2 Weeks

Our beautiful family on Christmas Eve. Norwegians dress up a lot for Christmas. Daniel is wearing his 'bunad' (national costume type thing)

Norwegian Christmas sunrise over the frozen lake.

We had a lovely Christmas up in the mountains with Viggo's family. We had friends over this weekend to celebrate New Year's with us, and that was really nice too. We haven't been at home before for New Year's Eve, and I was really impressed by all the fireworks. Everyone (or, lots of people, that is) has their own private 'big' fireworks, and from our house we have a view over the water to the city and the island next to us, so we could see big fireworks going up in dozens of spots all around us at midnight. Our friends brought some 'rockets' with them, so we had some of our own too. Our friends' two-year-old thought it was all really scary, though, and stayed up clinging to his parents and saying "done, done," until they left after one.

We can't believe there are only two weeks left until we leave now. We leave on the 17th. We have plenty to do still, but I think it will all get done. My parents arrive on the seventh and will stay until the fourteenth (I think...). They're coming to see Daniel, but it will be a big help to have them here too to watch him and maybe help us with cleaning out the house and stuff like that. Viggo is at the doctor with Daniel right now. Daniel has had a bit of a cold for almost four weeks now, and diarrhea for the last few days. He still seems pretty healthy and happy though, so hopefully the doctor will say it is just normal winter virus stuff. We want him to get well before we leave!