Emma and Joel - 2009 the year that was ...

What a year! Where to even start?! This year has been an absolute cracker! It has been one we will always remember.

It began in great form celebrating New Years Eve with Joel’s brother Simon at home in Stavanger. The rest of Joel’s family who joined us for a wonderful holiday in France and Christmas day here with us (http://skandyadventures.blogspot.com/2009/01/pre-christmas-family-visit-big-surprise.html) had left to continue travelling or head home. We were flying out to Melbourne on New Years Day.

We had about 2 weeks back in Melbourne, as always when we come home to visit it was extremely hectic but so amazing to see all our friends and family. It had been around 2 years since our last visit. Using Brett and Sam’s place (Port Melbourne) as a base we were able to get around to see lots of people and of course experience some of the Melbourne things we really miss.

Our visit culminated in our Engagement Party down at Patterson Lakes (http://skandyadventures.blogspot.com/2009/02/melbourne-extravaganza.html). We were blessed with a beautiful evening with lots of sunshine and about 100 of our friends and family there. Especially it was amazing to see all the babies that have been born since we’ve been away! It was like a crèche in mum and dad’s living room!

Having just been in Melbourne and being able to spend time with my beautiful Grandma Holloway was so poignant, as she passed away peacefully in February. It was difficult being so far away from my family during that time, but Joel was a wonderful support and our friends here were absolutely amazing. Work colleagues too were incredibly supportive. There are some tears as I write this but she had such a wonderful life and lived to the age of 92, I know it was her time and that she was ready.

Late in March we were very excited to welcome the arrival of our first nephew Lenny Ireland born to Joel’s brother Simon and his wife Clare. We have since had the chance to meet him and he is truly a beautiful little boy http://skandyadventures.blogspot.com/2009/04/welcome-to-world-lenny-ireland.html, I don’t know I’ve encountered a baby who is so quick to smile and just light up with the slightest encouragement!

In April, Easter was spent in Sauda with Louise and Charles, where we also got to catch up with Mari, Kev and Oscar (it’s Mari’s home-town). We enjoyed the skiing and it was a fantastic place to celebrate my birthday. http://skandyadventures.blogspot.com/2009/04/easter-at-sauda.html.

In May we sadly mourned the passing of Joel’s Nan, Pat Ireland. She died very peacefully and at the age of 93 having lived a full and wonderful life. Pat was Joel’s last surviving grandparent. With Joel having just supported me through my Grandma’s death, now it was my turn to be there for him, and like me, he felt the pain of being away from family during a time of grief. We were very thankful for the time we spent with Pat during our Melbourne visit, she was a gracious, strong woman and she is missed.

June was a month of work travel for me with a 3 week trip to KL, New York and Toronto http://skandyadventures.blogspot.com/2009/06/kuala-lumpur-new-york-and-toronto-in-3.html. I also had the chance to spend some time with my 3rd cousin Elle. She was celebrating her birthday and we certainly had plenty to talk about with both of us planning weddings in 09! She and her husband James are now expecting their first baby, very exciting!

The highlight of July was without doubt the wedding of our very close friends, Mari and Kev. They had planned a beautiful celebration, a total mix of Aussie and Norwegian guests and traditions. They brought everyone together beautifully and Mari was a stunning, elegant bride. And Kev scrubs up ok too. Unfortunately our camera battery died in the church before it even started (!), but there are some gorgeous pics on their blog http://mariandkev.blogspot.com/2009/08/mr-mrs.html). I loved being part of their celebrations by helping with the hens party preparations and Joel and I had a pre-wedding get together at our place for all the wedding guests. It was such a happy, fun occasion and 6 months down the track, they’re a very happy family with 1 y.o Oscar (Emma’s god-son).

From there the year seems to have flown by so quickly. Joel had a month-long offshore trip in September. It was the culmination of over a year’s planning and was extremely successful. He worked so hard in the lead up to this trip, his overtime was absolutely ridiculous from around May onwards! But I think he would tell you that it was all worthwhile as the project was carried out extremely professionally and he has since received many congratulations and compliments on his dedication and the results. He’s certainly a clever cookie and I’m extremely proud of him. We enjoyed a long weekend in Stockhom hosted by our friends Regina and Ulf. It was our first time to Sweden and we had a fabulous time out at Reg’s parents property http://skandyadventures.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html.

Our November/December trip to Melbourne was absolutely wonderful. The wedding was such a happy, memorable occasion that brought together so many people who are part of our lives. We were absolutely stunned and so grateful to have 7 friends from Norway join us in Melbourne for the event. It was also especially touching for us to see how even after 3 years living overseas and not seeing much of our ‘people’ back home, they still went to so much effort and care so much to see us and be part of our big celebration. It is very humbling actually to have been on the receiving end of such goodwill and generosity. For those who are closest to us you can multiply those sentiments by 100 – they truly went above and beyond to give us an amazing wedding celebration.

The year has been special for our family as well, here is a quick update:

Ann and Nigel, my parents, have had a fantastic year. Dad celebrated his 60th birthday in April with (in true Cousins style…) a huge party at the Peninsula Golf Club. They have been enjoying lots of trips with their new deluxe caravan heading off to different parts of Victoria and interstate. 2010 is shaping up to be a big year for them with travel as mum is retiring in January and Dad has some long service leave owing. A visit to Peru with us in February for Paola and Paul’s wedding followed with hopefully a visit to us over here some time around Summer are in the offing.

Joel’s mum Bernadette has had a great year especially enjoying her Grandkids, Eliza and Lenny with many trips up to Colbinabbin and down to Frankston. She continues to work hard in her job as a supervising nurse in a nursing home. She is always extremely busy catching up with friends and families, so many times when we phone her she’s off walking or catching up for coffee with a girlfriend. We hope she can come to visit us in 2010, her visit in 08 was so memorable and we would love to be able to do it all again!

John and Sharyn (Joel’s Dad and Stepmum) have also been enjoying their Grandkids. With the building of their home Westbury up on a big property in Trentham now completed they have been able to trade in the weekends of building and hard yakka with some time to really enjoy the fruits of their labour. Of course there is always something to do, with revitalising the ginseng crop, building up the vegetable garden and I’m sure a million other projects. John’s next adventure will be bee-keeping, and at his recent 60th celebration which we were fortunate to be part of during our trip, the gift of a bee keeping course, club membership and some kit to get started will hopefully come in handy. They had a near miss in the bushfires early in 2009 with fires coming within kilometres of the property. In July, Sharyn’s went to India to work as part of a team of doctors and nurses from The Alfred to help build up a trauma training program. The numbers of people who die from traumatic injury in India (particularly from road accidents) is just heartbreaking. It’s wonderful that Australia can share our skilled medical personnel and experience with a country like India where the resources are so scarce, and we know Sharyn found the experience incredibly challenging and rewarding.

Sally has been working incredibly hard this year – her paid job being only part of it! As my maid of honour she has been running around all year to help me prepare for the wedding. From dress hunting in January, to making decorations, planning appointments, sourcing cake makers and anything and everything in between, she has had a busy year and has earned a rest from it all now her big sister is finally hitched! On the other hand her efforts in her job have also been rewarded with a promotion at the end of this year, entirely well deserved and hard-earned. She is looking for an apartment to invest in, and now that her part time job as maid of honour has finished I’m sure that will make the hunt that much easier.

Brett and Sam moved into Clonaig St early in the year and have made it a beautiful home. He spent a few weeks in LA mid-year as part of an acting workshop which not only allowed him to hone his acting skills, but also build on his network of contacts which in the acting world means an awful lot. Brett has been working hard on developing a film script, and his efforts were rewarded late this year being awarded a grant from Film Victoria to further develop the script with funding and support of some seasoned industry professionals. It’s a huge credit to him and his skills as a writer, not just an actor. We wish him all the luck in the world with the script. Sam continues to impress as the seasoned career woman that she is, highlighted by winning trips to Hamilton Island and tickets to virtually any sporting/cultural/Fashion event that’s worth going to. She is a formidable social coordinator herself and the many parties, weekends away etc. that she plans certainly make me rather jealous that I can’t live closer to be part of it!

Joel's sisters Emma and Rebecca have been busy. Emma has completed her studies in nursing and midwifery, doing many hours of practical work experience at The Royal Womens hospital. Her studies and hard work paid off with an offer of a job next year at The Royal Womens - her top preference, and she was on top of their list of candidates. Rebecca continues her Health Science studies, is working part time at Grill'd, and spending time with her boyfriend Ian who we met in Melbourne (a lovely guy).

Clare and Simon’s year has been highlighted by the arrival of their first child, Lenny. They bought a beautiful home in Colbinabbin (about 60km NE from Bendigo), and were able to move in just before Lenny’s arrival. We haven’t had a chance yet to visit their home, hopefully we can make it there on our next trip down under. They are wonderful parents (as evidenced by their totally adorable, chilled out little boy!) and we thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them in Melbourne and Lorne.

Fraze, Zac and Eliza have some very exciting news that they were able to share at the end of 2009, they are expecting a baby! A little brother or sister for our beautiful niece Eliza. It was fantastic spending time with them during our visit, and the change in Eliza since their visit in late 08 was remarkable! She has grown up so much, and you can imagine how quietly thrilled we were when she calls us “unky Joel” and “auntie emma”! Thank you Zac and Fraze for ensuring that we are still part of her life, though we live far away.

So as we are about to get started cooking the ham and stuffing the turkey, looking out over snow-covered Stavanger, we look forward to a very happy and relaxed Christmas Day. We are thinking of all our friends and family at this very special time of year. Really, since the wedding we’ve had some time to reflect on it all and are so appreciative and want to thank you all for being part of this momentous year for us. More than ever before we are really feeling the love and support from everyone in our lives and there is no better way to start out on this journey together as husband and wife.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Here is a slideshow of the year that was for Emma and Joel.

Ps: Australia and Cook Island pictures and blog still to come.

A White Christmas!

What a difference a fortnight can make! This time two weeks ago we were living it up at the Cook Islands enjoying high 20's temperatures and the most amazing beaches you can imagine. Today we are experiencing below zero temperatures and around 40cm of snow in the last 24 hours! It is really quite amazing, probably the most snow we have seen around our home since we moved here. And the timing is perfect - it looks like we're set for our first ever white christmas! Here are a few snaps! Click on the album to view in larger format.

We will be receiving our professional photos soon and will of course make a few blogs covering our amazing wedding and honeymoon, watch this space!

Stockholm Long Weekend

We had a fantastic weekend just recently, our Swedish friends (who will be at the wedding btw) Regina and Ulf invited some of us to Regina's parents house on a property about 50mins out of Stockholm. It was a lovely weekend, really relaxed. Some pics here:

Mari's Hens Party

As we’re more than half way though July now Mari and Kev’s wedding date approaches (31st July). So while Kev was off to London for his bucks weekend, the girls took Mari out for the day for her hens party. The forecast was terrible actually – heavy rain all day. So we were so happy to start the morning with overcast skies but no rain (at least for a while). We took full advantage motoring down to Grassholmen to jump onto Nordvik (Ryan, Pete and Mitch’s boat – ref earlier post) to kick off the day. Champers and OJ started things off beautifully and a little cruise around Hundvåg and over to vågen (the barbour) in Stavanger. Unfortunately half way through the trip the anticipated rain started, so we finished off the tour in the cabin.

We then headed off on the ferry over to Tau and drove about 40mins to a spa hotel (Spa Hotell Velvære in Hjelmeland). We had booked a table for lunch followed by a spa treatment. It was lovely – we each had a 50 min treatment and spent some time in the general spa/pool area together before/after the treatment. Later in the afternoon we returned to Stavanger and after a short break when Mari and Merete went home to feed their bubs we all reconvened back at our place for a bbq dinner (cooked by me in gumboots and a golf umbrella while it poured with rain!). It was a really lovely evening with some good food, drinks and in keeping with proper hens party tradition – a few games and quizzes to keep everyone laughing. To me it really felt like this was the beginning of the whole wedding period with now less than 2 weeks to go. We’re really looking forward to the big day – it’s amazing it’s almost here and really brings home for Joel and I that our wedding will be here in no time!

Summer Days

We've been having a stretch of magnificent weather here in Stavanger, July has been awesome. Joel and I joined Mitch, his girlfriend Hanna and Pete on the boys boat Nordvik last weekend. We putted out of Stavanger and headed towards a little island called Kvitsøy. It's a beautiful, picturesque spot. We did a bit of fishing and caught enough cod and mackrel to feed us all for lunch. We caught up with Merete, Åsmund, Trym, Mari, Kev and Oscar who drove to the island. It was a perfect day.

Joel has been working some major overtime so it came down to me to stain our deck. It's something we've been meaning to do since Joel built it at Easter 08. We're hosting a pre-wedding bbq for Mari and Kev in a couple of weeks so that has given us the push we needed to get the job done. I think the finished result is great. What do you think?! As usual double click and select 'slideshow' to see the pics in large format in picassa.

Kuala Lumpur, New York and Toronto in 3 weeks

I have just returned from a marathon 3 week work trip which included joining a meeting in Kuala Lumpur with some colleagues from the Asia Pacific region, then on to New York to spend a week with my US colleagues, and finished off with participation at a simulation user group meeting in Toronto, Canada. It was a fantastic trip but as expected quite exhausting. Here are some of the photos to give you an idea of what I got up to for 3 weeks!

Hiking in the mountains

We have been enjoying some gorgeous spring weather - none better than last weekend which fortunately happened to be a long weekend too. Joel and I had the brainwave to go for a hike and stay in a cabin. It turned out the 16km hike over tricky (but beautiful) terrain stretched my hiking capabilities to the limit and then some. We hiked from Vindalen to Flørlistålen. It was a lovely weekend but I think about half to two thirds that distance would have been perfect! We'll know for next time!

Also Joel spent some birthday money on a new camera lens, a Sigma 10-20 ultra wide angle F4-5.6 (for those of you who are into cameras...). He's pretty excited about it and has been bothering everyone with it! Even as I write this he's waving it in my face! Not annoying at all! Enjoy the pics!

Birthday & 17th May

We've got a bit of catching up to do on the blog! Since our last message Joel has had a birthday (kjempe gammel mann!), and we celebrated the Norwegian National Day, 17th May with a lovely breakfast at Aud Trude and Kristian's house. Here are some photos, double click on the pic to see the web album.

Easter at Sauda

Easter in Norway is a great time of year. Last year we stayed at home and Joel built the deck while I finished off painting the guest bedroom, so this year we were keen to join the rest of the norwegians and head to the mountains. Our friends Mari and Kev were spending the holiday with Mari's family up at Sauda, so we thought that sounded like a great idea and asked friends of ours Louise and Charles if they wanted to join us renting an apartment beside the ski field at Svandalen, a few minutes drive from Sauda.

Easter this year also coincided with my birthday, which was excellent timing. Thanks everyone for the messages and phone calls, it was fantastic to hear from you. We went out for dinner to the Sauda Fjord Hotel to celebrate with Charles, Louise, Mari, Kev and Mari's sister Ingvil. The skiing at Svandalen was good, unfortunately as Easter was quite late this year the weather was a little warm and the snow quite slushy, but we still had fun.

Joel, Kev and I were joined on a cross country trip with Mari's dad Alf-Gunnar which was beautiful, blue sky and sunshine, we couldn't get the grins off our faces even despite the fact it was bloody hard work getting up some of those hills (not to mention down them...!). It was good practice for Joel who is now off on a cross country skiing trip with 5 mates, they are trekking across mountains for 4 days, staying overnight in cabins along the way. It'll be a tough trip but I'm sure they'll be having a ball. The weather at least was on their side - we've had some beautiful sunny days over the weekend and looks pretty good for the next couple as well. Joel's out of phone contact which feels quite strange but Coobs and I have plenty to keep busy with while he's away. Enjoy the pics, you probably know the drill by now but click on the album to see them in a bigger size (select slideshow once you get to the picassa page).

Snow Angel

I just had to share this photo of my snow angel… after about a million beers up at Røldal on a team building trip. This bedtime present was delivered by Ryan who was a little put out that Joel had headed to bed before the partying was over.

Emma.

Welcome to the World - LENNY IRELAND

We are so excited to welcome our beautiful nephew Leonard John Ireland, born on 26th March up in Bendigo. Lenny’s parents are Simon, Joel’s eldest brother and his wife Clare. We wish so much that we could be there to go and visit them and meet gorgeous Lenny, but can’t wait to see him in November. Here are some photos of our gorgeous nephew, we are a very proud aunt and uncle!

Spring in Stavanger

We have been enjoying a really lovely spring here in Stavanger. It’s amazing how quickly the days become longer and you emerge from the long dark winter and all of a sudden it’s springtime. The change of the seasons is so much more pronounced than in Australia, here there is genuine excitement when in February you start to see the little snow flowers grow, and tiny green buds start to form on branches and bushes.

We are lucky to have a beautiful forest area right on our doorstep, called Våland Skog. We take Coobs there for walks all the time. Joel has just bought a new lens for his digital camera, a 50mm prime F1.8 (whatever that means) and a tripod, so we tried it out in the forest the other day (and many days since).

What have we been up to? Well Joel had a trip up to the north of Norway to a place called Verdal, north of Trondheim for work. He was visiting a jacket up there, it’s 100m tall and it will be installed this year by a ship that can lift 14,000 tonnes. He seemed to think that was pretty impressive!

He has also been on a ‘teambuilding’ (read: junket) with work up to a beautiful place called Haukeli, and they also went downhill skiing in nearby Røldal. It’s about a 5 hour drive from Stavanger. He said that Haukeli is the kind of place you imagine when you think of winter in Norway. There is snow about 3m high, everything is absolutely white and they were spoilt with fantastic weather, blue sky and sunshine. I hope to get up there myself some time soon.

We were invited up to Joel’s work’s cabin for a weekend in Sirdal with Rob and his lovely girlfriend Inka. We had a great time up there cross country skiing.

We’re spoilt here in Norway with 5 days off over Easter (Thursday is a holiday) so we are going to head up to Sauda (about 100km north of Stavanger) for some skiing over the easter break. We’ve rented an apartment and will be joined by friends of ours Louise and Charles. He is Aussie, she is American and they lived together in London for the past 8 years or so before moving here. We’ll also be able to catch up with Mari, Kev and Oscar who will be staying with Mari’s family who live there.

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY COOBA

Cooba turned 4 today. Happy birthday little fella. Here are some pics of him through his 4 years and also a movie of him at 8 weeks when he came home with us for the first time. He is obviously a big part of our lives and we enjoy every moment we have with him. Have a good weekend.

Det snø, det snø ... tiddlebom!

Even though it is now all back to normal (i.e. wet and non-white) Stavanger has had a truckload of snow lately. We always love to get out amongst it and it makes everything so pretty. Cooba in particular loves it and loves catching snowballs! We even went walking on the lake a little while ago! Here are some pics of the fun!

The Melbourne Extravaganza!

We have had this blog entry waiting as a draft for weeks, so it's about time we published it I think!

Here we pick up our story again from the blog entry about Christmas.....

Gradually after Christmas everyone started to head off from our place in Stavanger, John, Sharyn and the girls continued their trip of Europe with a visit to Ireland, Zac, Fraze and Eliza headed back to Melbourne and Simon stayed on a little longer and hung out with Cooba and clocked all Joel’s scores on the Wii! We had a lovely New Years Eve with Simon who prepared (with Joel’s help) a beautiful Bouillabaisse with crayfish and other seafood. Coupled with a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc from NZ it was absolutely perfect! I think it was the first time ever I haven’t stayed up until midnight on NYE, we were in bed by 10.30pm and the fireworks woke us up at midnight!

The reason for our early night was not just that we are both over 30 now and feeling the effects of old(er) age, but actually we had a flight to Australia the following day, and anyone who has done that flight will tell you it’s not a good idea to begin it with a sleep debt and/or hangover!

We had an amazing 16 days in Melbourne, we were so lucky to have the use of Sam and Brett’s apartment in Port Melbourne, and although we missed them, it was so convenient to have the place to ourselves for the first week as they were away on holidays. It was fantastic to be back in Melbourne, the sun was shining for us the whole time which was such a thrill after leaving Norway in the dead of winter.

I won’t go into all the details but can touch on a few highlights:

*Catching up with Jenny Guala and co for her birthday
*Enjoying the hospitality of Jules and Matt who hosted us for a BBQ with friends
*A trip to Lorne which included wedding planning and the chance to catch up with lots of Lorne mates plus Katrina, Greg, Brooke and Jade who are our friends from Tassie now living in Canberra
*The ‘Lorne Bowlers’ (Franky, Benny, Zac and Bowie) reuniting (like the Blues Brothers) for another shot at surfboat rowing glory (6th out of 7 in the final)
*Meeting with Anthony Toms who will conduct our service and signing all the necessary documents to ensure we can get married in November
*My parents Ann and Nigel meeting Joel’s dad John and stepmum Sharyn for the first time over a lovely meal in Brighton
*Belated Family Christmas dinners with both Joel’s and my families
*A visit to Pat Ireland, Joel’s nan is so lovely
*Lunch with my grandparents
*Getting to meet little Fisher O’Brien, 2 days old!
*Wedding dress shopping (successful!) and bridesmaid dress shopping (also successful!)
*Getting to eat all the things we miss in Norway – for example fish and chips, potato cakes, meat pies, twisties, cheeszels, Lebanese bread, flathead, tasty cheese, cheap wine & beer (Boag’s Draft), to mention just a few!
*Gathering together our bridal party plus partners for a meal together in Port Melbourne
*Joel having a couple of successful fishing trips with Dad (Emma’s Nigel), Brett and Zac

Hmmm so that is not even half of it actually, so you can see from this list that we were so incredibly busy. It was really fun and just so great to see everyone again after such a long time away, we missed you all! But we have to say it was really exhausting physically and mentally as well and we’re really sorry if you’re one of the many who we didn’t get to spend as much time with as we would have liked.

The culmination of all of this was our Engagement Party on our last Saturday in Melbourne. We had over 100 people there and loads of kids, someone even commented that they’d never seen so many kids at a ‘grown up’s’ party before! We were so lucky with the weather and a beautiful sunny afternoon made for a perfect setting to sit outside by the water at Patterson Lakes. The drinks were flowing and the food plentiful, and everyone had a fantastic time, especially Joel and I. We thanked everyone in our speeches, however it’s just worth mentioning again my mum and dad for all their efforts and work in the preparation for the party, we pretty much just said “hey can we have our party at your house, and can you organise everything too?” and they were wonderful. We also really want to thank Joel’s family – especially Bernadette, John and Sharyn who were incredible with their support.

Here are two photo albums, one of the Melbourne trip and the other of the Engagement party. Those on facebook can also find a lot of pics there, and we have also updated our wedding website www.emmaandjoel.com with some pics from the night (thanks to our photographers for the evening Andrew Lee and Grandpop Cousins!). Thanks to everyone who helped make our short trip back to Melbourne so wonderful, we miss you all and are already looking forward to our return in November for The Big Day!

Grandma (Gwenda) Holloway passed away 10/2/2009

It is with a very heavy heart that I write that my wonderful Grandma (Gwenda) Holloway passed away peacefully at home on Tuesday 10th February, aged 92. She was a remarkable woman who had lived a full and adventurous life. She will be missed by all of her family and friends who loved her dearly.

Joel and I will especially treasure our time with her just recently during our visit home in January. We had a lovely day with her at Patterson Lakes, and were particularly thrilled that she was able to come to our engagement party, in fact we were amazed that she stayed so long, heading home around 10.30pm! At 92 one could be excused for not being the party animal one once was!

Every time I saw her during the evening she was surrounded by family who were sitting on the floor near her feet or on the arm of a chair nearby, chatting and catching up. This same scene has been taking place for many many years every time there was a family gathering or party, and I felt it really represented how much Grandma meant to us all and vice versa. Her family were so special to her and I think she was never happier than when surrounded by her children, their wives/husbands, her grandchildren and great-grand children.

It is very sad that Grandma isn’t with us anymore, however I am trying to focus on celebrating her life rather than mourning her death. It’s what she would have wanted, and certainly she wouldn’t have wanted anyone making a ‘fuss’! I wish I could be there, especially on Tuesday, and also for the funeral on Friday and certainly feel very far away at the moment, but thanks to my lovely family and friends for your support and kind words about Grandma.


Here is a pic of Grandma from the party, with her carer Carol.

Emma is gonna be a fadder...!!

Something really exciting happened last week, Mari and Kev asked me to be a Fadder to their son Oscar. A Fadder is a Norwegian godparent. Along with Mari's sister and Kev's sister, and lovely Aud Trude who are Oscar's other Fadders, I will be part of the christening next weekend and given the very important responsibiltiy of caring for Oscar throughout his life. I was so touched and excited to be asked, what a huge honour.

Mari and Kev have also made it clear that the partners will have a very big role too (can we call them fadders-in-law?), especially since all the fadders are women, Kev in particular is keen on having a strong male influence as well! So really it's a huge honour for both of us. Here he is! Also more photos of gorgeous Oscar on Mari and Kev's blog (on the link at the side of ours, or just visit www.mariandkev.blogspot.com).

G'day Fisher O'Brien

We were so lucky and blessed that during our stay in Melbourne, our dear friends Karen and Pete welcomed their little son Fisher Ross O'Brien into the world. We managed to squeeze in a visit to the hospital to meet him. He is such a beautiful perfect baby, very peaceful and content and with a face like an angel. Here are some early pics:

Pre-Christmas Family Visit & A Big Surprise

We have had the most busy and fun past month. So much has happened, it’s hard to summarise it in just one blog. I will try to be brief and include lots of photos. Well it all began just after our renovation. The reason (which we couldn’t say at the time) for the big rush to finish was that we had Joel’s family come to stay with us for a couple of weeks. Joel’s brother Zac, his wife Fraze and baby Eliza came to stay with us from around 16th December. Then together with Simon, Joel’s brother who also flew in from Melbourne, we flew to Paris and north into the countryside to stay at a farmhouse that Joel’s dad John and his family had rented for a week. This was a huge surprise to Joel’s sisters Em and Bec, and was in honour of Emma’s 21st Birthday. We spent a night at the farm and then drove down to Paris where we stayed a few nights.

Paris was beautiful, especially as it was just before Christmas so the place was lit up with lights and decorations, and there was definitely a buzz in the air. Joel and I finished some last minute Christmas shopping and enjoyed seeing some of the sights with the others. A particular highlight was visiting Notre Dame during a Carols Concert and hearing the organ in action with a choir. It was absolutely packed, standing room only.

One very special treat for us having all the family visit was that we got to meet our little niece Eliza for the first time. She was born while we were living over here in Norway, so we were so excited and thrilled to meet our little 18 month old darling. She is just a delight, a really happy, fun little girl with a beautiful face and a cheeky grin. We adored getting to know her and miss her already now that we are back.

After a few nights in Paris we all flew back together to Stavanger on 23rd December. Joel took an expedition of those that were game up to Pulpit Rock, not an easy climb at the best of times but even more treacherous in the middle of winter with snow and ice everywhere (just ask Sally!). We also showed everyone around Stavanger including some trips to town and around Mosvanet, the lake near our house. The Oil Museum was also fun, and Joely loves to get everyone involved in a bit of oil industry propaganda!

Christmas Day was a big family affair with 9 of us plus the baby all helping with the preparations and serving a big lunch. It was a really lovely day and so special for us to have everyone here at our home.

All too soon it was all over and everyone was flying back to Melbourne or continuing their holiday in Europe. So then Joel’s and my thoughts turned to our trip home to Melbourne.

Godt Nytt År

Happy New Year everyone!

We are just getting ready to jump on a plane (well 3 actually) to Melbourne ... YAY.















Looking forward to catching up with everyone (and the sun and beers also).

Joel and Emma