Monday, July 20, 2009

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!


Sunday, July 12, 2009

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.