We are moving, Again

That's right, adding a new member to our family wasn't enough of an accomplishment for this year, we will also be adding a new address, in a new country.

The plan right now is to move our family to Paris, France in July.  This is a 2 year assignment and we are thrilled at this opportunity that God has provided.  We are sad to be leaving Norway so soon, but we are so excited about the chance to live in Paris.  Staying in Norway was not going to be an option for us because of Jon's work, but we had no idea that Paris would be an option for us.  We really feel God's hand in all of this as we prepare to move in time for the kids to be able to get started in school and be settled before the new baby comes.  There is still a long road ahead of us as we prepare to move from Oslo to Paris, and I plan on sharing as much as I can about all of our adventures.

14 Weeks!

The first belly shot of this pregnancy, I am 14 weeks and officially entering the 2nd trimester.  I am feeling much better, I just can't believe how quickly things are moving along.  

This sweet boy is so crazy.  He picked up Addie's pink bunny hat and wore it all the way to Sweden.  

Addie and Ben ran outside and started doing a happy dance, the snow is almost all gone!  It has finally started to feel like spring here and we are all thankful.

Poor Bennett really doesn't like the snow very much.  He had fun playing in it at the beginning of winter, but he has been done with winter for a couple of months now.  

Sunday morning snuggles for Garrett and Addison.  They were watching Peter Pan in Norwegian. 

Adding to My Collection

I found two more bowls to go with my collection this week.  These bowls came from my favorite shop, Marita Butikken.  

I love this mismatched look for china.  I love the process of collecting.  Now I just need to plan a party so we can use our new dishes.  

I promise the next post will have people in it.

Treasure Hunting in Norway

Today we went to our first loppemarket of the season.  A loppemarket here in Norway is like a garage sale.  The only one we went to last year was right after we moved here and it was at Addie's school.  That loppemarket was a little different because it was at an international school.  Today's loppemarket was at a local Norwegian school.  They have been advertising heavily in our area and they got the message out.  We got to the school just after 10, when the sale started.  We were shocked when we had to park down a hill and around a corner and then walk back to the school.  There were so many people heading to the sale.  The playground area was full of stuffed animals, furniture, and skis.  Most of the good furniture was already sold.   I may have missed a couple of gems because I was so overwhelmed. We walked around outside for a bit and then we all headed inside because we were COLD.  The temperature this morning was around 4*C or 38*F, still pretty chilly.  We went inside and there were items for sale everywhere, clothes along the hallway, shoes, books,  and children's clothes in classrooms.  The gym was the jackpot for us, dishes/small items and toys.  I left Jon with the kids to look at the toys and I walked around all the tables, trying to get close enough to see what was on them. I made one full round and then I had to go back a second time.  I was able to get close enough the second time to check out this set of dishes.  I am in love with brown transferware, but in the US I found it to be hard to find and expensive.  Here at the loppemarket I found 6 plates, 6 bowls, a serving bowl and 3 serving platters.  One plate has a chip, but the rest of the set is in great condition.  I was so excited, but it didn't have a price and that made me nervous.  You never know at sales like this which direction the pricing is going to go.   Thankfully we were able to make a deal and I was the proud owner of a set of dishes.  I also found a "Norge" mason jar for my mom, a Norwegian cake plate, a rooster piggy bank, and the 3 tiered rack.  I loaded as much as I could into a bag that I had brought with me and staggered over to Jon and the kids.  By now we were all a little overwhelmed with the number of people, Garrett especially was ready to go.

I am so excited about these dishes!

Here is one of the plates.

This was Ben's treasure, he was so excited to find it.  I had one just like it when I was a little girl.  

It has been a big hit with all three kids today.

And just for fun a picture of Garrett.  This is the face he makes when he is asking for a bite of whatever you are eating.  He opens his mouth wide and says 'Ahhh' just like a little bird.  

Craving Chocolate Cake

Last week I got a craving.  This is not unusual for my pregnant self.  Unfortunately this pregnancy I have had a hard time fulfilling a lot of my cravings because I live in Norway and most of the foods I crave are not available here.  This craving was different though, I wanted chocolate cake.  I don't really like cake most of the time, but I really wanted chocolate cake.  My mom was still here, on the tail end of her visit, and she volunteered to make her Grandmother's recipe of homemade chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting.  It was AMAZING.  

I was trying to get Garrett to look at the camera for a picture, but he was entranced by the chocolate cake in front of him.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate cake!

London Calling

After Garrett's Easter illness Jon and I considered canceling our upcoming trip to London, but in the end we decided to go.   When we left Garrett seemed to be back to normal. Next time I think we will be more likely to trust our instincts.  On Tuesday of last week we headed off for a 4 day trip to London.

The trip started off okay, we flew into Stansted Airport and we had hired a private transfer for the 6 of us, Nannie came too.  The van ride into the city was nice, despite the traffic.

Our driver took us through the scenic route, Trafalgar Square.

Riding by the River Thames,

I am so thankful now for this mini tour of London, it was almost all of London that I got to see.

The Palace.

As we got closer to our hotel we started seeing a lot of nice cars.  We drove by a Lamborghini dealership just before we got to our hotel.

Some of the names I didn't even recognize because I had never seen them before.

Getting settled into our hotel, there may or may not be another post about the hotel.  We had a few major issues, paint peeling off the walls, no hot water for 2 days, but they were able to get us new rooms and fix most of the problems.  

Heading out to dinner.

The kids eating their ice cream after our first dinner in London.  This was the last really nice moment we had as a whole family, it was Tuesday night.  Ben, Addie, and I all ended up sick the next day.

The next picture I took wasn't until Thursday evening when Nannie, Ben and I made it out to see Big Ben.

We have been talking about Ben seeing Big Ben and he was really excited.  Unfortunately Addie was already sick at this point and not able to leave the room.

Nannie in front of an Undergound sign.

I loved that they had this painted at a lot of the cross walks reminding people which way to look before crossing the road.

It was freezing the night we went out, but the window boxes were still out and beautiful.  

Unfortunately that is all I really got to see of London.  On Friday morning Addison woke up still quite sick.  She had not been able to deep anything at all down for 36 hours at that point.  We were getting very worried about her getting too dehydrated so I called a taxi and took her to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.  The hospital was less than a mile from our hotel and they had a separate ER just for pediatrics.  Addie was seen very quickly and it was decided that she was dehydrated and they got an IV started to get some fluids in her.  The doctors and nurses were very sweet to her and made getting the IV as easy as possible.  Addie was so sick at this point that she was ready for anything that would help her feel better.   

This is the picture I took of Addie once the IV was in. 

After this they told me that we would be heading upstairs to a room.  I will admit I was surprised. 

 I thought they would give her some fluids and we would head home, I did not realize they would be admitting her.  We were moved to a private room in the children's wing where we spent the rest of the day.  They kept Addie on fluids all day and you could see her perk up as the day went on.  She was able to start sipping some water and she kept that down so I knew we were headed in the right direction.  We finally left the hospital at 11 PM and headed back to our hotel, only to turn around and get up at 4 AM with the rest of the family and head to the airport.  Our flight headed home right on time and we were back in our house by lunch time.  Thankfully everyone is healthy now and hoping to stay that way for a while.  

Nannie managed to avoid all of the sickness, even as she took care of all of us as we got sick in turn.  

Everyone home and on the mend.

This will go down for us as our worst vacation to date.  We did learn some valuable lessons from this trip and we are looking forward to going back to London one day.  At this point we are looking forward to staying close to home for a while.  

Happy Easter

Saturday before Easter the sickness came to visit our home.  Poor Garrett was so pitiful, he did not feel well at all.   The only thing he wanted to do was snuggle up and sleep.

Sitting in the office trying to keep the germs away from everyone else.  

Sunday morning we woke up to a Happy Easter.

The Easter Bunny was very good to us.

Everyone had fun digging into their treasures.

Addie loved her bunny hat.

I love the look on Addie's face here.

I know they don't look that happy, but they were having fun.

Ben and Addie snuggled up to watch a movie together, so sweet.

And this is how Garrett spent the rest of the day.

We all decided to stay home from church to avoid sharing our germs with anyone else.

We did read the Easter story out of the Jesus Storybook Bible.  It was not how I hoped Easter would go, but we ended up having a good day.  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!