then he said that they'd pay for a hire car while it's done. I'm going to the garage on Friday so that they can evaluate what needs to be done.

I finished my audio book on the plane last night. Sense and Sensibility. And hopefully we'll have the DVD with the series soon so that I can watch it while it's still fresh in my mind.

England

We have booked the flight for our England trip. We'll fly there on May 3rd and return on the 11th. We have also booked the hotel for the night before we return, now we only have the car to sort out.

Our next trip is going to be to Italy. Or Orlando.

Car crash

Last Tuesday when I was driving to work, an old woman drove into the side of my car! Bloody pain it was, there's not a big damage on the car but it still is damaged and needs to be fixed. I wasn't very happy about it and neither was Bob.

Reykjavík

I'm in Reykjavík right now and will be tomorrow as well. Flew here this morning and will be working from here for these two days. I think it's important to be able to put faces to the names when you are talking to people on the phone and also, I'm now starting on quite a big project and will be working with a woman who lives here so it's useful to sit with her for a bit.

I'll be staying with Þór and Hrefna. They've fostered me before and will probably do so again.

Bee Movie

The girls and I just came back from the movies, where we saw It's actually very good and we all enjoyed ourselves.

The moon - again

Áska just came by. She hasn't been by for a long time so it was very nice to have her over for a while. Sólveig Lilja sang to her and we just sat and talked for a while. She drew my attention to the moon, it's new and when she was here, it was almost exactly at the same spot as it was the other morning when I photographed it. Here are the pictures. Notice that you can see the outline of all the moon, which I think is pretty cool.

Am I turning in to a werewolf?

I passed!

I passed the programming languages test! And even with 70% which is way more than I expected. I am more than pleased.

Guestbook

I've added a guest book to our site. If anyone comes to visit, please sign! The link is in the list on the right.

Cool day

I've got my new iPod and it's beautiful! It's red of course. I'm synchronizing right now.

School started today. One of my new colleagues will probably be doing the same courses I am which is cool. And I might be able to sell one or two of my study books, which is pretty cool as well.

I had my first proper day at work today. Did my first chargeable hours. Cool.

Cool day.

Test finished

I took the test Friday morning and I am hoping that I will pass. We'll see I guess. Now I have the weekend off and I'm enjoying some "normal" reading and just being lazy. I've read one of the books I got for Christmas and have just started the other one. Has made me realize how much I've missed reading normal books.

We've also been taking down Christmas tree and other ornaments. After all, it is the last day of Christmas today. And tomorrow I hope I'll start some proper work!

Took a few pictures of Bob and the girls yesterday, here's a link.

Study, study, study

I've been studying most of the day. Some for work, some for the test tomorrow. I haven't done any real work (programming) but hopefully I can start doing some on Monday. There are a lot of things to learn about this company as well, all their inner systems, how they do everything and how to connect to the different computers and things like that. So far - and it is only my second day - it feels interesting and exciting. Nice people, relaxed and good.

The moon

Bob noticed how pretty the moon was this morning and I went out and took a couple of pictures. They're not great (a bit out of focus) but they're OK so I've uploaded them. Take a look.

New work

I started my new work this morning. The company is called HugurAx. I didn't think I'd stay there all day but I did. It was a bit tiring since I've been off for almost three weeks now and I haven't started a new job in a long time! But the people there are very nice - which I knew from before - and I feel good about this. I'll go back tomorrow but I've got permission to do some studying then (get more peace and quiet there than here at home) since the test is on Friday. I just hope I pass the bloody thing!