American in Norway

I am LOVING Fridays again... (OK, I ALWAYS love Fridays...)  But now since I started hanging back out at Lisa's The Long Road to China & back.... I am LOVING BLOGGING on Fridays... I am motivated to whip out my camera & document our lives again... I have been SOO bad this year! Last week, Bjørn & I decided at the last min.. to grab our babies & take a cruise to Kiel... It was their Fall Break... and we felt that ONCE again they had been gipped out of doing something COOL. Our poor deprived babies... Our options were an 8 hour drive to LEGO LAND in Denmark... Or a 2 day cruise to Germany. We decided on the cruise.. so that we could have a little break too...  & y'all KNOW how much Bjørn and I LOVE CRUISING... For those of you new to AIN... hubby & I met & fell in love at sea.... (awwww) On with the pictures.. OK... it is really a FERRY.... but the NICEST ferry I have ever been on. View of one side of Oslo harbor...  If I was a w...

After re reading the first part of "Love Boat" I realized I rushed right through all of the cute stuff... the important stuff and all of the little details. I seem to do that... Always in a hurry to get right to the end... Remember, patience is something I am working on learning... So to back track and throw in a few details... Met a sweet sweet boy... with the bluest eyes I had ever seen... Sweet & kind, thoughtful... and funny... (although I didn't understand most of what he was saying...) It was a whirlwind romance sailing in the Caribbean. I remember calling my mother from Barbados telling her I was "IN LOVE"... & asking her what was I to do?... I was flying home in 2 weeks & the CS (college sweetheart) was due to spend Christmas with my family. Now, before you start thinking I was a giant trollop, cheating on the boy back home.... I really wasn't... we had been on again ,off again for years... I honestly thought he was the boy I would end up...

After reading at home with the farmer's wife & Angies Spot ... I took their idea of flashing back in time.. old photos with a story.. and per Martini's for two suggestion... I decided to go back to the very beginning.. where it all started... how I ended up in Norway... Flash back to the "Love Boat" (although the Love Boat was on Princess Cruises & we met on Royal Caribbean.... ) I was a girl right out of college...who landed her "dream" job... working on a cruise ship.. (Never mind I was a Poly Sci, & German major with a minor in International Relations) I knew I wanted to get out of Iowa/Illinois & travel... because that is really the only thing (besides being a mommy) I have ever wanted to do. I was only going for one contract... 6 months, or so I told my college sweetheart when I left. 6 months turned into a year...& next thing I knew I met this adorable Norwegian Boy who would change my life F O R E V E R... With 6 weeks left on ...