Fab Five

Waking up with crazy hair: she went to bed with wet hair so we put a towel on her pillow...

So she is five years old and she loves it! She feels so much older and different already, I mean wouldn't you? The last few weeks she has been a lot more into writing and recognizing words and into school-things. But Thursday morning was all about celebrating her birthday so we served her "breakfast" in bed which included some cookies with marmelade filling and chocolate on top and orange juice.
A huge thanks goes to Anna who helped us Wednesday night to get a couple of balloons, Lucia was thrilled to have balloons in the morning and even tried to engage Espen to play with them too. Her first gift was a StarWars encyclopedia of Lego sets, so it shows all the sets that has been made and what figures are in them and their relationships etc. Really cool book, too bad the only StarWars Lego sets in sale these days are total crap. Her other gift was a set of "magne tiles" she used to play with these at OGS and she totally loves them. She uses them to build dollhouses and garages for her cars. Totally awesome!

A little update

Its been a while since I wrote anything on here, so heres an update.
With work things are as always crazy busy, the cases are now going to be manufactured at two different companies and thats a split that makes a lot of sense, and we also see a huge drop in time wasted sitting around waiting for the manufacturer to get their asses in gear. The main issue now is just how to adjust the case to that the band can fit snuggly and precisely and I have found a plan that is being implemented now.  The first cases will go to our wonderful supporters on Kickstarter and to sellers in Europe that hopefully will kick off more sales over there.

The trip to Norway was very nice, it was lengthy compared to my previous trips but it had been two years since my last trip and I think it is important to stay a little when traveling so far, it took us 2 weeks to wake up from the jet-lag.. Norway is rainy, cold, and not much daylight to speak of so there was not much to do besides sleep anyway. We did have some awesome days though and lots of good food.
One of the big events this time was celebrating my grandmothers 90th birthday, which happens to fall on the same day as Christmas. With a new internet connection I hope to see her on Skype and stay updated email, who knows, maybe even Facebook?

One of our best days was visiting my family in Voss. (see images below) We took the train and had a nice journey through winter Norway. Most of my mom's family lives in Voss because my great grand father moved there due to the war in 1940s and this is where he started Sølvsmidja, a silversmith company. We got a tour the new factory and see how they make the jewelry, it was pretty awesome. This was also the first time Heather got to meet my mom's extended family and I think she really enjoyed her time with them. It was pretty clear Heather now is in love with Voss and its safe to say we will be back for more.

Another noteworthy occasion was when the clouds cleared one morning and we decided to go to Ulriken, the 2100ft mountain in Bergen.

We also got to see some of my friends, one of my best friends, Frode, managed to invite 30 people to his house for a big party, just like in the old days, except everyone seemed a bit older/more tired than last time we were all gathered.

Heather flew home one week before Lucia and I so for one full week while Heather slept in her own bed at home Lucia heard nothing but Norwegian. Obviously it was during this week she started picking up a lot of norwegian words, and she still use them randomly. Now she may say a full sentence in english but then one word will be substituted with a norwegian.

On the way home we stopped in London due to a flight mismatch and we got a chance to spend time with our good friend Kelly who now lives in London. We all took a little tour of London and saw the London Eye, closed for maintenance :( and walked down along The Thames. Lucia was super excited to see the London Bridge which she keeps singing about from a TV show called Barney. We had dinner at a pub and it was awesome.

The flight home next morning was OK, but the sleep I planned to have was torpedoed by the ridiculous short childrens shows on the inflight TV, being woken up every 20 minutes makes no one any less tired.

 Overall a great trip, and it is great to be back too!

I will post pictures as they are ready

Lucias is 3!

We celebrated her birthday yesterday, in the rain. Yes. We were completely surprised and unprepared for such an extreme anomaly. We are so thankful for all our friends who showed up anyway despite the weather and hard to find location. 

Happy Birthday Lucia

She's 2!!!!!! We had such a fun day. It was a jam-packed day of fun activities. We started with Mimi and Big Pappa letting us sleep in, which was awesome. Then we started opening gifts: a dollhouse from Mimi and Big Pappa. Then an Upsy Daisy doll from Bestemor and Bestefar, along with baby bedding for YouYou, her doll, to rest comfortably in her bed. Aunt Kate sent her a stroller for her doll that Lucia kept commenting was so "nice." Mary sent her some wonderful books, which was great cause our supply was getting a little tired. Uncle Josh got her the book Where the Wild Things Are and a stuffed character from the book.

Since we had gulp - 37 people - coming to the party, we did a LOT of the prep work last night and made lists upon lists of lists. We planned for ham and turkey sandwiches, chips, pasta salad and of course, chocolate cake.

It was an awesome party; Lucia wore her new tutu and dazzled everyone. She played a lot on the slides and swings while we waited for everyone to arrive. You've got to love/hate California for people running constantly late. It was nice because we had some time to breathe before the chaos began. It was great to see everyone. Big Pappa organized a game for the kiddos, which they loved. We sang Happy Birthday, blew out her candle and Lucia managed to eat 3-4 bites of chocolate cake without breaking out in hives.

We are SO GRATEFUL AND LUCKY to have friends who love us so much. Mandy made this teepee for Lucia. She MADE IT. Stayed up until 5:30 a.m. to finish it. Seriously. How cute is it? She already pulled her dollhouse into the teepee, and as you can see, she's making herself at home in it.

After the party we all took long naps, then went to In-N-Out for dinner. I asked Lucia if she had a good birthday, and she said yeah. "What was your favorite part?" I asked her. She didn't answer. "The cake?" I offered. No answer. The teepee? Upsy Daisy? Your dollhouse? No answer. I agree. It's a tough call as to the best part of the day. What an awesome day.

Liz's Birthday

We went to celebrate Liz's birthday last weekend and had a really good time. First stop was at this interesting teahouse in Noe Valley where they serve old style foods and lots of tea, the place may also looks like your great great grandmothers apartment. Second stop was a special home brewery bar; The Elizabeth Street Brewery. I liked this part the most. This guy Richard had his garage fixed by the show While You Were Out on TLC (the TV channel) and they turned it into a bar where he brew his own beer and have guests. Pretty awesome night. There was cake too.

More birthday pictures

Lucia was running low on fuel by the time we brought out her cup cake. She didn't like it. She quickly ate the raspberry off the top and didn't really know what to do next.