American in Norway

Party went off without a hitch today.... I think the LUAU theme was a big hit... at least the Norwegians can not say we are not original in our themes :-) Managed to throw together a FLIP FLOP cake at the last min.... I was pretty pleased with the end results.... NEXT year however... I am going to be a bit more organized & start planning ahead of time... hee hee.. (I say that every year) We had ice cream sundaes & I really enjoyed getting to know all of Eva's new classmates... what a lovely bunch of girls. I am PRETTY SURE I FINALLY have some DOWN TIME... S.I.G.H....... Wish I could end this post with something witty... but at this point... 4 hours of sleep, having had 15 kids over & a husband out of town... well my brain is pretty much MUSH.... Night all....

Tomorrow is Eva's birthday party... FINALLY...poor thing... normally I am sooo on top of the birthday party thing... it is one of my favorite things to do... but this year... Well, we have had a lot going on, & we wanted to wait until after school started so that we could invite all of her new classmates... These were the invites... wh ich I was really pleased with.... But it seems I have kinda dropped the ball on the cake this year... 18 hours until the guests arrive & I have yet to decide on a cake! eeeekkk & y'all know how much I like winging a cake at the LAST MINUTE ... So when I should be baking... here I sit...dreaming... of what I would LIKE to make.... maybe in my next life I will have time to take some cake decorating classes I will let y'all know what I end up with at about 2 am tomorrow morning... LOL WISH ME LUCK!

HAPPINESS IS..... I decided to play along this week with Pastor's Girl's Ponderings To play along, just write a post with two things that made you happy this week (or more. If you're rule defier. Hehe.), with a link to Her ...the Happiness Is button. Then come back here and link up! There are so many things that made me Happy this past week.... Wondering around in a foreign country...new city... just snapping photos... My husband doesn't understand why I love taking pictures of OLD Buildings, Street signs.. etc... He doesn't get it.. & that is OK... it makes me happy... I like to play the "just imagine game with myself... "... Just imagine how this USED to look... just imagine all of the things that happened here.... WOW... The thing that made me MOST happy was spending time with my mom & dad... that in itself is such a PRECIOUS GIFT.... Amazing how a girl who loves her family soooo much, could move so far away from them... sometimes I wonder how I...

So my babies started school last week... Dane is in the 6th grade & Eva is starting school as a FIRST GRADER.... We don't have Kindergarten here... so this was REALLY a BIG Deal! So glad my mom & dad were here for the big day.... Both kids are loving their new teachers & seeing alll of their friends again.... YEA!

We were able to take my parents to Krakow,Poland this past week.... WOW.. what a BEAUTIFUL city.... Promise to show more photos of this amazing city...but first hop on over to Communal Global & see what women around the world have been up to today..

OK... had a little get together with my American girlies ... & my girlfriend Tracy admitted that although SHE never reads my blog, her mother does ! Well her mamma is on her way over to Norway & I look forward to meeting her ! See you at lunch on Friday ... Anyhoo .... I would love to catch you up .. but at this point , I fear my head will slam into the keyboard . I can not remember the last time I have been THIS TIRED ... maybe when the kids were newborns ? I feel like I have been running non stop since the end of June .... Awesome vacation in the US ... 4 days home/ work ... off to England back home... one week home/ work ... My parents & Dane arrive ... 3 days home/ work off to Poland... 3 days home... trying to get my home ready to have TV cameras in all of my closets ... ( wanna talk STRESS?) Friday , I put mom & dad on the bus 4:30 am ... (I am a ROTTEN daughter ) 9 am Bjørn & ...

So remember how I told y'all we were going to get our 15 min of fame?... Well I guess it is OK to spill the beans now... as we are finished filming the first part of our segment... Yours truly, plus family are going to be on HGTV's House Hunters International ! Kindda cool eh? - It was a lot more work than I had anticipated.... We filmed for over 13 hours for about 4 min of FOOTAGE! R U KIDDING ME? I am a bit nervous about how it will all turn out, because I will admit I CRIED several times during the shoot... I KNOW... WHAT.A.BABY. (Have you ever seen an episode of House Hunters where they cry? OMGosh ... should be interesting what they end up with..) I should have warned the producers NOT to ask me how I feel about having to leave my family in America... (here I go again with the big fat tears...) Dane & Eva did an AMAZING job! Can you tell I am a proud mamma ? My mamma & daddy being interviewed in front of their house... My niece Jenna getting in on the fil...

Happy Birthday Baby girl.... I should have posted this yesterday... Running just a little behind... Bjørn & I also celebrated our 14 year anniversary yesterday... Love you blue eyes... (ok it is cheesy to re-post my post from LAST year? ... its all still true!) Yes..Aug 3 is a very big day in our house.....

So the BEST bits about my weekend in England.... first... I love saying ... "oh,yes, I jet jetted over to England for the weekend...tally ho.." Pretty cool isn't it? There were sooo many GOOD no, make that GREAT things about last weekend... Just seeing MY GIRLS.. & knowing no matter how many years pass betweenn getting all of us together... things never change between us.... I am soo blessed to have so many NEAT friends from all over the world.... This was the first time, all of us had children & we were able to get them together.... Another cool thing about all of our kiddos... they are all multicultrual... & bilingual... (ok.. one of them isn't but no matter... we love her anyway... :-) We had Eva.. who was of course an American/Norwegian... Then we had Norwegian/Dutch & finally English /Slovakian Pretty impressive when you think we could put all of the kids 6 & under together & they would find a language to speak... VERY COOL... Probably my ...