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...