Just another week

Well, I can't say there is much to report here. Spencer was a little under the weather at the end of last week and Kyla and I are dealing with allergy flair ups, but otherwise we are all doing fine.

Brendan went for another sleepover at John's on Friday night and then we had John's family over for dinner on Sunday. It was nice - his parents, Bill and Christine are a lot of fun and we had a great visit. Otherwise, we had a pretty lazy weekend.

Even though the day light hours are getting much shorter, this week has brought sunshine every day and we are glad for that! We literally try and "soak" up as much sun as we can when it makes an appearance! It is getting light around 8:30 or so and is dark again by 5:00. From what we are told, the shortest days will be from early December to mid-January, so about 6 weeks of really short days and then they will gradually get longer again. It has been fairly cold, but not just miserable cold yet. I think it being dry out helps a lot and also keeps ice from forming!

I guess there are a few interesting things to mention...we are now on the hunt for a particular spring that attaches to the clutch of the car. I was driving and heard this noise then a "clunk." The afore mentioned spring landed in the floorboard of the driver's seat...thank goodness all my pedals still worked! It appears to be a clutch return spring but, of course, the Ford dealership "has no idea" what part it is...even though we showed it to them. Spencer is working on plan B for finding the spring since he can likely install it himself if we can just get our hands on the correct part. We certainly don't want to wait too long because I would hate to do any damage that would require another visit to the repair shop...!!!

Next, the apotek (pharmacy)...what a joke! You can't buy hardly any allergy-related medicines here without a prescription! Crazy! You can get several antihistamine kinds of things, but no decongestants...but if you need a nosespray, there are probably 15 different kinds. For a cough, 2 choices only. A suppressant or an expectorant. No combo things that work for multiple symptoms...like an antihistamine/decongestant/cough kind of thing. Ummm, like I told the lady at the pharmacy, we don't run to the doctor for allergies, we just handle it ourselves, but here, we can't buy what we need. I brought some from home, but definitely should have stocked up a little better! We ran out of the Benadryl meltaways the other day. Thank goodness all of our allergies have been much better here! This is really the first big bout of them we have had and really, I don't think it is as bad as it would be in Texas.

Today, I spent over an hour on the phone with Verizon... what a joy that was - although it was made better thanks to the wonderful customer service person that took my call - bless her heart! She was great and stuck with it until she got it working - spoke English without any accent (which was helpful), and obviously knew what she was doing. She even took my number and called my house phone here in Norway so we could try all kinds of stuff with the phone. She was about to give up and turn in a network help ticket when it finally kicked in! She even stayed on with me to test out the email and and instant messaging! Yvette in Verizon global customer service ROCKS!

In other news, Spencer had two job offers within his department this week. After careful consideration and numerous conversations with his immediate boss and other involved people, he decided to pass on both for numerous (and valid) reasons, but the "big guy" in projects said there will be other opportunities in the near future...should be interesting to see how it all plays out. I think the head projects guy here likes Spencer and sees his potential and that is a positive thing for sure!

Well, London is a booked trip now for early December - a girls' trip with 2 friends! Mostly on a shopping mission (I am getting my list together), a spa trip for a little pampering, and tickets to see Mamma Mia! I am so pumped! It will be a very quick trip for sure - a Monday evening to a Wednesday night, so just over 48 hours of jam-packed fun. There won't be any sightseeing on this go round!

We head back to the doctor about Brendan's arm on Friday with our fingers crossed for good news and hopefully no more cast! I have to say, he has done pretty well with it and figured out how to do most everything he would normally do without much assistance. I also know he has done plenty of stuff that has made me cringe and probably would have the doctor cringing as well - like running down slick sidewalks and climbing on the school playground...he is supposed to be leaving for outdoor school on Monday with or without the cast...Mom has reservations about the trip, Dad is all for it. It will be a long and weird week with him away (and quiet, needless to say!)

To end, I feel the need to share my latest observation regarding fashion in Norway. Early on it was man-capris...now, I am picking on the ladies...ummm, ladies, please note, there IS a difference between tights and leggings...they are not interchangeable. Tights are NOT the same as leggings and quite honestly, some of you should not be wearing either of them at all in public. And, don't even get me started on the boots...

I have been a slacker on pictures lately - my apologies. We have just been doing every day normal stuff - nothing picture-worthy.

I am sure I had some other interesting observations, but I will have to think of them again and share them on a later blog...gotta keep you coming back for more! I did notice I now have 3, yes, count them, 3 "followers" - thank you!!!!! At least I know someone is reading my ramblings :)

Hugs to all!