Historic Stavanger

On Friday Sophia, Julia, Frederick and I went to Jernaldergarden, which is the Iron Age far that dates back to 300AD, SO the houses are over 1700 years old. It is a farm stead on one of the beautiful hills in Norway, on the top of the hill you can see for miles around. It was breath taking. But blondie over here didn't check her camera before we left and just when I was about to take my first photo it went flat!!!! So these are pictures of it thanks to google images :)Then yesterday Tuesday 13 July, we went to the three swords monument, which was built to celebration over the union of Noway into one country.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon in Stavanger, Frederick and I went for a lovely walk along the Fjord and Sophia and Julia played on the beach and in the water.

Hermit Crabs and Tea Parties

In the water at Voulen Beach playing with the water looking for shells, snails and Hermit crabs. The water has warmed up a lot since summer has started and here on the beach the water is quite shallow, before you hit the shelf and then it drops over 600m, so you drop something there sorry for you, you aren't getting it back.

Sophia is obsessed, now when I say obsessed I mean OBSESSED with sand, we have a sand pit outside our house and she has to go into it every time we go past it, from digging her fingers through it to building sand castles, we have so much fun :)

She loves this beach because it has hundreds of clam shells every where so there are lots for her to pick up. She was fascinated by the sea snails and hermit crabs, although she was to scared to touch the crab, she was quite content to watch it scuttle all over my hand and arm. The snails where more to her liking when they where in their shell but the second they came out it was "Sarah!!!!!" haha so again I had the snail slithering over my hand while she watched

Here is Phia (sort for Sophia) holding her stone, she loves stones more than sand, and living on the beach there is plenty of both, so I am continually being given more stones to carry for her and to keep while she finds more, and now she has moved onto finding the biggest one she can carry to me, which is not far and then I have to carry the 12 boulders home! My arm muscles are going to be toned I tell you, toned!

Sitting at the beach about to go in the water and so excited because we are about to find shell, stones and play in the sand and sea :)

Dancing time :) Here in my flat I have an iPod stand and it plays my iPod all day and Phia loves it! Here we where having to dance with her stuffed animals. Phia was dancing with Tigger and I was dancing with Monkey.

More dancing and bouncing of Tigger :)

Welcome to our tea party :) our honoured guests where Tigger, Monkey and Peter Rabbit. Sophia loves to have tea parties all the time.

Making sure Tigger gets his tea before it gets cold!

Here Sophia is talking to all our guests and making them feel welcome.

More art work with Sophia

Shapes and colours. Triangles to make the grass, and circles to make the flowers. We are learning our colours too.

shape butterflies

a closer look at our shape butterflies

Our shape butterflies

Our lady birds

Our tree made from Sophia hand prints.

Volley ball :)

This past weekend and week there was the world championship volley ball tournament in Stavanger. It was so exciting, the city was super full of people from all over the world, but why do some Americans think that English is called Americana, "sorry Mame do you speak Americana." I replied "No sorry, I speak English" hehe. These are some of the pictures I promised the guys! Here are the Brazilian women. What I must say is that Volley ball is sexist! The woman wear the tiniest bikini's ever and show the world everything and the men wear long shorts and shirts, now where is the fun in that, I was most disappointed.

This was Great Britain Vs Poland, the Polish are in red and white.

More of Brazil :)

The Germans serve, now let me just tell you that they where serving at speeds that are unbelievably fast and dangerous if you get a face plant!!! They where averaging between, 85 and 92km per hour!!!! Hectic hey and there where some face plants (but only to the Americans hehe, you will understand why I don't like the US in this tournament later)

Yay, go NORWAY. In the crowds with my clapper and flag, cheering on the Norwegians. It was a beautiful warm weekend. This day I even got burnt haha, the temp got to a lovely 22 degrees

Yay, Norway :)

Live and I at the game, This was while Norway where beating Spain in the semi finals

The crowed :) it was electric!

The Final match Norway (in the blue vs Germany) The Germans where the hotties but I am living in Norway so have to support them.

Some more of the action at the net

Norway lost the final match against Germany, by 2 points!!!!! But it was such an exciting match h my word!!!!

The Germans being presented their medals and swords for winning (I am in a viking country :) )

The Germans in 1st place, Norway in 2nd and USA in 3rd and boy where USA sore loosers, the guy with the goti got yellow carded for being rude and arguing with the referee! I mean have you ever, he questioned every decision that was made against them.

In the harbour this week where some truly amazing boats and ships. Now the largest I have ever seen is this one the Queen Victoria. She took up the one whole side of the harbour.

This beautiful wooden sail boat was on sale this week, with the Queen Victoria in the background.

Another large Cruise ship

And from behind

Some of the things Sophia and I have been doing

Our Snow man made from cotton wool

Hand print rosters

A house made from shapes (I was teaching her different shapes)

Enjoying the beater after making peanut butter biscuits :)

Having a good old lick

Our number caterpillar , we are learning our numbers and colours

Finger painting

Day 19- 30 oops :) Rainbows and butterflies :)

Well it has been a while and I do apologies but I have had my hands full :) That is what two children under two do to you :) I have been making star and butterfly shaped sandwiches and toast to get Sophia to eat :) although she really enjoyed the peanut butter biscuits we make. There was more flour all over my flat then in the biscuits she looked like a cartoon character that gets all its colour rubbed out :) haha it took me like 2 hours that night to hoover/ vacuum flour out of every where, and I mean every where I have no idea how it got into all those places Wow :)
Well we had the best peanut butter biscuits they were a huge success :) yum yum :) The house has been really full as Julia's (the mother) sister came to stay with us for 5 days with her 9 month old, children every where. The cool thing is that here in the house we have a home sound system that is linked to every room and plays through out the house (you can pick the zone or room it you want) and it picks up every radio station in the world so I have 5fm playing through out the day YAY!!!! I have really missed 5Fm they are the best :)

On Saturday night I went into Stavanger with friends and had supper at the water front (by the main Harbour here at Stavanger city, very beautiful) we had supper at a restaurant called Salza. How I have said that Norway is one of the most expensive countries in the world, but let me put it is perspective for you...

So at Salza on Saturday night I had a normal burger and chips nothing fancy and you will soon see why. The exchange rate between the pound at the Krona (Norwegian currency) is roughly the same as the exchange rate between the pound and the rand. So I have naturally started looking at things here not only in Pounds but Rands too. Well are you ready for it my simple burger and chips coast 185 Krona so it is R185 or 18 ponds 50 pence (my silly computer does not have the pound sign :( ) anyway and my diet coke was 39 Krona so R39 haha, I told you it was expensive!
After supper we went to Stavanger cinema to watch Sex in the City 2 and that cost 96 Krona so R96 haha. The nice thing here is the movies are in English and there are Norwegian subtitles at the bottom of the screen, that is why I think everyone English here is amazing. The cool thing is that I can read a little Norwegian and understand a little when they speak really slow as a few words are very similar if not the same to Afrikaans (and I thought I would never used it once I left school, tut tut me)

Well the beaches have been beautiful and full of people, I have been every day pretty much and I am catching a tan Yay :)

Stay tuned for more adventures...

Day 20 & 21 Tantrums and Tiaras

Well Sophia is reaching that terrible 2's stage (she turns 2 in August) and anyone with a child or works with them will know that this is always a really fun stage to go through :) For those who don't let me explain.....

Sophia wants to be independent and do thing herself, all good and well on that aspect and no problems yet, the thing is she wants to do EVERYTHING!!!!!! by herself and for most things she is to little, not strong enough, to short etc the list goes on. So when she realises that she can't do it by herself, the tantrums start, and they go a little like this...

1. Face screws so much that she looks like a pug
2. Teeth are shown as lips rise to touch her nose (so, so far a very attractive face)
3. Hold her breath till she starts to go red in the face
4. When she finally breaths again it is accompanied by an ear splitting scream that even deaf animals can hear and makes glass quiver.
5. What ever is in her hands gets thrown with amazing accuracy at whom ever is closest
6. The tears start forming in her eyes
7. the hands and feet in unison start to move in very loud stomping and slapping (avoid hands at all costs otherwise you will be sorry)
8. Tears are now streaming down her face
9. The scream has now changed into a moan similar to the drown of the beautiful vuvuzela's back home
10. Face still red and stained with tears she eventually calms down....

while the whole time I have been saying "It's ok Sophia...." over and over and over again!
It's such a magical stage in their development.....

Anywho Sophia and I have been doing a lot of painting and other arts and crafts activities of late so I will put pictures up soon. We have made caterpillars and lady bugs (her favourite story is what the lady bird heard) chickens and a tree for the lady birds :) We have had so much fun.

I took Frederick and Sophia down to the beach yesterday afternoon, Sophia was riding on her new buggie board (again for those of you that are scratching your head at this moment over "buggie Board" It is a step/board that gets attached to prams/buggies so that you can push the baby/Frederick in the buggie and she stands behind Frederic by the handles on her board and you push both of them :) )
So down at the beach Sophia and I played in the water again while Frederick had his afternoon zzzz's under a tree, she had so much fun.

Today Julia Sister (Sarah, yes I know I can never escape another Sarah where ever I go there is always another, oh well) any way she arrived today with her son Joshua he is 9months old so we have a very busy house :)

Say tuned for more adventures...

Day 17 - 19 Mid summer :)

Friday was a really good day, I had Frederick for the whole day and Sophia as well in the afternoon. Sophia and Julia went to a indoor play ground/gym here in Stavanger at one of the malls because it was raining and the wind was blowing so hard that it was literally blowing me over, seriously strong, Mary Poppins would have had a serious problem in that wind. So we kept ourselves all warm and snuggled up inside and played here. Sophia is really affectionate it so sweet, all I have to say to her s snuggle time and she come running to me for the biggest snuggle and she always wants more, she has started asking for snuggles:) so precious!

Saturday was the mid summer celebration in Norway and everyone here in Stavanger was having braai's/barbeque's with family and friends. The sun doesn't set at the moment here in Stavanger it gets to a dim dusk stage and then the sun rises again. We had a lovely time at the grandparents house with the entire family coming along. There was salmon and prawns on the braai with burgers, Vienna sausages, steak and vegetables. It was an amazing feast. I drank wine made daisy chains with Sophia and ate fish and burgers and Pavlova for pudding which is my one of my favourite pudding. It was such a beautiful day as well, the wind was a little chillie (understatement it felt like it came straight off a glaciers and considering we are in Norway and there is still snow on the mountains in the middle of summer it probably did come straight off the glacier!)
Anyway like London did, Norway has completely changed my perspective on what is warm. It is amazing at how quickly the body changes to become accustom to the climate in a new place. The temperature here on average during the day is anything between 8- 16 maybe 19 Degrees but as soon as it hits 14 Degrees I am honestly feeling warm like everybody else here and walking around in shorts and a T-shirt. Madness I tell you as before I left South Africa, anything below 24 was Arctic weather!!!! haha how quickly I have changed!

Sunday the day of rest :) Well I am really missing church it is unbelievable, and there aren't any here that I can become a part of! so Sundays can be a little hard but today I went for another run and have finally (and hopefully) got over my competitive side that has to do amazingly in this half Marathon and has realise that completing is going to be amazing and the fact that I am doing it means that I am winning (I know it sounds lame but I have such a competitive streak that I was expecting to much from myself and comparing myself with others) once I got over that it made my run today a lot easier and much more enjoyable.

I really enjoy looking out for the pink and orange jellyfish that are in the Fjord water while I run they are really beautiful and graceful in the water, I could honestly stop and watch them all day if I wanted to. They are moving up my list of favourite animals who would have thought! I have also sent my day reading my books and watching "the Mentalist" so pretty awesome day if you ask me.

Stay tunes for more adventures

Day 15 & 16

Well nothing to exciting happened yesterday. I took Sophia down to Vaulen beach for the morning where she charmed some old ladies having a walk. I have been taking both Children in the afternoons for this week so that Julia and try and finish organising the house etc. So while Frederick was entertained by his baby gym, Sophia and I baked cup cakes. She has a very healthy respect for the oven and while it was on she was o scared to come anywhere near it. Not even to look at the cup cakes baking, she kept saying No, hot- hot-hot, poor sausage!

Today we went to the animal farm in Stavanger. There were the normal pigs, goats, cows chickens, ducks, rabbits and horses oh yes and some sheep. It was so cute I showed Sophia how to feed the goat the grass stalks, she was a bit nervous at first but then was giggling ever time the goat took the grass from her hand, it was so sweet.

This afternoon after seeing all the animals, singing old Mac Donald for 30min straight (no lies, if i hear it one more time I think I will flip!!!! OR turn into old Mac Donald!) and Sophia favourite book at the moment is "what the lady bird heard" it is really sweet but I read it 6 times just today! The Lord has granted me patients and for that I am soooooo grateful otherwise I might have pulled a Sylvia Plath by now! We painted chickens using her hand print as the chicken, as she is not 2 yet I got her to hold the crayon while I drew with her to add on the eyes feet and beak, they are really sweet!

This evening I finally got myself together and went for a run, it is only the second time since I have been here and September 26 is only getting sooner, I have sooooooo much work to do!

Anyway Stay tuned for more adventures

Day 14 - Train to Stavanger

The old watch tower of Stavanger

Sophia wanted to take a picture of me :)

The old watch tower of Stavanger

More from the city of Stavanger, looking towards the pond in the city centre

The Cathedral from the side

The Cathedral from the front

The houses with grass on their room, told you they look like hobbit holes :)

Tuesday and what a beautiful sunny day although when the wind was blowing it was a little chilly, but laughing over all my family and friends at home moaning about the cold, when we are at similar temperatures and I am in jeans and a sleeveless top :) haha

This morning Sophia and I took the train into Stavanger to spend the morning. We went to the old Cathedral which was build in 1135 and is one of the oldest cathedrals in the world and is still being used today, it was beautiful. We also walked around the harbour as Sophia liked to look at the big boats (which was all the ferry's to other island/ parts or Norway around the Fjords. We walked, er well I walked and pushed Sophia in her push chair (buggy/ pram, depending where you are in the world) so she had it easy, wow cobble stoned roads and hill that are steeper than Everest I really got a good work out pushing her, which was rewarded with an Ice cream afterwards (mmmmm.... strawberry ice-cream nothing better.) We took the train back and arrived home at about 12:30 when it was lunch and then bed time for her afternoon nap.

This afternoon was more play dough and making birthday card for her grandmother, then she went out with her mom and Frederick and I spent the afternoon together. I have finally found someone who appreciates my singing :) Frederick was crying this afternoon, so I put on my itunes on my computer and preceded to sing "Don't stop believing" from the Glee sound track and Queen Bohemian rapacity. The tears soon disappeared and she was all toothless smiles and giggles, he got upset when ever I stopped singing, it was brilliant. I love to sing and really wish I could (because I can't, when I start singing the dogs start howling and people start running towards their closest exit even if it is just a window)

This evening has been pretty chilled, reading my books but at that point I get to in every book I read of not wanting to stop reading because I am loving it so much, and wanting to put the book in the freezer so that the story will never end! I hate it i never want the books to end, I love escaping into my other world of make believe and adventures sometimes it is more exciting than every day life. Oh well that is the beauty of it being in books, I can return at any time.

Anyway enough of my rambling

Stay tuned for more adventures :)