Week 49 - Riga to visit dad and Helena

Lene, Svein Terje and myself took 05:40 flight to Riga Friday morning. Quite early, but at the same time.... then we were in Riga already 09:40 (they are one hour in front of us). Unfortunately Johnny was still in Canada so he couldn't join us :-(

Look at the nice snowman in the midle of the park :-)

A pitstop for a "Riga Balzam" - it tasted actually quite good :-)

A walk around in the city......

....... and in the markeds

Very pretty town :-)

29 big Christmas trees around the city. They were very beautiful :-)

Dad open presents, a new calender and some new Sebago shoes - Dinner at home! :-)

Walking around on different markeds - like in Baku :-)

Dinner at TGI. Dad and Helena did not like the place, they said it reminded them of Mc Donald. Well, the food was very good and it tasted delicious. What more can you ask for, and far far away from Mc Donald on our point of view! :-) Maybe they are toooooo old for this kind of place? :-)

We had to clean Helenas roof balcony. She was afraid that the snow would melt and go into the house. It was a pleasure watching dad working removing the snow. Can you imagine! :-) Mr. Svein B. Svangtun himself in action? It was absolutely fab! :-)

View from the roof :-) - Svein Terje taking a break on the balcony :-)

You wount believe this either, but he was even removing snow from the car. "Der ingen skulle tru at Svein kunne bu" :-) In Latvia :-) Colder than he wants to admit he like it! :-)

Kids menu at Lido - Our last meal was as Lido. A huge buffet were you could pick what you wanted and pay for what was on the plate. They had some nice tips for kids plate! :-)

Lido by night. Its 16:00 and about time to go to the airport. Thanks for a great weekend in Riga. We had so much fun. It was great to see dad and Helena again. See where they lived and all the surroundings :-) A relaxing weekend with some SPA, shopping, sightseeing and being with family. So totally a great success! :-) Hope to come back! :-)

Week 49 - Baking time :-)

Juhu, baking time! We are preparing for Christmas and have started with the pepper/cinnamon crackers! The kids did a great job! :-)

Christmas preparation has started :-)

Week 48 - Gymnastic show/demonstration with Lars

Lars and his group had a show together with all the other groups. They showed what they learned this season and did flips in many ways. Parents, siblings and grandparents watched at the tribune. So proud! :-)

Weekend of week 47 - Advent

Sunday:

Going to town to buy gingerbread man/heart and to see they "open the tree" :-) Its advent! :-)

Lars wanted the big one. He even manage to eat the hole :-) Dad and Lisa sharing :-)

Anna and Dona. Dona was not familiar with gingerbread and did not like it that much :-)

After the opening we took a walk into the old city. They had made many decorations and it was sooo cozy there. A new Christmas is here, and our door decoration is on the place - It's Christmas at The Hellands :-)

Saturday:

A local event at a community house nearby. Many ladies in our neighbourhood bake cakes, we serve rice porridge and have lottery. A great success every year and a nice tradition. :-) Anna and myself sold and served cakes, and Dona made "Snickers cake" as contribution.

Anna behind the counter :-) - Time for lottery. OMG a hole table full of tickets :-) They won some nice things as well, luckily :-) Soooo happy :-)

The house was full of people. After the lottery was over the local school corps played some songs before Santa came with some sweets.

Week 47 - Times fly :-)

This Thursday Lars's class had breakfast at school for all parents and siblings. It was nice to meet all the parents again, and nice to speak to the teachers. The kids sang a nice song for all of us :-)

Emil was with Lisa home from Kindergarten this week. We eate dinner and had smoothie for supper. They though it was so nice to make mustache with the blueberry smoothie. What a cute little boy. He will go in Lisas class, so they will be with eachother for many years. Granddad and grandmum came for a visit today. It was nice to see them again.

First bread in the pizzaovn. As usual we had pizza on Friday, but today I decided to make bread as well. Even with decoration :-) They tasted very good :-) I will definitely do that again :-)

Week 46 - Start spreading the news......... :-)

We're leaving today... :-)
A great week in USA both on business and pleasure purpose :-) Shop till you drop! And we
did :-)

Sooo many nice things in the "Christmas shop" - So much Mike had to go to the store with some of it so we mange to buy some more in the shop nextdoor! :-) Its good we could ship this to Norway, otherwise we would have had big trouble.

Spartanburg in South Carolina was a very nice place. Great surrondings, fantastic people and of course nice to meet all the people that we speak with daily at the factory.

Elin found a great toy she wanted to buy. Cookies, yeh your right, but with a tonn of calories inside. We just passed it and did not even get close to it to look. I'm glad I did not meet any "Cinnabon" on the way, then I would have had a huge challenge.......

Juhu, my annual onament from Hallmark is bought. Cant wait to put it on the tree :-)
New York here we come! :-) My boss Kjell, my collegue Elin and myself :-) From Wednesday Evening until Saturday afternoon. OMG we manage to do much. We stayed at a fantastic hotell in Soho and manage to do most all of the "tourist traps" you can ever find in New York in short time! :-) Tourist bus, ground zero, Statue of Liberty, Empire State building, Eating at the View, Hard Rock Cafe, Musical and Time Square. ++++++ of course some shopping :-)

The best hotel you can ever dream of. A great minibar, even with "love-kit" :-) hihi and everything you can even think of. For of course many many dollars :-)

Breakfast at Baltazar - Empire State Building

A boat trip to Satue of Liberty. Unfortunately we were not allowed to go on top of her, but at least we walked around her at the island.

Time Square (fantastic both on daytime and evenings)

Some pictures from inside Crosby Hotell

Very cool design in the whole hotel.

Juhu, I found C&B. The shop I buy from on internet. I just had to visit and spend some dollars before we went on the plane. Do I manage to get everything in my suitcase? ;-) hmmmm - I had to bring something in my handluggage. Too much :-)

Anyway, a fantastic town, I will defenetly go back, this is a town you never get bored in anyway. See you in May? :-)

Many thanks to my collegues for a great trip, we had so much fun together - great travel companion.

Week 45 - Sleepover and performance at school

Emil and Vetle slept over from Thusday to Friday this week. A great start on Friday morning. Oat porridge for breakfast and homemade fresh orange juice. I mean, can it be better? :-) After breakfast we went to school where both Lisa and Vetle wanted to join the play that Anna's class had this morning.

They performed 2 different shows and sang a great sang. At their school they have performance every Friday morning. Its different class every week, and all family members are invited to see. Its allways a nice start of the day.