Monica Hasund Solheim

Sep 23, 20223 min read

Back in Norway for a while June 27th to Oct. 6th

On 26 June we both left Curaçao, I (Monica) traveled to the USA to visit family, while Kai flew to Norway with a stopover in Amsterdam.

Due to chaos, long queues and canceled flights, he was delayed in Amsterdam for 22 hours 😟.

Finally back home in Norway, Kai traveled to our cabin, where the next day he felt that he had probably contracted corona 😥 (he most likely got infected in the crowd at the airport) - so he was a bit reduced for 4-5 days.

I (Monica) had a week in the USA. There I met family, did some shopping 😏, and got to celebrate "4th of July" before I traveled home to Norway.

I also experienced some delays, but it was only a couple of hours and on the layover in Iceland the plane was waiting for me 😉 (presumably also for a couple of others), and I arrived at Gardermoen, Norway, at the estimated time.

After visiting our mothers, we went up to our cabin in Gudbrandsdalen and it was nice to be in the mountains again, quite a bit colder but great.

The following week we set course for Stavanger to visit and babysit Ask, our 21-month-old grandson.

FaceTime over the past year has been worth its weight in gold because he recognized us and there was complete familiarity after just a few minutes 😍😍 - it probably has something to do also that he is a very confident and trusting little boy too 😉.

He even stayed overnight with us after only 4-5 days 🤗🥰

The two weeks in Stavanger were filled with various activities from morning to night - unfortunately Kai got "bronchitis" and was a bit reduced for a few days 😟. In those days it was ok for Ask with "farmor" (grandma) and uncle Dennis, otherwise it's "farfar" (grandpa) who is the big hero - there's havoc and play all the time 😍.

The day before we left Stavanger and returned to the cabin, little Eira was born, a big "little" girl ❤️.

So naturally we took another trip back to Stavanger a few weeks later.

When we returned, Eira was already 4 weeks old and Ask had become a proud big brother. I think Ask was happy we came visiting again, and Eira was absolutely beautiful - our new little girl 😍.

The return journey from Stavanger went via Bergen with an overnight stay in a hotel. We were tourists for a day and in beautiful weather we visited "Fløyen" and also ate outside at "Bryggen" 😃.

Before we traveled back to Stavanger, we helped Kai's sister with painting her house, and his mother with arranging firewood for the winter and various other matters. Good to be able to help the family when we are here in Norway.

There will be several visits to our mothers, visitors to the cabin, some meetings to attend, lunch together with visitors from USA and meetings with old colleagues before we travel back, so really quite busy - think we need a "vacation" when we are back in the boat 😜.

In between all the visits, we rented a small cabin next to a mountain lake so that Kai could try his luck at fishing. It was a nice trip in beautiful weather and he did catch a nice mountain trout 😃.