A year ago

One year ago today we were on the plane headed to Oslo Norway for our 14 week adventure living abroad. That day of travel was long and tough! It is hard to believe it was a whole year ago. In some ways it seems like we just left but then so much has happened since we returned - new job, new baby!

At the airport with all of our luggage

It was a really great experience for us and I am so glad we went. We recommend taking such an opportunity if it ever presents itself to any of our friends. You really learn a lot about a country and a culture by living there instead of just visiting there. For us we also felt that we grew closer as a family because we were together so much and did not have the same distractions competing for time that we do at home.

I made some great friends while in Oslo. I told Sam today that when I think of that time I often get sad because I realize that we may never go back there and I may never see the friends that I made there. I hope that is not the case but you never know. I almost have a funny sense of homesickness.

We're off and we're home!

I wrote this email as we were getting ready to leave but hit "save" instead of "post" so it is a little behind. I did update it though with how our travel day went.

Well, we are headed to the airport. So excited and yet also a bit sad to be heading home. Yesterday when I was coming back from Hilde's house I couldn't help but think it was the last Oslo bus I'd ride and the last time I would walk past all the shops on our street. I was getting a little sentimental.


Overall we had a great experience. There were things that were hard, frustrating or just different. But, we learned a lot about ourselves as we basically moved to a city where we knew no one and started over, if only for 3 months.


I feel like I made some true friends which I did not really expect. I will really miss them. I will miss certain aspects of urban living though I do look forward to having a yard and a car again.

I am not sure that we ever would want to move overseas for a long term assignment but it was a fun adventure for three months of our life.

As you are reading this, we are either at the airport or on the plane. Please pray for our day. I am dreading it.

Update: Well our day of travel was pretty uneventful considering we were traveling with a toddler. We had a great stay in our hotel. There was a wonderful buffet breakfast which was more than the usual toast and sandwich meat and cheese served as a Scandinavian breakfast. We ate as much as we could knowing that we would be surviving on airplane food for the rest of the day.

We saw online that our flight to Newark would be leaving an hour late so we took our time walking across the street to the airport. We figured we would rather spend the hour at our hotel than in the airport. That ended up being a little mistake as we were the last people to check in and even though there was a long line in front of us it seemed to be a problem for the workers. In the Oslo airport we changed most of our money back to dollars, got a few drinks and went to the gate. We had our tickets and passport checked five times between arriving and boarding.

It was a smaller plane for international travel with only 3 seats on each side of the aisle. We were not able to get a bulkhead row so it was a bit of a struggle to get the carseat in and to keep Katherine from constantly kicking the seat in front of her. Our flight left at noon and was 8 hours long so it was not really when you would be sleeping. Katherine did take a 2 hour nap. She really did well though she was active.

In Newark we cleared customs, rechecked our bags and traveled to the new terminal and gate. By this time it was past Katherine's bedtime. Did she sleep - NO! She was wired and wanting to run all over the airport. Our flight was delayed an our which made things worse. Luckily as soon as we got on the plane she fell asleep and slept the entire flight.

At the airport we were met by my mom and our good friends Jen and Richard. All of our suitcases arrived (unlike when we went to Oslo). When we got home, Hooligan was very excited to see us (be watching for a video in the future). Our friends who stayed in our house were still here so Katherine had fun playing with Jaden, Caleb and Andrew as well as all of her toys. It was like Christmas morning.

It is good to be home and to sleep in our own beds!

An early Thankgiving celebration

Our church in Oslo had a Thanksgiving Celebration both to celebrate Thanksgiving in a few weeks and to celebrate the one year anniversary of the church. Our congregation is international with a large number of Filipino au pairs who also celebrate Thanksgiving (taken from the US influence) so we had an interesting assortment of traditional Thanksgiving food from the US and the Philippines.

We prepared a Turkey. This is the first time I have cooked a turkey in the oven. Usually for the holidays we are eating at a parent or grandparents house and they cook the turkey. The only time we did it, we used a turkey fryer which was not to be found in Oslo. So, I was a little nervous. I also did not have the right supplies. There was no roasting dish and no turkey baster. So, we were inventive as you see in the picture and we used Katherine's nasal aspirator as a turkey baster.
Eeeew - just joking. We laughed about the idea and posed the picture but decided to just use the spoon to baste the turkey.

Katherine grabbed an oven mitt to check the turkey. Good thing that oven is childproofed because even though she kept saying, "hot, hot", she still tried to open the door like mommy does.

In addition to the turkey, we made cranberries, gravy and sweet potato casserole. As you can see our kitchen is very small and tight on space. I think we had every pot and pan as well as all four burners in use. It seemed I was constantly cleaning up.

The food was delicious. We had turkey and all the sides - mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, broccoli, etc. This is in addition to the Filipino spring rolls, shrimp, pasta and rice dishes. The hands down hit and most commented on dish was the sweet potato casserole. Apparently sweet potatoes are not common here so most of the Norwegian and European guests had no idea what it was. They thought it was carrots. Then to cover it in marshmallows was an even more interesting idea. They all liked it though.

We had the regular attenders from our church family as well as many guests in attendance. It was a very fun evening for me as almost every friend I have made in Oslo was there. Sarah, her husband John and son Aiden were there, Hilde, her son Nikolas and granddaughter Lona attended and Donna, husband Stew and daughters Sophie and Isabella came. They all really enjoyed the evening and it felt a little like a going away party for me as it may be the last time I see all of these friends before we go home.

Lucky (our pastor) gave a short devotional on the history and meaning of Thanksgiving. The kids did a craft.

Katherine and her two best friends in Olso - Nikolas and Aiden

A very busy day!

I know we are leaving in only 5 days and I should be packing and getting stuff done. That is not what I did today however. I started off by going to the Little Gym in Sandvika which is about 20 minutes away by train. Katherine loves it there but we were running late and arrived after class started. She was a little slow getting into it but she finally did.

There are so many smaller museums in Oslo that I had not been to yet. There is nothing like the 11th hour so I decided to try to see some today. On the way home from Sandvika, we stopped at the Henie Onstead Museum. It is an art collection of a former Olympic skater and her husband. Katherine's favorite was the giant banana on the lawn. I forgot my camera and only had my video camera so sorry for the funny museum pictures.

Then we headed downtown and went to three free museums. First we went to the Stenerson museum where there were two exhibits, one on photography and one called Equatorial Rhythms which was about global music.

Next we went to the History museum where we saw exhibits on the vikings, arctic people, tribal villages in Africa and Asian cultures. It was actually a pretty good museum but I had not heard much about it. Katherine enjoyed the deer.



Last we went to the Art and Design Museum and I saw an exhibit on knitting and the design and fashion of furniture throughout the last few centuries concentrating on Scandinavian design. Some of the furniture was very funky. The first part of the video - the tiger and bear head as well as the off white living room are entirely knitted. The lamps are just a sample of the rest of the museum. This was the part with no security guard so I could video it.



I came home very tired and Katherine was asleep in the stroller. I had to hurry to cook dinner because our friends John, Anne Grethe and Amelie were coming for dinner. John is from Houston and is married to Anne Grethe who is Norwegian. They attend our church. Their daughter is almost 5 months old. Katherine loved having a real baby here for the evening.

Too much fun

Tonight we had our pastor Luckey and his family, wife Christa and kids Kaitlyn, Aaron and Caleb over for dinner. They have been such a huge encouragement and help to us since we arrived in Oslo. The very first Sunday Luckey picked us up for church and they had us over for dinner afterwards. Our church here is so very different from our church at home. The largest difference is the size. We are used to a mega church. Oslo International Community Church is not mega. On a high attendance Sunday there may be 25 people. While I pray that the church does grow, it was kind of fun to go to such a small church while we were here.

Caleb, Christa, Kaitlyn, Luckey and Aaron

Katherine loves Kaitlyn, Aaron and Caleb and they love her. They are all in Sunday School together each week. The kids ate at their own table and had so much fun playing after dinner. You would never realize that she is less than 2 and they are 7, 10 and 12 (I think). They all played so well together. Almost every toy we had was pulled out by the end of the evening.

While the adults were still eating we saw that Katherine had climbed up into Aaron's lap to read a book. We all ran to grab the cameras because it was so sweet.

A dear friend visits

When we returned from Stockholm, we brought a dear friend of mine, Anita, back with us. I met Anita 20 years ago as a high school freshman when she was my Bible study leader at church. We met weekly for all four years of high school and have kept in touch ever since. She has been a missionary in Albania for the past 6 years so we don't see each other often. This was a special treat to have her come visit us for 3 days.

We got in very late on Sunday night so we slept in on Monday. Katherine stayed with her favorite babysitter, Cally so Anita and I took out across town to explore. We strolled through downtown, shopped, ate lunch and went through the castle. We were exhausted so we headed home and rested.

Tuesday we went to the Viking ship museum. Katherine slept through it when we visited with my parents so she enjoyed it more now. She kept saying, "whoaaa" when she saw the big boat.

We walked a short distance to the Folk Museum where we ate lunch. Katherine insisted on feeding herself and was quite proud of all the yogurt on her face.

This was my third trip to the Folk Museum so I knew where the best places to go were. We knew that Katherine was a time clock so we headed to the highlights. The Folk Museum is a great place to go with Katherine because she can walk around without getting in the way or destroying anything.

Katherine loved Anita. She would follow her around and at home crawl into her lap to read books. It was so sweet.

My favorite part of the fold museum is the stave church. It is beautiful and something unique to Norway. You can barely tell that we are all three in the picture, we are so small compared to the church.

It was so great to have Anita here. She felt like she had gone back to America being in Norway. There are a lot more conveniences and products here compared to Albania. It was a great encouragement to me to have her here. It was so refreshing to be with someone who knew me so well. I have really enjoyed all of my friends, but you can only go so deep in a few months. I sure miss having Anita around.

Traditional Norwegian Dinner

Hilde and Mark wanted to have us over to their house for a traditional Norwegian meal. It was fabulous! We had meatballs and sauce, potatoes, broccoli and a berry sauce that is some berry that no one knows the name of in English. Yummm.

Nikolas is ready to eat.
After dinner we let the kids play. Actually, before and dinner they played as well. We finally got a really good picture of Katherine and Nikolas. She will really miss him.
Hilde's granddaughter Lona was there as well. She is almost 3.
Mark, Hilde, Nikolas, Camilla and Lona.

Random post of a the week

Here it is, another post of random things from this past week. It is really hard to believe that we are going home in 2 weeks. I feel torn about it. I am really ready to get home but yet I feel like I have finally fallen into a good routine and made some good friends. Well, it is what it is and we head home on November 14th.

Sam has been working really hard lately. He was been at work until midnight on Monday and Tuesday and until 10:30 tonight. It is hard, but it is better to have him work late while we are all in Oslo than for him to be in Oslo while we were back home. I am so glad we were able to join him.

Daylight Savings Time has already happened here. This means that it gets dark really early. According to the internet we only have 9 hours before sunrise and sunset anyway. At about 5:15pm it is almost pitch black. I have actually seen appliances for you home that produce "outdoor" light.

It is getting cold here in Oslo. As native Texans, we are not used to cold weather, especially in October. It has been below freezing almost every night and in the day it reaches the 40's. It has been a struggle to dress Katherine for the cold when we are out. A friend saw me trying to keep a blanket on Katherine in the stroller and she lent me her extra "warm fuzzy stroller bag". They have an official name, but I don't remember it. Katherine loves it. She snuggles up inside. It looks like she is about to blast off into space doesn't it.

Saturday we went to a petting zoo with Hilde, her partner Mark, Nikolas and Hilde's granddaughter Lona. Katherine gets so excited when I tell her we are going to see Nikolas. She enjoyed chasing the birds around.
She had fun making goat and pig noises. I need to get the pig 0n video. It is pretty funny.


She was able to see some cute bunny rabbits.
As we were walking back to the bus, we tried, once again to get some good fall pictures. We are running out of opportunities as many trees have no leaves anymore and the ones on the ground are wet and getting brown. Katherine is finally learning how to throw the leaves.
In other news, we are doing really well in the potty training area. I have not changed a poopy diaper in over 2 weeks with the exception of one in Helsinki when there were no opportunities for her to go anywhere but her diaper. This makes mama very happy. We do spend a lot of time in the bathroom waiting for her to do her thing. There is a lot of playing, getting up and down and reading. You can see that Katherine is already reading the final Harry Potter book. She actually likes to put it on the floor and step on and off it since it is so thick.

I could not believe it but I actually found some tiny underwear when I was looking for winter hats. They are European sizes so I am not sure exactly what a 50-56 translates to but in other things Katherine wears a 74 for length. They are so tiny and cute. We are not quite ready for them but when we are, we now have tiny underwear.
Tuesday I was the social coordinator. I wanted all of my friends to meet. So, Hilde graciously offered to have us over to her house and weather permitting we would go to the local park. Sarah's Aiden and Hilde's Nikolas are 2 days apart. Both Hilde and Sarah are staying home, working a little from home, but not putting the boys in barnehage which is not common. I hope they will be able to hang out. I wanted Donna and Hilde to meet because they live about 1/2 mile from one another. Their kids are not as close in age as Donna's are 3.5 and 10 months but they are neighbors who are staying home with their kids. It was a fun afternoon.

The friendly viking

Today we went to the American Women's Club Halloween party. It was not quite like the Fall Fun Fest I am used to at church. I really missed that since this year Katherine would have really enjoyed it.

We actually had quite a rough time today. The party was in Sandvika, a suburb of Oslo. We took a bus (actually 2) to get there and it took half an hour. When we got to the venue, there was a sign that the location was changed. Apparently it had been double booked. The problem was that now we were there with no transportation and the bus only comes every 30 minutes. To top that off, it was rainy. We called and they sent someone to pick us up. It was so frustrating though. When we got there, it was very crowded and there were only a few games. You had to pay to get in as it was a fundraiser but you also had to pay for the food. I guess we are overall glad we went.

Katherine was a viking. We thought that was fun for the year we were in Oslo for Halloween. Mom made the helmet for us and we bought her a sword in Copenhagen. Everyone thought she was a boy but oh, well.

Katherine enjoyed the few games that there were. She got a cute stuffed dog as a prize in the fishing game.

Her favorite activity was the craft table where she was able to color and glue and play with stickers.

They had a witch's story time. It was a bunch of cute poems, songs and stories. It was weird though having so many adults and kids dress up as witch's and scary monsters. I am used to the church party where there is none of that.

To top off the day that did not go as planned, we had no idea how to get back to town from the new party location. We went to the bus stop that we saw and it only came once an hour on Sunday. Luckily we only had to wait about 10 minutes. We were headed to church and it did not stop where we needed it to so our pastor came to pick us up. Once at church we were going to put Katherine's costume back on to show everyone and the hat was missing. I am so upset and hope that they find it at the party because mom made it and I did not get a really good picture of Katherine in her costume.

Friends

I consider myself an outgoing, social person who is fairly easy to get to know. Still, for some reason, the idea of moving to a new place where I knew no one was a bit intimidating for me. I knew that no one in Oslo would be looking out for me or concerned about my social life.

I have been frustrated at times. I would meet a cool mom at the playground or open kindergarten and exchange email and phone numbers but then I would never hear from her and if I called her it seemed we could not connect. I went to an international playgroup and met some cool moms that I enjoy talking to but we don't ever get together outside of the playgroup time. I expressed my frustration about this to someone at an American Women's Club meeting and she honestly told me that in the expatriate community if you are not going to be around for two years you are often not worth the time to get to know because they are tired of having people come and go in their life. So, as someone here for only three months, I was not worth their time. When I met people who were here for a few years they would almost downplay the time I was here. When I would say, "three months" they would comment that it was just a vacation. As our time draws near to the end, I realize that three months really is not that long, but yet, it can get lonely and you do need friends.

I do not have as many friends here as I do back home but I have really enjoyed the friends whom I have made. It has been fun because I have met a lot of people who are not exactly like me. Back home, most of my friends have very similar stories and lives. Here, there is more diversity. It is fun. I have friends who are older, friends who are younger, friends who are Norwegian, friends who are American, friends who are Australian. Some share my views on family, child raising, religion and politics and others are very different in these areas.

I have really appreciated those who have welcomed me and reached out to me. I have been shown areas of the city I would not have discovered on my own. I have been shown incredible generosity. All I have to do is mention something that I miss from home or wish I had and someone offers to let me borrow theirs. We have borrowed a stroller, crib, winter clothing, kitchen items, an air mattress, tools, etc. It has taught me a lot about generosity. I need to make sure I am that generous with my things when I go home.

• Hilde, Mark and Nikolas - Thank you for reaching out to me before we even met by offering to let me use Lona's crib. I have so enjoyed getting to know you as you have shown me Norwegian culture and many areas of Oslo. Katherine loves Nikolas and we will miss our weekly times with you.
• Sarah and Aiden - I love that we call one another to do things last minute. We are the same in that regard. I love that we can discuss our differences without offending each other. It has been fun to see Katherine and Aiden interact and have so much fun together.
• Patrick, Karen, Colin and Vivien - I sure wish we could have hung out more. We all really clicked as we are in Norway working for the same company. We look forward to hanging out with you back at home.
• Donna, Stew, Sophie and Isabel - I sure wish we had met you earlier in our trip. We sure enjoyed dinner together. It is fun to have a couple where the men can hang, the women can hang and we can all hang together. I love hearing all of your funny Australian sayings too.
• Luckey and Christa - You all have been so incredible. You truly have shown the love of Christ to us. We had been here less than 48 hours when you picked us up for church and then had us over for dinner. you have been so helpful in helping us to get acclimated to Oslo and we have really enjoyed our time and our conversations together.
• John and Anne Grethe - I wish we had been in town at the same time more often but we are both sure on the go. It is fun to be with a fellow Texas. You sure can cook a mean elk stew.
• Cally - What a great babysitter! Thanks for loving on Katherine.

Nanas

You would think that when Katherine says "Nanas" it would referring to her Nana. No, Nana is pronounced "lalala". "Nanas" is actually how Katherine pronounces the name of her buddy Nikolas here in Norway. That is the funny thing about kids and language development (correct me if I am wrong Heather and Amy). It seems that she has the ability to say certain sounds but there is something about the way she hears things and says things that often is not consistent.

Anyway, Katherine loves Nikolas. It amazes me the things she remembers. The other day I mentioned to Sam when we sat Katherine in a restaurant high chair that is different than what we are used to that it was the kind she sits in at Nikolas' house. Katherine heard me mention Nikolas and started to say "Nanas" and do the sign for "cat". Nikolas has a cat. She hear me say his name and made those connections.

Today I went to a playgroup at my friend Donna's house. To get there we took a bus and happened to get off at the same stop that we get off for Nikolas' house. When we got off the bus, Katherine said, "Nanas" I was so amazed. To me, most of the city looks very much the same. We have only been to Nikolas' house 3 times but there was something at that bus stop that alerted her to the fact that we were in his area.

Since we were in the area, I have Hilde a call and after my playgroup we met at the river to feed the ducks. Katherine was happy to get to play with Nanas.

Weekly random post

This is my weekly post or random things. When you are out of town for three months, you eventually need a haircut if you have short hair. Sam has needed a haircut for a few weeks now and has not gotten around to it. Finally I made an appointment for him at a studio that was open late. He usually goes to a true barber shop so he was a little apprehensive about what kind of stylist and cut he would receive.

Sam's "before" hair - the swoop reminds me of his high school pictures.
Sam's "after" hair- much improved.

He came home very happy with the experience and even said he almost bought the "hair wax" that they used but it was so expensive with the exchange rate. It is by Redken so we are going to look for it back home.

A few weeks ago I found out that there is a Little Gym in a suburb about 30 minutes away by city bus. Since I am always looking for things to do with Katherine, I went to their free trial class. There is a Little Gym close to our home in the US but we have never gone. She LOVED it. We have signed up to go for the remaining time that we are here and may have to check into it when we get home.

Today we went to a 2nd Birthday party for Colin, one of Katherine's friends. Colin's dad works with Sam and his mom Karen and I really enjoy hanging out. Colin just had a baby sister 3 weeks ago too but I did not get any pictures of her.

For the party all the kid from his Barnehage (kindergarten) came to his house to play and eat lunch. It was chaotic, but fun and Katherine enjoyed playing with different toys.
Yesterday my friend Sarah (moved her from NY) and I took our kids to the International Children's Art Museum. It was a fun museum for the adults and not as much for the kids, despite the name. The building was full of artwork from children throughout the world. Some were really great. We would try to keep the kids interested by pointing out different pieces of art and asking them to describe them. There were a lot of things that were within reach that they could not touch so that made it frustrating.

They did have an art room with magnadoodles and Katherine and Aiden enjoyed that a lot.

Aiden and Sarah

In the garden outside the museum