Mark & The Norwegians

We have been so blessed to have such a worry-free life. Our biggest crises are small things compared to much of the world. We remain healthy, wealthy (well not really, but compared to much of the world we are), and pretty happy all things considered.

I came home early today to go on a quick walk with Elizabeth, Rebecca, and the Godless hound of indolence. Very windy, and regrettably the nice sunshine quickly became overcast. But we have numerous places within 15 minutes of our house where we can hike up to a hill and see the countryside in every direction, or a beach with a view out to the sea. God truly has surrounded us with his glory here in Norway.



Back from the walk, and into feverish (o.k., maybe a languid fever, more a lethargy) action to finalize the cake and prepare the dinner. Rebecca had made the cake already--somehow the stress of our joint cooking experiences has caused her to want to do most baking solo, I don't understand why. We made the icing together, adding coffee and diet coke liberally for the right flavor. We decided to crush Samuel's remaining fancy chocolates to sprinkle on the top of the cake (with his permission)--and voila it was a work of art. After our aptly named "volcano cake" of several years past, this one became the "earthquake cake" or "quake-cake" for short along the theme of natural disasters.

Timothy and I grilled chicken and created a repast worthy of a birthday girl. Then on to the loot. This year Elizabeth got gifts as varied as violin concertos on CD, deluxe mechanical pencils, cooking magazine subscriptions, books, DVD's, and a digital camera with a photo printer. So there is no excuse for her not producing superb digital art.

Elizabeth basically kills any plant that finds its way into our house, it's not intentional, it just works out that way. One exception has been "husfred", a Norwegian plant that I got at a local grocery because it looked cool. It has survived, even thrived for over a year, even being house-sat by a Husfred-sitter during the summer trip to the States. I got old Fred a companion--who we have now named Harald, after Harald "Fine Hair", one of the old-style Norwegians (basically a slaughter everyone and take names later type guy). His Norwegian name literally means "bushy hair", so we figured it is apropos.

But, at the end of the day, she finds herself surrounded by a loving family, in a comfortable house with a fire in the fireplace, and a dog that is one part obnoxious and one part persistent--the perfect combination to maximize my suffering. As we so often say, life could be a lot worse.