Birthday Boy - Part Deux

B boy's B-day!

My little B boy finally turned 7. When I say finally, I do not mean to imply that I was in a rush to have him turn 7. However, Benjamin himself has been rearing to go ever since Connor turned 7 on December 31st. Such is the life of the youngest in a group, I suppose. Here's to a little peace, at least until Connor turns 8 in 4.5 months!

The weather was not fantastic yesterday, but that was actually OK, as we had planned to spend the day in an indoor play land anyway. We had booked a birthday package, complete with party room, food, drinks, slushies and ice cream. The party was small - consisting of the birthday boy, Christopher, Nathan and Samantha, as well as cousins Mathias and Joakim. Baby cousin Emil stayed at home.



The kids had a great time in the play land. There were trampolines, massive slides, ball pits, etc. Poor Nathan got so hot, he needed to be watered down a few times. The boys actually thought that looked pretty cool, and they all started cooling themselves down by sticking their heads until taps.

The party room included a king/queen chair for the birthday child, and Benjamin really took on the role of supreme ruler. He handed out roles to his minions - Christopher was a knight, Nathan a squire, poor Mathias was given the role of servant, while Joakim was "disco man". The latter undoubtedly because Joakim is known for putting on his cell phone music and boogeying down at the most unexpected of times. Mike was a blacksmith, while Hae Yung was a goldsmith. Nathan wasn't too sure that there should be a distinction there, but, hey, it was Benjamin's birthday, and he was running the show! Unsurprisingly, Samantha was the Princess.



As expected, Sam-Sam has been amazing during these days in Norway. She is absolutely surrounded by boys - there's five of them when the cousins are here, too, and she handles it beautifully. In fact, the boys are getting quite competitive about who gets to be with Samantha when. Mathias has already asked if Samantha will still be here on his birthday in September, and Benjamin threw a bit of a fit when Samantha was not on his soccer team yesterday. Christopher's got competition, in other words.

After a few hours in the play land, we all gathered at our house for coffee and cake, where the grandparents also could join us after their required golf round. We had a home-made chocolate cake made by Mormor, which everyone loved. Benjamin had also requested brownies, and he single handed enjoyed those. As the time went on, and everyone seemed to be having a good time, we decided to just pool our resources and make a very simple dinner for everyone here. The kids were all happy to continue to play, and we sat around and chatted until 11:30 pm or so.



While Samantha was handling the younger boys with aplomb, the older girls were fussing over the littlest boy in the family. Little Emil was the absolute centre of our attention (bearing in mind that birthday boy B was waaaay too busy for us, anyway), and he particularly enjoyed Hae Yung's arms, as she walked around singing for him. Daniel might have cause to feel a little worried...

Benjamin is already fretting over the fact that Nathan and Samantha will be leaving again, and would like to see them stay for the entire time we are here. Apparently, Nathan has agreed to do so. Yes, Daniel, worry now! Although, I am not sure Nathan realizes that staying entails going to a Norwegian school which starts in only one week.

Today is a new day, and we are off to the cottage where we will stay until Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the weather. We hope to see a fjord, perhaps by going on a mini-day cruise, climb a few hills (we do have four kids in tow), grill some hot dogs over open fires, and possibly stop by a nature park with wolves, foxes, etc. We will see how much we manage to squeeze into the time we have left.

Then it will be back to civilization for a few more days, until the Yims depart and the boys prepare for a new adventure - school in Norway!!