The Big Walk

A few weeks ago I went on a lovely walk to the Blue Lagoon. Now this is no ordinary stroll, it takes hours, is exhausting and has some incredible views.
Next year I ma going to do all the hikes, but this year I started with this one, that goes over the mountain þórbjörn and ends with a soak in the Blue Lagoon.

Mt Thorbjor (Thorbjarnarfell) is a free standing, hyaloclastite mountain north of Grindavik. It offers great panoramic view over most of the Reykjanes Peninsula on fine days. The northeastern part of the mountain depicts thermal activity an to its north and northeast is an extensive high temperature area. It is split by a fissure called "The Thieves´ Gap" (Thjofagja), occupied by 15 thieves according to the legend. They were eventually overwhelmed and killed by trickery.

RISK and Couchsurfing Mania

This is a picture from a great night that we actually had 11 couchsurfers, 4 from Austria, 3 from Poland, 1 American, 1 German and 2 from Finland. With homemade wine and board games, it was a night to be remembered, by many, for a long time.
We actually went out to Davíð's parents last night an Davíð, with his sister and mom, stayed up all night playing RISK. They called a truce at 6 a.m.
Then Kristína (Davíð's sister) took the board back home with her. Fair enough, but Davíð says we stole it from them fair and square, but it was hers.
That said, I am in the market for a game of RISK now, if anyone is wondering what to get me for Christmas :)

Family

Here it is, and it took a couchsurfer to capture it. Me in a picture.
Camera's and I do not get along.
But Leó and Davíð look great.

Stefán

This is a nice picture of Stefán, my middle son.
Nice because he looks identical to his father.
So cute.

risk night, again.

As many couchsurfing nights do, this one turned into a night of homemade red wine and RISK.
Things are getting pretty serious around here.

Clement and Anne flo

These great couchsurfers cooked us two French dinners, while staying with us for 6 days.
The food is too good. I think that if I lived in France I would be gigantic.

The beginning of a long headache

Stefán got his first musical instrument today, this year they will be learning to play the recorder.
When I heard the first squeal (Davíð actually wanted to try it out) I saw the long evenings of practice ahead.
But I look forward to the day he can do fun stuff like this:

New Routines

Today was the first full day back at school. At last, 5 hours a day of freedom.

Last night I was worried the kids would not go to bed. All summer they have stayed up until 11 or 12, sometimes later. IT is hard to go to sleep when it is not getting dark. The last week I have managed to get them to start going to bed at 10, but last night I wanted them in bed for 9.

I told them I would be waking them up very very early and if they did not get a good slkeep they would be tired for the first day of class.

They both fell asleep almost instantly.

Stefán even slept in his own bed. This is nearly unheard of.

I woke them up at 645 this morning and they were in such good moods. They ate, got dressed and packed snacks with no prompting from me.

No arguing or anything. IT was amazing.

So at 730 I sent them off on the bikes to school.

Now Leó and I are alone.

For lunch today, Kasper and Stefán will be eating what all the other school age kids in Iceland are eating, a large healthy hot meal.

This is one of my favorite parts about school being in, I dont need to cook nearly as much. The boys have such great lunchs with fish, chicken, vegetables, fruit and breads, that they really only need a small supper.

This will make the grocery bill much easier to handle.

But I am tired from waking up at 645. Maybe I should have went to bed at 9 as well.

Excuses, excuses

I know I have not been updating anything.

I am also a few weeks behind on emails, but here is the excuse:

My computer broke. Not really a big deal, we actually found it outside last year and it has been going great for a year now, so I can not complain.

But still. It was so easy to type, blog, up load photos ect. when I had a functioning computer in the living room. This meant I could keep an eye on the older boys coming and going while watching the baby play.

Since it has broken I have had to use Davíð's computer, in his office, a very un-child-friendly place. Not to mention that it is the last room in the apartment, so you might as well be not home for all you can hear from there.

But now I have a couchsurfer working on the problem, and determined to fix it, so with any luck I may be back at things in the next day or two.

Terrible family photos.

The last set of pictures taken before the camera batteries dies never turn out how you want them too - but I tried.
This is our last visit with the cousins before they left to go back to Canada,

Chuck It

I really tried to find a picture of this thing on line that was not copyright protected, but failed, so you will have to deal with my terrible description.
It's a stick that holds a tennis ball on the end and helps you to throw it really far, the ball that is.
It is great for me because I am not much of a pitcher, and my dog needs the exercise.
IN Canada I saw them a lot. IN the Edmonton river valley dog owners would spend sunny after noons laying fetch with there dogs.
In Iceland people think I use it to hit my dog. Or something like that. Lets just say I get a lot of strange looks.
Then this week I have had a couchsurfing family from Sweden here and while they did not buy a lot of Icelandic souvenirs, they were dying to buy one of these ball throwers. They have a dog at home. In fact, they actually spent the last half day searching pet shops for this amazing toy.
And it is amazing.
Actually, I know so many amazing products that if I had any sort of ambition I would set up shop and introduce Icelanders to the best of the best stuff. To me at least. And I am sure this dog toy would be a huge success.

A few weeks of photos, in random order

A game of RISK with a few Spanish Couchsurfers

The dinner these nice boys cooked for us, it looked like potato and onion omelette's, but they called it tortilla.

Flipping the tortilla.

Ulfrun, Amelia and Leópold playing dolls.

Rósa, very proud of her new found stick.

Rósa playing fetch with the big stick.

An anchor on rocks, the Icelandic art equivalent of kittens in America.

For the Americans it was a church, the Icelanders use it as a school.

Kasper, Stefán and Jack in the distance. South coast of Iceland.

A large family, including many from Canada, get together for dinner.

We all went out for a long drive (several hours) to get the best of the best lobster in Iceland.

Leópold and his 2 year old second cousin Alice, side by side.

And last but not least, I finally saw Icelands largest prison in person. We were actually admiring the beautiful town beside it and realized that housing might be cheap here.

Chemistry

I can not believe that I have not written anything in 10 days, and it is not from lack of things to say, I just can not seem to get near the keyboard, but we will get to that in another post.
First a story.

The bathtub drain has been blocked since I moved in and I have tried everything to fix it, aside from taking it apart.

Two bottles of Draino and one of 'Professional' Drain unclogging stuff, and it moves just as slow.

I am starting to think there is something very wrong going on down there.

So my friend Cassie tells me that baking soda and vinegar works really well, so I thought it sounded good and dumped an entire box of baking soda and vinegar down the drain, was really impressed with all the bubbling that went on, but the drain is still clogged.

When I told Davíð he laughed at me and pionted out that mixing a base and an acid was like putting water in the drain and he could not beleive that I didnt realize that.

Thinking back, I can not believe that I did not realize it either, and am actually feeling a little sheepish about the whole thing now.

Ill be having a talk with Cassie later.

But this all reminded me of another story:

Rewind 5 or 6 years to when we lived in Canada, in my in-laws house while they were in Iceland.

Now one day my sister was helping me get things ready because Inga and Rob were coming back for a visit.

The path leading up the the house was a skating rink of death, I needed to do something about the ice.

Under the steps I found a large pail full of a white powdery stuff, labeled Selt.

This made me think it was Salt and that selt meant Salt in Icelandic. I did not actually know any Icelandic at the time.

If I would have read further I would have seen that the instructions were in English, but anyways,
I spread this 'salt' all over the sidewalk and on the large chunks of ice in the yard.

After waiting a few minutes I noticed that it did not seem to be melting very well, so I added more.

Then while I was waiting for some melting action I started to read the label, and discovered this was not salt, it was cement mix.

This explained the clumping rather then melting.

When my in-laws arrived, my sister and I were outside, with children's shovels, trying to scrape up this wet concrete mix. It was impossible and it was a mess.

Lucky for me, I married into a family with a sense of humor, and that day will forever be remembered as the day I tried to add a concrete patio to the back yard.

Better then postsecrets

Everyone thought postsecrets was great, and it is not bad but this
well, I can not stop laughing.
Passive Aggressive Notes
love it

Angela

Remember when I talked about that couchsurfing family that did not surf my couch, but did meet us for dinner and a swim? (to lazy to look for the post)
Well, it turns out she has a blog - still not sure how I did not see this before - with pictures and her stories of her trip around our Island.
She shows how fun Iceland is while also showing how a family of four can travel and be exotic while being....a family of four. (a friend of mine ounce said that only single parents look there kids over seas on holidays, now I know she is wrong)
Well, I think you should look at the blog, and start planning your holiday in Iceland!