Birthday Boy

Yesterday was a great day. Mike finally turned 39! I'd been waiting for weeks for this day to come. Or more specifically, three weeks. Ever since I turned 38. I like to think of him as the "older" one in the marriage, so those weeks each summer where we are the same age are infinitely more enjoyable for him than me.

Still, Mike had a darn near perfect day, if I do say so myself (and since this is my blog, I do :)). He woke up early and headed out to the golf course with my dad. They had fantastic weather, and both played well. Then back to the house to home-made waffles for brunch, made by Benjamin and assisted by yours truly.

After brunch clean-up (I did say Benjamin was involved in the food preparation, hence the more urgent need for clean-up), we took the boys for a walk around Konnerud. We showed them the hill that the local kids use for tobogganing in the wintertime, and explained how entire families will spend all day tobogganing. When they get hungry, they either pull out home-made sandwiches, or a little disposable grill and barbecue some hot dogs for lunch. The boys were pretty impressed by this thought. Until B boy wondered what would happen if you needed to go the bathroom. And he meant numero 2. Hmmm...leave it to him to find the fatal flaw in an otherwise perfectly idyllic scene.

Following our outing, Mike went for a run around the neighbourhood, this time for a respectable 40 minutes. Last time he'd gone for a run, he was M.I.A. for 90 minutes, as he'd gotten lost in the myriad of residential streets around our house. Unlike the planned suburban housing estates we have back home in Richmond Hill, where roads are built primarily on a grid system, Norwegian streets appear to be much more haphazardly designed. In the vein of "If there is space for houses in there, let's just put a road in". And "heck, if that little mountain is in the way, no worries, we'll just put in a tunnel!" They seem to love tunnels here, and since money is not a problem in this little country awash with oil revenues, they have the luxury of being able to afford them.

After dinner, the entire Bjerkan family gathered at our house for a little wine and cheese. The weather continued to be amazing, so we spent most of the evening outside on the balcony, enjoying ourselves. There is a saying in Scandinavia that if the weather is good on your birthday, you've been a good girl/boy the past year. I dare say Mike's chances of having been a good boy are fairly high each year, since he was born in August. When I was a little girl, I used to wonder about those born in the winter months. Were they mostly bad kids? My sister and I are both July babies, but not my poor brother. Not only is he a middle child, who grew up with two bossy sisters; he was also born in March!

While we had our wine and cheese, the four older boys ran around outside playing "metroid", which is a Nintendo DS game they have somehow converted to a "real life" game. It works for them, so we don't question it. Little Emil was also a good boy, and let my sister and her husband enjoy themselves almost uninterrupted. He was up a few times to check out the action and have some food, only to go back to sleep again. As the clock struck midnight, we toasted the birthday boy one final time, wished our guests good night and got the kids in bed.

Today our little jetsetter Benjamin is off to Legoland in Denmark with his cousin Mathias and my parents. Christopher, Joakim and we are getting ready for a hike tomorrow. Assuming I make it down the mountain, I will definitely post some pictures and a report on our adventure.

'Til then....