It's Time To Celebrate...

Saturday's big Par-Tay went off without a hitch. 90 people gathered at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate to celebrate my parents-in-law. In return, we were treated to great food, good wine, and fantastic entertainment in the form of 'The Three Waiters' - three opera singers pretending to be a French, Italian and British waiter, respectively. It was a hilarious battle of the silly, much to the amusement of everyone present.

My boys were the only children at the party, and I am proud to say they were very well behaved (though I must admit to a little confusion -- I mean, how come they don't behave like that around the house?). They did get to sneak their DSes into the dining room, but played very little, preferring to socialize (another source of confusion...).

Family and friends drove from all over the country, and some flew in from as far away as Germany, Switzerland and even the US for the weekend. Most of the family spent last night at the hotel, which is how we were able to put the boys to bed nice and early (eh...11:30 pm), and still continue partying until the hotel closed us down at 1 am.

Sadly, some of us (cough 'Mike' cough) thought we could continue partying like we were 21 all night, so he decided to join his much younger sister and brother on the town for another few hours. He finally made it back into the hotel room at 4 am, making quite a lot of noise and annoying me to no end with his utter lack of consideration for me and the fact that I was trying.to.sleep.

It was only this morning I realized the extent of his..ehem...inebriation, as he suffered through the worst hang-over in years. Even his 25-year-old brother was in pain, and had to spend most of the day sleeping it off. Only Katherine stood proud, proving once again that women really are the stronger sex.

Today was spent at the house in Ripon, where my mother-in-law hosted those out-of-town guests who had not yet left at a casual garden lunch. I even had the opportunity to meet a childhood friend of Mike's, a guy he's known since he was 4. It was a pleasant and relaxed day, with everyone being tired and slightly run down after yesterday's festivities.

I'm thinking tonight will be an early night.

Tomorrow is the big packing day. We have to squeeze everything we brought to England back into the suitcases we came with AND add to that pile the things we've acquired during our three weeks here. Thankfully, we've limited our purchases here to necessities only (football shirts for the boys, name plates for their doors (very important, that), cooking chocolate to make delicious toffee shortbread, that sort of thing), so it should not be an impossible task.

What will be an impossible task, I fear, is getting through check-in on Tuesday without having to pay for the extra weight we'll be begging the airline to take home with us.

At least they can't charge me for the extra weight I've piled on around my waist this year.

We began our adventure with a big family birthday party for my mother in Norway last July, so it is only fitting that we ended it with another big family celebration this weekend. I feel as if we've come full circle.

Our sabbatical has been all about family, both immediate and extended. We've made fantastic memories, for our children, and also for ourselves. I can't wait to immerse myself in the wealth of photos we've amassed during our time away, to relive some of the experiences of the past 10 months.

But now it's time to return to our life and our friends in Canada.

I'm curious to see how Canada will seem to us after a year away. Have we changed as much as I think we have, or not at all? Will there be a period of re-adjustment, or will we be back in the old swing of things within days?

Of Wine and Whine

We had a great 65th birthday par-tay on Friday for my father. He seemed very, very happy, and that was really what we wanted most of all. My siblings and I all made and brought appetizers, food and a marzipan cake for dessert.

Judging from the enthusiastic food reviews, we did well. Of course, I've never been to a party where the guests openly admit that the food sucks. So who really knows? I choose to believe that they raved more than they had to, and therefore, that the food was actually kind of good. I'm a glass half full kinda girl (stop making that choking sound, Mike).

My mother supplied fabulouso Italian Valpolicella red wines.

[Cue reverie music]

I.Love.Valpolicella.Wines.

And so does my sister - my partner in crime. So much so that by the end of the night, we felt compelled to finish off the last bottle ourselves, without sharing with our guests. Yes, we did. We are generous souls.

Which may be why I woke up with someone else's body yesterday morning. Someone who's slow, heavier than me, and who gets nauseous when making quick or sudden movements.

When I groaned to Mike that I am cutting out red wine for life, he had the nerve to laugh at me. And under normal circumstances, that would have offended me mightily.

But all I could think of was how much fun it was going to be to take several 11-year-olds out for pizza and a movie that afternoon in celebration of Christopher's birthday.

In someone else's body!

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!!

Party Time!

Saturday was my mother's big day. Her fabulous 60th birthday party. The party was held in the most picturesque of locations, in a big cottage-style hall, with grass on the roof and pine wood covering the inside walls, floors and ceilings. The hall was only accessible by a tiny, almost hidden dirt road, which led into the middle of a forest. Very Norwegian and very quaint.

Friends and family gathered that night from all over Scandinavia. Some travelled for hours by boat and car to get there. One family from Denmark arrived with 10 minutes to spare. Then proceeded to party the night away, only to get up the very next morning to travel straight back home again, as their oldest son was scheduled to go to a soccer camp that night. Talk about priorities!

The food was of the buffet type. I was in heaven, as there were lots of different types of fish, some kind of divine white asparagus sauce, as well as bread, bread, bread. Gotta love those carbs. Meat lovers had not been forgotten, with roastbeef, a selection of pates, cold cuts, potatoes and meatballs. Good, hearty Norwegian fare. The boys loved it, too, as they were given their own, private table, at which there were no mommies to nag them to eat, sit properly, lean it, stop talking etc, etc. I am not entirely sure that my youngest son actually ate anything that night, but no permanent damage has been done. He remains his crazy self.

Entertainment at the party was live music, as well as those before-mentioned songs...ah, yes, the songs. We worried for naught. Not only was our song received just fine, there was at least one other song that went further than we did. I mean, we did not make my mother AND father stand on chairs and discuss the benefits of cows (!?!) in a Scandinavian perspective.

Of course, the highlight, in terms of the songs, was the one from the grandsons. My mother cried, they smiled. Joy all around. After singing the song, they each walked up to her, gave her a single rose and wished her a happy birthday. Finally, Mathias (my sister's second youngest son), walked up again and gave her yet another rose, this time on behalf of his baby brother Emil. Cue the handkerchiefs.

After a yummy dessert, the floor was cleared for dancing. Then cake and coffee. More dancing. Finally "nattmat", which may be translated as "night food" or "midnight food". My mother had wisely kept this simple - since we were all stuffed at this point - and served Danish style hot dogs with bright red sausages. Apparently, food colouring is not a concern in Denmark. Mike got a lesson from one of my Danish cousins on how to make a proper Danish hot dog. He must have liked it, as he wolfed it down...

All in all a great evening for my mother. She was so happy, and that was the most important thing. During the course of the evening, Mike and I somehow picked up two more kids, so that when everything wrapped up and we were on our way home, our brood had increased to a total of four boys. They were in bed and asleep by 2:30 am. Pretty late for little kiddies, but they were happy and thrilled to have yet another sleepover with their cousins.

Preparing for the party...

My mother turned 60 this past April! I still have a hard time believing that, not to mention what that says about my age?! Let's not go there, but yes, in the end it is all about me...

Back to the matter at hand - the reason we needed to be in Norway no later than this week is that the Big Party celebrating my mother is this Saturday. Our family has a tradition of gathering friends and family from near and far to celebrate milestones, so we expect to be innundated with relatives starting tomorrow. At least we have had a total of 2 days to recover from our trip...and should be ready to receive by tomorrow afternoon.

As such, today was spent on important tasks such as writing silly songs that we will sing for my mother on party day. Yes, you read that correctly. In Scandinavia, we make up songs that we print out in as many copies as there are guests. Each guest will get a copy of the song, and will all be expected to sing along to celebrate (or make fun of, as the case may be) the guest of honour. In our case, two songs were made. One from her five grandsons, and another from her children and children-in-law. You may be able to guess the theme of the song from her grandsons - if you thought along the lines of how wonderful a grandmother she is, you came very close. However, we were quite naughty when creating the song from her children and children-in-law. Based around the Beatles song "Yesterday", we waxed poetically about how old she's become...it is going to be hysterically funny. Or not at all. Depending on your feelings around the issue of age. I will let you know how it goes...

Mike did not have a lot of time to spend creating lyrics, as he had a golf tournament to go to in the afternoon, and thus spent the morning brushing up on his Norwegian golf terminology. Fortunately, most of the necessary words are the same as in English, such as "green", "bogey", "driver", etc. Not sure he knows how to say "d#$% it" in Norwegian, but that may be just as well...he did make sure he knew that "fore" is "fore" in Norwegian, too!

The boys are doing so well. They love being with their cousins, and we had a little photo session with them this afternoon. Christopher was thrilled to hold his baby cousin Emil, and I think he even got a smile out of him!

They are getting a lot of use out of the trampoline we purchased and assembled with great gusto yesterday. I went on it for a while today - and it was a riot! What a great way to exercise. I am trying to figure out how BodyAttack might be done on a trampoline. Honestly, it would just make it so much more pleasant!!

Tomorrow will undoubtedly be another busy day for us, but I will keep you posted on our happenings. Hope to hear from you too. Please use the comments feature and let me know what you think of this way of communicating.

XOX Heidi from Norwayland...