Christmas

Christmas in my family is a sacred time, and traditions is the main point. To do something different than last year is not even a question :) So here I give you all: Christmas in the Ringdalen Vatne family!

The last weekend before christmas was then used to do the last preparations for christmas, and my favourite christmas preparation, make gingerbread house!

Me, Sindre and Sis building and baking

The finished building! (It's a star obervatory :)

On the 24th almost everything is supposed to be ready. Me and little sis use the day to whatch the same TV programs as we whatch every year. This means the czech movie Three nuts for cinderella, and the norwegian movie The journey to the christmas star. For lunch we have some family friends over and eat rice porrige. At 5 pm christmas starts, and we eat salted dried sheep ribs that is boiled with mashed swede and potatos for dinner. After dinner we walk around the christmas three and sing, and then it is present time! :)

Christmas dinner!

First day of chrismas is time to just relax and do nothing. Me, sis and our dad, ended then up whatching Southern Faces (NZ climbing movie) and then we decided maybe we should try to tabel travers the living room table, which actually worked really well. My mum put her foot down first a couple of days later, when Sindre suggested it would be cool to try it with crampons...

The second day of christmas is the annual salmond christmas party that my parents have, and it's also the big day out, where everybody between 20 and 30 in Mo i Rana goes out on the one and only place to go out, Ramona, and meets a lot of old friends and ends up looking like this santa: (I think me or sis made it once...)

Today (the 30th) we had another christmas tradition, the annual christmas ski tour. Which mean that we and another family and whoever else that wants to come, uses the little daylight for a little hike on skies. This year we went to Bolna, a mountain on Saltfjellet (the salty mountains). We had about -14 degrees, beautifull weather and nice ski conditions!

Skiers and Bolna in the background. We actually saw the sun!

We started by the artic circle center, so to everybody far away, this is how it look like to cross the artic cricle! :)

Tomorrow is new years eve, and then me and Birgitte is going to Lovund (my favourite norwegian island!) to visit Anne Katrine and celebrate! That is going to be awsome, and it is really cool to hang out with my two best friends from high school again!

And if anybody managed to get through this long blog entrance, I can tell you that i have gotten a place to live in Trondheim, and is no longer homeless :) My adress is Brøsetveien 155-28, 7050 Trondheim. This is in Karinenlund student village, just next to Frode Rinnans. Everybody is welcome!

Thats all for now, so I wish you all a
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

And just a note at the end in case someone read this and just know me from NZ or just thinks I'm kind of confusing. My sister is called Sigrid, I just like to call her little sister or little friend in norwegian, which I find translates well into sis in english :) Sindre is her boyfriend, a cool guy and good climber, whom I find I have the right to treat as a little brother (in good and bad :) as long as he dates my sister.

Advent in Norway

I have promised some of you that i'm not going to stop writing my blog just because i'm back in Norway, and that promise i'm intending to keep!

So, what i have been doing the last couple of weeks is working most weekdays, and living home with my parents and beeing a good daughter :) Exept last weekend, because then I was in Trondheim, since I had an exam on monday the 10th, so i was hanging at school trying to study, but using most of my time to play achtung die kurve or card games, drink coffe and other stuff not including studying. But I think I passed so it's okay :)

This weekend I have been a really good daughter though, I have been mostly at home, helping my parents with cristmas preparations, making cristmas cakes, rolls and stuff like that. I had planed to try my kite (I bought one!!) and go tele skiing with some people from the climbing club, but the weather is hopless, its raining, 5 plus degrees and no wind what so ever! (global warming sucks!) Me and my dad went out tele skiing on saturday even though the weather sucked. I borrowed my mums beautifull new black diamond tele skies and tried it for the first time ever. It was kind of wierd for a snowboarder/cross country skier like me, and I didn't really feel that my clumsy skiing was worthy the nice skies...

Tele skiing with dad, Sweden in the background

I also got time for a little party. My old high school friend Renate and her sister had a birthday/cristmas party in the cafe by the cave Grønnligrotta. Those of you who have been there, knows that this is a bit outside Mo i Rana, and up a really steep windy gravel road, and this road gets really slippery in winter, espessially when it is plus degrees. All this i knew, but i still desided to give it a try to get up, even though my car is not that good. And no suprise, the car started spinning, then it stopped and slowly it slided backwards and into the snow at the side of the road, and i was completly stuck.. Luckily I got rescued by someone smart enough to use four wheel drive, and had a really nice time at the party :)

Me and Reante (We rocked in chemistry lab in high school!)

I also finally got the dresses I got made in Indonesia, so here Devi, is the promised picture of me in one of the dresses! I love it!

And now I am going to make swiss cristmas cakes, and lasagna for dinner. Miss u all! (exept those who read this and is in Mo i Rana :)