8 MONTHS of happiness

Monday was our 8 month anniversary, and with assigments hanging over our heads, we did not have any major plans... Adrian wrote me a really cool card, and I wrote him one and handed a plate with his favourite chocolate muffins (thank you Maria for teaching me to cook those) over the fence. The fence separates our houses, and means that instead of a 2 minute walk it is a 12 minute walk as you have to walk in a big circle around the whole neighbourhood. So whenever we need to give each other something or see each other for a few minutes, we meet at the fence...we can just see each other through the sprincles. Well, I had dinner plans in mind, so I told him to come at 6ish... I made my first lamb roast, and with some guidance from Adrians mum on the phone (temperature and stuff like that which I had no idea about) it actually turned out pretty good. Homemade mashed potatoes, vegetables and sauce.. I moved the garden table from the backyard up to the balcony, and watching the sunset and with heaps of candles and beautiful music, we enjoyed our dinner together.
Adrian even asked me to dance, and with Michael Buble as our private little band, it was just ROMANTIC!!!
Such a great night spent with my very best boyfriend! He is AWESOME!!
Everything is ready....

A little dark, but it was beautiful!!

Tissues

I am over blowing my nose and coughing... I have been fighting off this flu thing since last week, and I am REALLY OVER IT!!! Gosh, how annoying.. it is a beautiful day outside, but I am choosing to stay inside in order to get well.. oh well...

It has been yet a fast week, and the days seems to just disappear. Adrian has been working a bit, which he is very happy about. We had some assignments to hand in this week, so it has been homework to do too.. well. we are doing college, so it is a part of it... they just seem to suddenly just occur those assignments, though we have known about them for weeks..

Saturday last week we had a norwegian lunch. Irene and Håkon opened their home, and it was a great day with norwegian friends and food. Can you believe that we are about 50 norwegians here.. it is insane..

Yesterday was youth, and Reuben Morgan who was in Ålesund not too long ago ( he has told us later that he loves the place) launched his new album. It was a fantastic night of powerful praise and worship. Adrian has been soo blessed to be able to sing with Reubs at different occasions, and he did it again yesterday. So I was proud as always.. Just putting in some photos so you can see... was kind of drama at the beginning as the fire alarm went of and we had to evacuate the building 5 minutes before we were supposed to start.. when there are several thousand young people inside, it can become crazy, but it went really well.. It was no fire, praise God.. so after a little delay, we got going...

Trine and Annette ready to rock and roll...


Adrian and the other singers...

Sydney life...

Well, i am writing this sitting in my bed under my blanket feeling very sorry for myself.... ha... yesterday my throat started hurting and today I feel like.. yeah,, not too great.... Oh well... a little pity party for myself.. and then Ill get over it... I just really want my mum right now.. there is nothing like having your mum, and my mum is the BEST, when you are sick... or fighting off sickness as Adrian would say... it is all in the confession you know...

Oh well.. we are back in Sydney and we are doing great. It was a little shock getting back to the busyness and full days after having holiday and just chillin in Ålesund, but we are getting back into things. Last week was straight into a conference with Joseph Prince from Singapore. he spoke on grace and favour, and it was amazing days with challenging and new thoughts on these subjects. He is an amazing communicator and lots of fun. So last week we had full days from early morning to late night. Office, classes, rehearsals and services, But it was great, What a blessing to be a part of what God is doing. Friday we went to the city campus as Adrian was singing an item for the conference there. And i tell you he did SOO amazing! he pretty much is the BOMB! I am really blessed!!

on the weekend we had birthday party for Noemi (one of my housemates). She is from Puerto Rico. Beautiful, Loud, alive and so much fun. So lots of people over and lots of food, which we love.. great fun...
Sunday we had Scandinavian Network, which is kind of a connect group for all the Scandinavian students once a week. And I dont even know how many we are any more. only this term we got about 20 new norwegian students here, and we are now close to 50 in total. Crazy... one thing is sure, NOrway will never be the same again....

Well.. I miss everyone at home.. it was hard to say goodbye again... and i was on web cam with Naomi and linnea the other day as Naomi had her 5th birthday. Linnea just kept on saying auntie auntie as she saw me,. and you know that almost kills me, even at 3 in the morning as it was..... Gosh.. i miss my little girls... Just need to put in some photos of them to show how yummy they are....
Naomi with the drawing she made for me, It is of course on my wall in my room..
Linnea giving me a big cuddle... Finally at the end she started to love me,... hehe...
Ida.. what can I say.. this moment was like heaven on earth!

Well.. summer is really on its way here, so that is nice. Monday I joined Nina and Pauline at our pool, they live just down the street, and Nina even went for a swim. It was freezing though, but refreshing according to Nina...

Oh well... Ill stop here for now.
Hope you are all doing great where ever you are... You are much loved!

Tourists in Oslo

Well... we left Ålesund friday morning, and after an interesting few minutes at the airport, with security going through our luggage and searching Adrian, plus issues with our tickets, which meant we had to go out through the security again to fix them (shoes and belt off again.. why in the world did I put on boots??), we got on the plane to Oslo. We met Caroline and went to her appartment to then head off for some sightseeing.
We went to the Palace, walking around just chilling, feeling sorry for the guards in their warm woolen uniforms in the warm sun.. soo nice chillin and spending the day with Caroline. She has lived in Oslo for more than 4 years, and know the city really well.



After a while we took an ice cream at Aker Brygge, which is a very popular place, especially during summertime, and many of the wealthy people have appartments here. Rolf came and met us, as he has been in Norway the past month. Sooooo good to see our brother again....

Then we went to Frognerparken, and met up with Oline and also Anka. Great friends that visited Sydney Hillsong this year, and that we were sooo blessed to connect with. Soo much fun to meet them again, and also Anka's husband Carl Oluf and their son Jacob. Amazing and very generous people. Frognerparken is full of statues of naked bodies. Many interesting ones I have to say.. but it is pretty cool. Trine, Caroline, Rolf, Oline and Adrian
Rolf and Adrian trying to hide certain parts of this one....





Anka took us to Holmenkollen which gives us an amazing view over the city before we met Caroline again for dinner. Adrian has since last year been really pumped about Ungfila, which is the youth ministry in one of the largest churches in Oslo. We found our way there at 8 for youth, and it was great to be there. We finished the night off with a yummy "kveldsmat" at Anka and Carl Olufs place, great food, fellowship and friends..

Past 1am we found our way to bed, and had our last breakfast in Norway for a while, early the morning after... Trine, Jenny(Carolines flatmate) and Caroline
Caroline and I just before we went to the airport..


Thanks guys for giving us the BEST time in Oslo..
We love you all!!!!!

We arrived safely

Just a quick little note letting you know that we have arrived Sydney. Praise God we are safely home after hours with travelling.
I will bring new updates from our day in Oslo on the way here and stuff soon.. Now it is 1:30am and I really should go to bed..
Have the best day!!!

Packing our bags

Well today we packed our bags getting ready to head back to Australia : (
Tomorrow we will have a fantastic day in Oslo with Rolf, Oline, Caroline, Anka and her Family...
I am excited to see the city and we are going to Ungfila at night which will be great!!!

I have to say hjertelig takk to all my new norwegain Famliy and friends who have welcomed me in and made me feel at home here in ålesund!! It has been the best time relaxing and recharging our batteries...Arild and Runar Tusen cutting the cheese tak for taking time off work to just hang with me and Trine..you dudes are CHAMPIONS...

Well stay tuned for the next update of the blog as we will head back into "normal" life soon...

So until next time....ride the winds of change

Fun with words..

Well, as you all know Adrian has been sooo amazing at learning to speak norwegian. And he still is learning, and trying to understand though we tend to sometimes speak really fast... especially when we get excited about something...
Oh well.. and as you all know... when we learn something there is always a time for making mistakes/or funny situations when you just use a word in a funny way... We have had some of these happening.....

We were sitting at the table at home, and mum, dad, Adrian and I were just about to eat. Adrian was saying grace, and doing this in norwegian.... He started off.. Takk for Else (thank you for else, my mum), takk for arve (thank you for arve, my dad) takk for Trine (thank you for trine) and then said takk for me. What he meant to say was thank you for me, but what it ended up meaning, was thanks for having me over, as a greeting that is said when you leave someones house...
We all totally thought it was sooo charming.. and it was not any major mistake.. it is just sooo great to hear him speak in norwegian....

Another day we sat down having dinner.. still mum, dad, adrian and me... and this time dad was saying to adrian "you are a godterumpe". This literally means you are a sweet bum, which is an expression for sweet tooth. And as my dad said that, Adrian clearly as nothing proclaimed " Trine har søt rumpe", which means Trine has a cute bum.. Mum, dad and I cracked up laughing, and Adrian didnt understand that he had said something that was funny, cause he just meant to say the same thing about me... Oh well... we all got to laugh a little, and it was great... good thing that dad didnt throw him out of the house for saying things like that about his only daughter... haha....

Lots of fun.. and adrian is getting better and better....

Naomi made me cry....

My niese Naomi is the BEST: today she made me cry...
We had planned to go to my brothers house around 9pm to have a late meal together, and spend some time at their place. This week is crazy managing to say hi to and hang out with everyone that we havent had a chance to hang out with yet.. or people that we just need to and want to spend more time with.. my family is obviously HIGH priority. So after having dinner with OJ, Johanne and Petter and Johanna, which was really really nice, we arrived at my brothers house about 40 minutes late....for our second dinner in 3 hours( Adrian was excited...) My brother told me to take a seat, and pushed me towards the window. I looked outside to see if there was anything different, and then suddenly I see it.. Naomi's feet sticking out of the curtains.. So I "found" her... as she was hiding.. and Runar told me that she had been so excited about me coming, that she had been sitting there hiding in the curtain for almost an hour: SERIOUSLY it made me cry. I felt terrible. She was smiling as the sun, as i took her in my arms and kissed her and cuddled with her. She is growing soooo fast.. she is soon 5 and sooo gorgeous... and sooo excited that auntie trine was coming that she was sitting still for an hour waiting for me to find her.. gosh...it almost killed me... Yesterday the two of us went to the public pool and went for ice cream afterwards... and it is soooo much fun spending time with her. She is really growing up fast....

Many stories to tell... i have to write more later...
Time to go to bed..
Trust you are all doing amazing!!!

Sunday Night Football

Last Night Trine and I got given tickets to the ÅFK verses Løv Ham Football (soccer) game.
It was so much fun to hang out with Marlin and Marius who gave us tickets!!! They are great...
The game was average but our team won which is always good. Still it was a lots of fun to yell out encouragement in Norwegian and to see Trine get really fired up and talk to me in Norwegianan then turn away and yell at the players (I could not understand herhehehehehe)
There was 9028 people at the match which is pretty big in a town 45000 people.
After the match we went to a Fellines for a celebration dinner and some great time with friends...The only problem was that Else (Trines mum) Said that we stunk out the basement with our garlic breath!!!

Tusen Tak for billetten Malin og Marius!!!!

Ida's Baby Dedication

On sunday it was my little niese Ida'a baby dedication. It was a rainy day, but we had a great time. Church was at 11am for the first time in the history, but it was really great, and lots of people.. (well, maybe not at Hills scale, but 85 people here is allright for a sunday morning). Oh well.. Adrian and I sang a song... totally country... we had a great time learning it.. struggling with all the words, but Adrian is amazing and rearranged it, so at the end it sounded allright... We had Ida with us on stage, and that was cool. I was asked to be her godmother and that was a BIG deal you know.. auntie Trine... I am loving it. It has been sooo great spending time with my nieses.. they are all adorable..
OJ and Johanne took the baby dedication
Adrian and I singing...
After the service, we all went to Arild and Hildes place, for a yummy dinner, dessert and cakes....
Hilde had set the table soooo nice...
Hilde preparing the cake table
Hildes family from larvik(south east in Norway) had come for the weekend, so it was about 14 of us all together. We had a great day together, and Ida was loving all the attention.. What a blessing these little ones are...
A beautiful family

Great day, Great family, Great GOD.

Climb every mountain...

Friday morning, Trude pulled me out of bed and "dragged" me to Høgkubben. That is the mountain behind our house, and it is about 50 minutes to get to the top.
3 years ago, it wouldnt be a problem to get there, but living in Sydney I havent walked in the mountains for years, so I was pretty smashed as we got to the top. Trude, amazing as she is was encouraging me all the way, telling me how great I did.. Haha.. Oh well... it was a stunning day, and it was totally clear, giving us an amazing view on the top. We could see into the fjords and all the way to the city and the surrounding islands. BEAUTIFUL! I guess I am kind of biast. but when it is great weather, there is nowhere like Ålesund.




Adrian did not join me and Trude to Høgkubben(maybe you already guessed that..), but made himself comfortable on the couch. He has started to get used to staying up late in the evening which is very normal here, most days we have gone to bed way past midnight, but that means he needs to have a nap or two during the day. so while trude and I went out around 11am, he was ready for his first nap for the day... hehe..

Well he woke up after a while and we went to Arild and Hildes place and took Ida for a walk. It was a beautiful day, so we had her for a few hours. So nice to just spend some time with her.. she is absolutely gorgeous.
At night we went to youth, and it was so inspiring to see about 60 people get together and most of these people that I have not seen before, which is a very healthy sign.
One more week to go before we are leaving for Sydney.....

Briksdals Glacier

Well.. Today was a new day, and we woke up ready for new adventures. I crawled out of bed at 730, just to see the fog covering the mountains completely and mum telling me it had been raining heavily all night. We thought that our plans to go to the Briksdals glacier was thrown out the window. Adrian was pretty happy about that right then and there, as he just turned around in his bed and continued sleeping. But you know.. we are not easy to stop and a bit of rain and fog certainly wont do it. So around 930 we were on our way, and Runar, Arild, Adrian and I got in the car driving about 3 hours to Olden, which is south of Ålesund. Beautiful mountains and fjords greeted us, as we got closer to the glacier.
We parked the car, and started on our walk up in the mountain, with one purpose and one goal: TO TOUCH IT!!! Adrian in borrowed shoes, that was a little too small was amazed, and so were we by the stunning waterfalls and awesome scenary. One of the waterfalls we walked pass gave us a little shower, and there are enormous amounts of water floating every minute. Pretty amazing! We had so much fun, taking photos from all kinds of angles and corners. It was such great quality time with my brothers and Adrian.

As we got close to the glacier, Adrian got more and more excited, and I seriously felt like a tourist taking hundreds of photos of him.. haha.. it was funny, we actually all looked like tourists in way too big jackets, and with cameras around our neck. The glacier has been there for several hundred years, and it was pretty cool walking on it and touching it. No photos can really capture the experience and what it looks like. It is amazing!




We found a massive rock and sat down to eat lunch. It is not often you eat your sandwich with a massive glacier a few meters away.. so we enjoyed our food, our chocolate, the fellowship.. and the boys brought plenty of cheese to share... GREAT joy for me... (who knows it is not always easy to be the only girl.... )

After saying a teary farwell to Briksdalsbreen, we started our walk back down. Adrians feet now really started to tell him that his shooes were too small.. so Arild and Runar started singing : I feel it in my finger, I feel it in my toe... as Adrians finger is still hurting from his trip on the Manta Ray, and on top of this, his feet now had blisters.. I just told him: It truly is hard to be a man....

Oh well.. we got back safely, though a few blisters and soar feet. We all agreed that it was ALL worth it!