Norwegian Festival

Saturday was unexpectedly and delightfully busy and productive, it's just the best way to spend a Saturday that seems to slip away before we have a chance to acknowledge it.

That morning, we met Kristoffer's family at the Norwegian Festival for some music and a parade and some hot dogs and Norwegian chocolates (mmmmmm......).  Marin and her new friend, Estelle, had SO much fun traipsing around the park together with poor little Charlotte in tow on the leash.  That little doggie was such a good sport to keep up with two energetic girls!

It was a bright, sunny, beautiful morning, and here we all are!

 Marin and Estelle, who is 7.

 Melodie and Justin.

 Trine and Barry.

 We tried and we tried and tried again to get a cute little family shot, and this about as good as it got.  It's only getting more and more difficult as we add children; it's a lot of coordination!

 Owen and daddy, he loves his daddy.

 Look at my handsome BIG boy!  How can it be that he is getting so...BIG? 

 My boys.

 Marin had a little tussle with the pavement, and it left a souvenir on her knee.  She was totally fine with her scrape...until we got home and then you would have thought someone chopped her foot off; she was limping and whining and crying.  Such drama!

 Marin and Estelle.  Right after this picture, Marin informed me that she needed to wash her hands because she had been playing with the worm, haha, oh my!

We loved being with family, and even though I don't understand more than about four Norwegian words, I can at least look a little like them...and bring my Nordic looking babies! 

Work and Home and Balance...

I have been beyond busy lately as I find my groove with this new job.  It has been a whirlwind experience these past couple of weeks as I've blasted through orientation and I'm exhausted!!  I've been at work mostly three and sometimes four days a week and I've had no time to take picture of my sweet babies, or anything else for that matter.  Hopefully that will change soon after orientation is finished, and I'll be doing one to two days a week.

I've totally loved being back at work again and using my brain, it's been refreshing and a HUGE learning curve.  I'm really enjoying learning process and technique and...just a new spectrum of information that I can add to my resume.  I have missed my children, especially with being at work more than two days a week.  I'm sure I sound like a big wimp as I talk about how three days a week is such a doozie for me, haha!  But I clock out at work and head home to start my second shift...with the kids.  And being at work has re-affirmed my knowledge that being a mom is MUCH harder than *any* paying job out there.  Phew, what a job us moms have...it is total selflessness from sun-up to sun-down, punctuated with meals, snacks, refereeing, total care for infants, laundry, story time, dishes, more meals...oh MY!  Going to work (for me) is such a break from the real work of motherhood!  

  Owen is teething and the poor buddy just doesn't know what to do with himself, but he is just as cute as ever and saying "dada"....and that melts my heart, even if it isn't mama ;)  Marin is Miss. Questions-Everything...OY!  It is mentally exhausting to hear her sweet little squeeky voice semi-shout "Why?" at me all day...it's just the age, I know, and I do my very motherly-best to answer as patiently as humanly possible.  Kristoffer is still loving his job and enjoying his honey-bees; they are busy busy bees!

So, I'm sorry the pictures are so sparse, but we are alive and well.  And hopefully I will have some time to take pictures (and post them), very soon.

I'm Getting Tired....

I'm getting tired of being judged for being religious. And this mostly stems from so many Facebook trends with friends my age that I've seen.  I really almost feel like it's an all out war on religion now, and it is absolutely exhausting.  With the social trend to support the LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) community lately, it seems as though religion and Mormons in particular are being targeted as "un-supportive" and "judgmental" that we need to be re mediated for our belief structure.  

Just to be clear, I don't judge people for choosing a different lifestyle.  We all have the wonderful gift to choose and because of that gift, I can also choose to be LDS (mormon).  I don't think LGBT are bad people, I think they are wonderful, kind, caring amazing contributors to society.  But I can't tell you how many times I have been snubbed or treated like an absolute idiot just because I don't happen to agree with that life choice.  Are there some LDS members who are judgmental and cantankerous?  Of course.  Are there people everywhere who judge and make people feel terrible?  You'd better believe it! Judging is not exclusive to religion.  I feel ridiculously targeted for even just subscribing to a religion, and even more targeted because I've chosen to be LDS.  Thank you society for pointing out that LGBT's have legal rights, I totally agree.  But don't start judging me just because I don't happen to personally agree with you, let's hold ourselves to the same standard here.  It seems as though religious persecution is the only socially "allowable" form of judgment out there these days.

Just as I feel that everyone has the right to choose a lifestyle such as being LGBT, I also feel the same about choosing religion.  I'm passionate about my choice, and others are passionate about theirs.  But really, let's keep the snide middle-school theatrics out of it and be big boys and girls for once.

3 Pounds of Bees, Please

If you haven't already guessed by the title, we have some new little residents living outside of our living room window.  Kristoffer had been talking for a while about getting bees, and since my father keeps bees (and has for as long as I can remember), it didn't really seem that strange to me.  I wholeheartedly encouraged and supported him to move forward with this plan!  I look at how much our lives have changed since we have become parents, and how much Kristoffer has sacrificed his hobbies and interests in order to spend time with us.  I really think it's vitally important to have something that we, as humans, can invest our time in for recreational purposes...to recharge our batteries, so to speak.  Truth be told, my poor hubby doesn't get much of a chance to rock climb, or ski or play sports like he used to, so keeping bees is something that will be a new outlet for him.  

Like I said, I grew up having beehives on our property, and watching my dad don his netted hat and walk out with his smoker to check on his bees.  We always had a big bucket of honey in the basement that we would use to refill our large mason jar of honey from in the kitchen.  Really, the only times I remember being stung, were by hornets, or wasps...I don't think I can recall ever being stung by a honeybee!

So, after we used a large portion of our tax return for un-fun purposes, we set aside a little for Kristoffer's bees.

We picked them up the last Saturday in April, and took the kids with us.  Here is a large pallet with boxes and boxes of bees!  The metal cans you see are filled with some form of sugar water to feed the bees during transport.

 A few little escapees on the outside.

 Marin checking out the bees.  And we only purchased one box of bees.  If you notice, you can see the bees are huddled into their own little 'hanging mass'.  They are actually huddled around the queen bee box.  She is in a separate little mesh box up at the top of this box, and the bees instinctively huddle around her.  The ones laying on the bottom are goners.

 Proud new bee owner!

We set them in the trunk and propped them up to be sure they wouldn't tip over.

 Kristoffer stored the bees in the dark garage until evening, when he was ready to put them into their new home.  They recommend waiting until dusk so that the bees will be less likely to swarm (fly away and never return) since they are getting ready to bunker down for the night.

 We've set the bees on the side of the house, almost towards the front of the house.  It's a great spot, there are high fences and the house, so the bees need to fly up and over to get out (as opposed to straight..where people heads are), it's far enough away from our backyard so that kids can play and BBQ's can happen and no one is bothered.  The bees are able to get some morning sun and afternoon sun (to wake them up and keep them working), AND, they are right outside of our window, so we can watch them up close and safely!

 I had to be sure I put in a picture of Kristoffer wearing his bee-gear.

It took the weekend for the bees to settle down and become acclimated to their new home.  Sunday they were pretty busy right outside the hive, but I think they were giving themselves a little orientation.  Now, they have calmed down and I will typically see between 5-6 bees entering/exiting the hive at a time.  Their peak is in the mid-afternoon when that bright sun hits their hive full on, then I see between 12-18 bees entering/exiting the hive at a time.  

You just received a little bee education, haha!  Our close friends and family can expect some tasty honey as gifts this Christmas!

Birthday!

My birthday is April 30th, and while, at this point, I'm not exactly thrilled about getting older, I always look forward to my birthday because I can usually treat myself a little bit, and my husband treats me pretty well, too.  This year, I also tossed in a little new-job treat as part of my birthday present, so I had a very happy weekend.

I knew that Kristoffer had planned a Friday to Saturday birthday excursion for me, so we arranged for the kids to stay at GG's (great grand-ma's) and Friday I woke up wondering what to do while I twiddled my thumbs and waited fro Kris to come home.  I knew I should go to the gym, but I would have to come home and wash my hair and dry it and that would take forever.  I knew I should have gone grocery shopping, but I sooooo didn't want to do that.  Then, I had a brilliant idea...I needed to buy a little birthday outfit for my evening with the hubs!  SOLD.  I don't ever get the chance to buy new clothes, so I was super excited and bundled the kids up and headed out.  I found a few things that fit and looked super cute, and as I tried them on in the dressing room, Marin would say, "Mommy, you look so pretty!"...I need to take her with me more often!

So...our evening!  I wore my new maxi dress, and shoes, did my hair and make-up and dropped the kids off at GG's.  Kristoffer first took me to pick out a new purse...my last purse I bought in Paris....2 year ago.  Yup, it was in pretty sad shape.

 I'm already a happy girl with a new purse.

 Then we went to this Japanese restaurant called The Naked Fish.  Kristoffer had ordered the Chef's experience, which was a plethora of dishes from the menu.  The first plate was 100% sashimi....a lot of it.  It was delicious, but it was...a lot of raw fish, haha!  Then we started getting some cooked dishes and refular sushi.  It was absolutely delicious and I was absolutely stuffed by the time we left!

This was our "live" dish...they pulled this guy from his tank, chopped his head off and plated it, then plated his body (sounds so barbaric), and his front tentacles were still moving when they brought him to our table!

 So, we found our that Kristoffer actually home teaches the guy who owns this place!  He was there that night and would come out after each dish and give us the insider scoop about where they get the product, how they store it, cook it, and all of these amazing facts.  He hooked us up with some sugary green Japanese drinkage.

 I'm not typically a big fan of calamari.  It's chewy and gummy and not a pleasant chewing experience...but this calamari was *delicious*.  It was tender, fresh and amazing.  The owner told us it was more like he was cheating, because it was sushi grade calamari.

 Mmmm, these were my favorite, I love my California rolls!

 These were so good too.....

 THEN, we went to the symphony for Mozart's Requiem.  It was lovely to be sitting and listening to music that was written 250 years ago, a little piece of history!

 So I love when you ask a stranger to take your picture, and they do a terrible job.  They get more of the background in the picture than you, they take it a horrible angle...you know, so you look awful.  Sigh.

 And THEN we headed to the Hilton for a night in the presidential suite.  Kristoffer had a big fat slice of chocolate cake for me, some Martinelli's, a rose, a card, and a suite that's bigger than our house!  They had a huge tub with jets that we took advantage of, and a niiiiice king sized bed that we attempted to use to sleep in the next morning.  And, we slept in until....8:30am.  Yup.  Oh my, the curse of parenthood.  The suite came with a yummy breakfast in their restaurant the next morning.

I was super spoiled for this birthday, and I love my hubby so much.  He always makes such an effort to give me a great birthday.  Thanks baby!  He made turning 28, much more wonderful!

This and That

The other day, we had some music playing, and Marin and I had a little dance session, she loves to be a silly dancer.

 I was slicing up a mango for, well, not for Owen...but he saw the mango and was pretty vocal that he wanted some, too.  So I gave him the big pit to chew on, and he thought that was pretty cool.

Tulip Festival

Phew!  I've only uploaded pictures for ONE blog post and I am bushed!  I've let some super fun posts just stack up, but in my defense, it's been busy!  I've started my new job and that transition has kept me on my toes and orientation is pushing 28 to 30 hours a week (you full timers are laughing at me!). But really, it's been great, I'm already feeling some balance.

So, the other weekend, we took the kids to Thanksgiving Point for their tulip festival.  It was a gorgeous bright, sunny day and the tulips were in full bloom, absolutely perfect.  And tulips are my favorite flower, I just love them!

Look at those perfectly bright beauties!

 My little family!

 Marin smelling the flowers.

 This has got to be my absolute favorite picture of Marin, she is so cute!

 You've got to expect an eye-full of these lovelies.

Marin....attempting to roll down the hill...

 "Playing" some bells, Owen wasn't impressed.

 (Above): WE found a shady spot to have a slurpee and some kettle corn.

Ok, so while daddy was getting our treat, we waited by the Chick-fil-a tent, and had a close encounter of the moo-ing kind.  I had both of the kids standing next to me and noticed that they had the chick-fil-a mascot (see cow, below) wandering through the crowd, waving at people.  I didn't think anything of it until the cow wandered our way and I felt a frantic clawing at my pant leg.  Poor Owen was beside himself with fright, so I picked up the poor guy and every muscle in his little body was tense with fear.  He clung to me for all he was worth until I pried his fingers from my skin.

Neither of the children wanted much to do with that cow.

 Owen was keeping an eye out for that cow loooong after he was gone.

 Yellow and orange.

 (Above):  The famous waterfall fountains (if that's what they're called).  This reminded me of Versaille so much, it was absolutely beautiful!

 Oh, my sweet babies, they are just so adorable.

 Owen occupied himself by gently filling the tulips with mulch, what a big helper.

Those cute kids, they are so funny together.

 Taking a walk with big sis. 

 My boys.

Owen loved this little fountain, look at that face!

 Daddy would out his hand in front of the water-shooter and it would spray water everywhere, he thought this was the best thing ever....

 .....and so did Marin.

We were so happy we went, and we will be going next year!