Dagelijks leven in Ijsland/My daily life in Iceland: November 2006

As tomorrow is December 1st, which is the day Iceland celebrates its sovereignty from Denmark since 1918, I thought it to be appropriate to put this picture on the front of my website: this is Bessastaðir, Icelands White House, at noon last Saturday. Unfortunately, it is not a national holiday, although it is celebrated and commemorated in different ways - some schools give the day off, others don´t...

This is exactly as I am sitting now, this is now our "office/working" corner, not completely finished though (as if the rest of the house is)

Last weekend, we went for a short visit to the US. This time, we took Jonatan and Elin with us, and visited "our" Leah, in Virginia. We started off by meeting Rachael, Leahs friend who stayed with us for a couple of weeks in June, at the airport in Baltimore and then drove down to meet up with Leah. Well having Rachael with us during those days made the whole trip even more enjoyable!

Friday, we mostly spent in Fredericksburg, while Saturday and Sunday we would drive up to Washington DC to meet with Leahs parents, who were going to fly in from Ohio, and together we would do some sightseeing there. Monday we would try to get some shopping done before getting on the plane heading to Iceland again.

We all had a wonderful time, the kids loved it and we have beautiful memories to look back on. And for us, that is a very important part of our lives: Making good memories - and making pictures of course - and some of them follow here

Leahs campus, the University of Mary Washington, is located in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in a beautiful hilly countryside with many old historical buildings, located at the Rappahannock river (I hope I remember this right). Fredericksburg played an important part in the Civil War (no, Rachael, it is not going to be another long day...). We had a lot of fun exploring the campus with Leahs dorm, the classrooms, library, bookstore, campus police, postoffice, cafeterias, college newspaper etc and the children liked it too - especially seeing all the squirrels.

Rachael, Leahs wonderful friend

Leah cut her hair short, and we all really like it!

We finally got to meet Leahs parents, Bonnie and Craig, and to say it was a real pleasure would be a gross understatement. We certainly hope this was only the first of many meetings! From left to right: Rachael, Leah, Elin, Jonatan, Jon, me, Craig and Bonnie

For those wondering: yes we are standing in front of the White House

Jonatan and Elin at the Washington Monument, with the Lincoln Memorial in the far back. And that is all I have to say about that.

Rachael, Elin and Leah trying to avoid a strained neck looking up at the Washington Monument.

From left to right: Bonnie, Leah and Rachael - Ohio girls!

Hey I'm back! For over a month we have been working and working and working, at our jobs AND the house and most of it is over ! What we have been dreading since last winter, was finally accomplished a couple weeks ago: this time, the dust was minimal, and boy were we glad. It only took the guy with the right equipment 4 hours to do 50 meters, while we did about 40 hours to do 100 meters! So now we are going to have heated floor everywhere but in the bedrooms...the picture here is where our dining table usually is. Was it worth it? We will see. The only big thing that is left now is the tiling of the floor. Who knows, maybe before Christmas? So have a look at what we have been up to in the next few pictures.

So the following pictures sort of shows what we have been up to the last couple months: the ceiling is now finished, the artificial grass is also done, the fences between the different gardens are done and almost all lighting fixtures are in place. And for some of you, you can maybe recognize the painting on the wall.

This picture is taken from the door at Jonatans room towards the living room. You can see the glass sliding door and the other glass window where the backdoor to the barbecue was.