Pa Gaz in Norway

It has been a while since our last update, but the last three or four weeks have been crazy busy and there has been little time left over for filling the pages of this blog. So many things have happened, and it all started with Pa Gaz' arrival in Norway. James, Isabelle and myself were about 20 minutes late to pick him up at the airport, we thought it should take us just over 2 hours when it ended up being 2.5-2.75 - which wouldn't have been that bad if it weren't for the fact that his plane was about 30 minutes early... Poor Garry seemed pretty tired when we finally arrived to collect him, but Isabelle of course could not help put a smile on his face.

We had a quick snack and put Isabelle into her pyjamas, before returning to Larvik. We spent a couple of days at home with my parents, giving Garry time to get acclimatised. I returned to Oslo on Thursday as I had a presentation/Tapas night with my future employers at PwC, which was lots of fun, and the three other Quinns followed suit on Friday. We had dinner with the Skilbrei's, and enjoyed a long walk around the Oslo CBD. Saturday morning we walked across the road from where we were staying to check out the newly built opera-house which opened last year - it is quite beautiful and you can actually walk on the roof in summer-time.

If you turn 90 degrees to the left from where the above photo is taken, you look straight at the PwC-building. PwC is one of the main sponsors of the opera, which means we will be getting free tickets every once in a while! There is a lot of development going on in the area, as you can see, and they are even moving the freeway underground, which will make the place even nicer.

The rest of that Saturday we spent looking at properties in an area just North of Oslo, called Skedsmo. Most of the houses we looked at was not really what we were after, but we really loved one of the properties. However, Easter was coming up, and we decided to leave the decision-making until after the owners had completed their planned 'open for inspection' a couple of weeks later.

Other activities while Garry was visiting included shovelling snow (spreading it out so it would melt faster in the sun)...

...and car-yard hiking...

...the reason for this particular hiking-tour was that after a return trip to Oslo in our 10-year old Kia (which by the way carried the name Leelah), Pa Gaz decided his grand-daughter needed a much safer car to drive around in, and so now we are the extremely lucky (and proud) owners of a brand new VW Golf!! Will put photos up later...

The dangers of the North!

Hello everyone.

While we've been busy as usual nothing too exciting has happened to us personally.

However, just the other day there was a bit of a sensation at a supermarket I walk past on my way to 'Culture School'.
While we haven't had any really heavy snow for a while, it obviously builds up and builds up if the weather isn't mild enough to thaw it and when you have a huge, flat roof like this Supermarket, it's an awful lot of weight to hold up.

No one was hurt, and I'll see if I can get a photo of what it looks like now during the cleanup operation later this afternoon.

Hope everyone is well and we're looking forward to Pa Gaz visiting in April!

Finally...

..another update from our cold and stressful lives up North! We've been pretty busy lately but I'll try to recap what has been going on over the last couple of weeks. Right after Jackson left we had a period of really cold weather, and a couple of days it was actually closer to -17 degrees when I was driving Isabelle to child care in the morning. Although Norwegians (and especially Norwegian child care centres) believe firmly that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes, I do believe they actually decided to stay inside at Barnehagen that day!

There is still a fair bit of snow lying around, and I suspect we won't be getting rid of it for a few weeks to come still... It does make a pretty impressive sight though - this photo was taken before our last snow fall, which added another 30-40 cm on top. The edges of the path leading up to the house (which James have worked hard to clear) are actually higher than Isabelle at the moment!


In addition to school and everything else, James have started taking Norwegian classes to improve his Norwegian before entering the work force. In addition to his two 3-hour nights of norsk a week, he is also currently undertaking a Norwegian culture class to fulfil his requirements for a permanent residency. Poor James actually has to attend this, uhm, crap two hours a day, four days a week for SIX weeks! This is an example of what he is learning...


I pick 5. Only good thing I suppose is that the whole thing is done in Norwegian, so at least it does improve his language skills!

Mimmi and Bett returned from their one week hot weather extravaganca on the 15th, and of course they could not resist bringing back a whole heap of presents for their little angle. James and I barely received a 'hello' upon their return - which was not really all that surprising... I'm sure these googles will be great come summer and beach-time:

Saturday night live

While you are all struggling with the heat, this is what we have to cope with at the moment (Saturday 6pm):

Isabelle's first skates

Friday morning we decided to test out the ice down at Fram Stadion, and after a hearty breakfast we packed what we could find of warm winter-gear and headed out to hopefully find a bargain on ice-skates for Isabelle and the boys.

Unfortunately, our bargain-hunt was rather unproductive as none of the stores had any skates left in the sizes the boys required. We did however manage to find a pair in Isabelle's size (or rather, her size for the next couple of years to come), and uncle Jacko did what good uncles do and provided one lucky girl with her very first pair of skates.

It had been a while since the last time I skated, and it took only a few minutes before my feet were hurting like crazy. Luckily uncle Jacko was there to help out!


Isabelle and mum skating (very fast).

The store were we bought her skates didn't have any good helmets in stock, but as none of the boys would be skating we figured it was ok this time around. Isabelle tried to balance on her own a few times, but she didn't feel very safe and was more than happy to receive some help and support from the three of us.

Unfortunately it had been snowing earlier that day, and the ice was to be prepared for the afternoon session a bit after we finished our session - so the ice was not superb, but we managed anyway...


My beautiful family!

An alternative family?


Ninished! (which is how Isabelle says "finished")

Putting the cave to the test

After spending much of Thursday afternoon completing the cave, we decided to really put it to use by turning it in to our very own tavern. Complete with wall sconces, customised seats and break-through table design, it was the perfect place to spend a Thursday night. Enjoy the photos!

Jacko making his way through the snowfall to the cave


James enjoying his (ice-cold) beer and a strong hand. We also had coffee with Baileys to keep warm.


Mr. Watson himself


Our table, which consisted of a newspaper on top of off-cast planks.


Get a real sense of the atmosphere by checking out this video!

First day with uncle Jacko

We were a bit worried that Mr. Watson would not make it to Norway this morning, since London Stansted Airport was closed nearly all day yesterday because of weather issues. Or should I say 'weather issues' - my dad has been pointing out with great pleasure that while 15 cm of snow is enough to shut down London for a day resulting in an estimated revenue loss of £1 billion (according to Jacko), it would not even be considered an excuse of arriving 10 minutes late for work in Norway! Anyway, after dropping James off for his Norwegian culture class (more on this in a later post), Jacko and I went and got Isabelle from barnehagen, jumped in all of our warm winter gear and started digging a snow cave just next to my parents' property. It's been a fairl while since the last time I got to do this, and Jacko and James (who showed up a couple of hours later) had obviously never tried. The plan was to make a bonfire outside the cave to grill sausages and eat dinner in our newly created palace, but after three hours in the snow we were all exhausted, and ended up going inside to heat up and relax.

The pile of snow soon to be a cave:


Isabelle loved running off into the forest. Luckily the snow is pretty hard, otherwise she would not be able to move as she'd have snow up to her waist. And luckily Jacko is such a good babysitter running off after her.


Lots of hard work! It was -8'C today, but we had to drop both gloves and hats when working inside the cave, otherwise we'd just be too warm...


Working hard...


Isabelle joining uncle Jackson inside the cave.


Here they are!


Exhausted after digging in the snow for three hours...


James was pretty tired too!


But Isabelle was full of energy still!

The very first post

Hello everyone! It has taken us a while, but we've finally managed to get this blog up an running. Our first three weeks in Norway have been really busy, and it appears the next few weeks will be much of the same. It was wonderful coming back and seeing my parents and the rest of the family, they're all very much enjoying having us (Isabelle) around once again. My parents are going on a holiday next week (actually, my father is fleeing the country to avoid celebrating his 50th birthday which is coming up February 12), and my mum is a bit worried about what it will be like not seeing Isabelle for a whole week!

Isabelle is settling well in child care; she's starting to understand that we're not leaving her for good everytime we drop her off, and is even getting used to the cold weather. She's found herself a new best friend in another 2-year old girl called Maria, and it's getting hard to seperate them at the end of the day. The photo on the left is from the playground at barnehagen - Isabelle just loves playing outside in the snow. The child care centre actually updates their web-page on a daily basis, putting up a brief report of what's been happening and some photos taken throughout the day. So there will be lots of photos of Isabelle coming up on that site, you can find the link on the right hand side, check out "dagen i dag" (the day today) and "dagen i går" (the day yesterday) to get the latest news.

James and I are both pretty busy trying to work out the basics of our theses. They're not due untill the 20th of June, but we're both already feeling the pressure of finishing on time. In addition to his normal workload, poor James has started chipping into the hundreds of hours of Norwegian culture and language classes he'll need to eventually get a permanent residence. Over the next 5 weeks he'll be attending culture and society classes for 2 hours every day, and he'll also be doing three hours of language classes twice a week. Obviously learning the language will put him in a better position for the coming job hunt, but it still puts a lot of strain on his time - but he's a very smart boy so I'm sure he'll manage somehow!

Last week we got some good news as I got offered a graduate position with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Oslo. I've decided to accept the job, and I signed and sent off the contract yesterday. So come August I will start working in Assurance 1 at PwC Oslo. I'll tell you a bit more about the job itself and my impression of the company in a later post, but it is important to mention that they do offer exchange possibilities to branches in other countries (including for instance PwC Melbourne). Also, their offices are located so they can be accessed from the platform at Oslo Sentralstasjon (central station), which means commuting to work will be pretty sweet!

Today my mother and I took Isabelle and my cousin Nora (4 in March) swimming at one of the nearby indoor pools. The girls had lots of fun, and they're both so confident in the water. The two of them have been spending a fair bit of time together since we got back. Every week we go to the neighbourhood church for a music/singing group, and we also normally catch up on the weekends. It's wonderful how they enjoy each other's company so much. Here's a photo from the pool earlier today:


In a couple of days Jackson (James' best man from the wedding) will be visiting, and we're really looking forward to seeing him again! We're also pretty excited hearing that Pa Gaz will be joining us in the Northern hemisphere come April. I'm sure there will be plenty more to tell you over the next few weeks, but even if not stay tuned because we'll definitely put up some more photos of the baby! Lots of love from the three of us.