What I did at my 29th birthday!

This is what I was doing, together with Alexia!




And afterwords it was birthday spaghetti and some cakes to the coffee. Banki joined in too, of course

I'm slow

But that's old, old news. I'm thinking of getting my phone-blogging going, then I don't have to worry about the chord, and HOPEFULLY I'll be able to update a tiny bit more often.
Just now, I'm so happy about all the snow which is everywhere. Especially today!
A short resume of what I've done recently:

-Bryhn Terfel concert with the Opera Orchestra
-Aunt Tove came for a weekend, she visited Grandpa at the home, kept Grandma company and joined a pre-birthday dinner for me downstairs
-Had premiere of the Nutcracker at the Opera, and Banki joined in!
-Learned a lot about the new Star Wars game for DS by Alexander (who also gave me a lot of birthday hugs since Helene is a bit far away for this kind of sport)
-Tried to help Pauline with her massage machine. Afterwords it felt like I'd been applauding for too long.

I think I'll show Alexia how to build snowmen, and lighthouses :)

Location: At dad's house
Mood: Very happy, got a lot of sweet greetings, and I've got a WHITE BIRTHDAY!!!
Listening to: Nothing yet
Eating: Mandarin
Drinking: Coffee

Garden-rabbits!

..also need care!
Before today's dress rehearsal for Mahler 2nd with Zubin Mehta (!) I brushed the rabbits. They were not so interested in getting rid of superfluous hair, but very interested in each other. (They are mother and son, but also parents to several healthy little ones so there you go.)
Banki helped too. He was a little disappointed over the fact that I didn't let him come with me to reheasal to see our world-famous conductor. I think he got some comfort from little My...



Banki also had some fun listening to the other house-monkey here, and he got so inspired by the jungle guy that he began to ask for bananas. (Videos will come soon!)

Location: Dads livingroom
Mood: Tired, excited about tomorrow!
Listening to: Alexia in the bathroom

The wonders of nature!

When you have a mum with a huge garden, then the autumn is like a playground. Or a paradise for seeing new wonders. Like this little siamese twin-plums:



I think they look a little suspect though...
Or female examples of a much-hated species like this:



(I deported it from the outside wall. Didn't get myself to kill it, so now it has a new home somewhere else. No-one knows where. Mwooahaha)

And well, then you have all the work which has to be done: relieve the trees from the huge amount of apples, plums and pears. Remove all the fallen fruits from the grass, which also has to be cut (but because of all the rain it has been impossible to do that yet). We try to send a lot of apples to a juice factory, and also make jam out of most of the other things we don't manage to eat raw or put in a cake..
And then there is also Grandma. We try to entertain her sometimes so she doesn't get bored or feel too lonely now without her husband but a strange vision. (One eye with 60% vision but weird colours, and one blurry eye.) Banki practice cello in case she wants to hear some live music. It is too big for him, so he can only do pizzicato in 4th position... I think he is cute!


The eager cellist!


Isn't she just adorable?

A completely ordinary saturday

...in Norway means that you go for a walk. Preferably a long walk. We had a shorter one because mum had to go to work around 17, and also visited Grandpa at the hospital (he's just living there for the moment while we're waiting for my Grandma to get her eye operations done) first.
I managed to get Rob with us, even though he didn't actually want to go out. The weather was not really good (it was cloudy with some showers now and then) so I don't blame him. I think he was happy afterwords when he saw that we were going to walk on asphalt (not very Norwegian, but..) and that we intended to go to a place with incredibly nice cakes! Gupu. They're known for having a delicious chocolate cake - and it is very yummi! Still, I prefer the carrot cake, I think.
On our way back down to the car, we found lots, and lots of mushrooms. We didn't have any basket to put them in, so mum's hood had to do. And look at all we found!


Two very happy mushroom-lovers!

Rob made us a fantastic dinner of beef with mushroom sauce and baked potatoes. We had picked up Alexia just after mum left for work, so she had a plate too. ("I'm not especially hungry" she said, but ate a huge portion nevertheless.)
And since we had the house to our selves, we got a film (bought a film for 45,- instead of renting it for 55,- Good deal, don't you think?) and snack, put some wood in the oven and made the living room really cozy. Even Banki joined us! He misses Helene so much that we thought Sweeney Todd would be a good choice. Two of her favorite actors, and Tim Burton - it had to be a success. And it was! Just see how happy he was to get chocolate bananas and see a Helene-movie:



...but I think it'll take a while before I eat meat pies again.

Location: The Kitchen
Drinking: Jasmine Tea
Listening to: Robs computer who tells him "no, I won't do that"
Mood: content, glad I'm indoors! (The weather is very autumny)

Banki's new hobby

Yesterday I introduced Banki to Rob, and they really hit it off! It was so nice to see them together, like two old friends meeting each other again after a long time of separation.
Banki thought it was so nice to meet Rob that he has spent some time reading the English-Slovak dicitonary :)


Best of friends!


Banki with the dictionary


Here he's looking for a familiar word. Can you guess what?

The two I miss!

My sister went to Japan.
I really admire her for actually going there! (Dad says he's not too happy about it, but I bet he actually feels very proud!) We can all follow her journey through her blog, and I feel I'm part of it even though I'm not there. Helene, now you can see what I do too!
She has a little friend that she cares for more than any of us can ever understand. Banki. She is so anxious about him that she made me promise to babysit him - and give him a lot of cuddles. He has already found my little Bass, and they are having an afternoon snack - apples and sugar peas from our garden :)


Aren't they adorable?

Anyway, Nee-chan is off and I'll long for more pictures like these:



And the other one I miss is Robert. He's still in Slovakia but will drive home (!) during the week. I'll have him here for only a short time I'm afraid, because he'll go back to Stavanger and his old job. Changing jobs every 1/2 year is not very stabilizing... I'm really glad we had a great and long summer together (although separated a few weeks because of Ingvilds wedding and me going to Dads cabin while Rob had his apartment-project.)


In Spain, the two of us..

*Stay! COME Stay! COME*
And don't forget to phone home!!!
Love you <3