Christmas Message 2009

2009

A year of highs and lows. We started the New Year in the USA where we had spent the 2008 Christmas and New Year holidays with our family. It was cold, snowy and wonderful. At the time we flew out of the US, the Midwest was seeing some tremendously cold temperatures. It was bittersweet to depart from the US – leaving our friends and family for the return trip to Norway – our new home.

Both John and I have traveled this year on business within Europe and of course to the US. I started the New Year with a return trip to the US not long after arriving back in Norway. I had meetings in Washington DC just days after the inauguration of the new US President.

The company we worked for hired me as a permanent employee this year and enrolled me in the executive management training program. John was promoted to Project Leader for an international program which has provided him with a great learning curve and an interesting career move. So, Nammo has been a good company by providing great opportunity for our family.

Nicholas is becoming such a Norwegian boy. I think that kids are so versatile. They adapt so quickly and Nick has adapted so successfully. Of course transitioning to a new culture has had challenges, but Nick has weathered them so incredibly well and he thrives. We still have bouts of homesickness and probably always will. He loves his school and his sports clubs. He is getting into the music scene in Norway and is starting to follow European and African music, with favorites not from Los Angeles, but from Germany, Sweden and Africa.

Nick always has bruises. From the time he was not yet three years old and he was riding his bike without training wheels and building ramps I knew he had the makings of a daredevil, so now the trick skis, the snowboards, ATV tracks, scooter jumps, well, it is scary for a mom. We just make sure he has the necessary equipment, helmets, back supports, gloves, pads, boots, etc. Prayer helps.

Again Nick spent some weeks in Iowa. He loves being a sidekick to his grandpa Jack and a fishing buddy for the Vermie relatives and spending time in Omaha with the Miller family cousins. Nick loves peddling around Mitchellville and eating Casey's donuts.

We have traveled quite a bit this year on leisure travel including in Europe, NW Africa, the US, and of course Scandinavia. We enjoyed boogie boarding in the surf on the Spanish isle of Tenerife where we spent some time with John’s parents, and backpacking in Scotland to see the beauty of the area on the west coast of Great Britain, and the beautiful week we spent at a beach house in Denmark where my mom joined us for some relaxation and amazing sunsets.

The time we have had in Norway with John’s parents became essential when we found out the John’s mom had lung cancer. The memories of our trips to their cabin in Northern Norway above the Arctic, and the trip to Spain and the time at the Myklebust family farm on the west coast of Norway created great memories for Nick. Eli passed away in June. We lost our seamstress, our maker of Norwegian gloves and sweaters, a mother and grandmother a good listener and a great cook.

Being so far from the US has been unbearable when friends and family in the states go through challenging times, and of course we miss the celebratory events like weddings and birthday parties and family cookouts. I think in 2010 I will officially declare myself to be a global citizen and try to not feel so dissected between the US and Norway but celebrate and appreciate all the good things going on around me wherever I am. Unabashedly, John and I support global initiatives which promote social justice, empowerment and hope. In a world where so many have so little, our family is blessed, and we are thankful. The news of global chaos - the economy, high unemployment, pandemic flu, natural disasters further complicated by destruction to the environment gives good reason to be thankful for a warm bed, and a quiet neighborhood.

We will spend the end of the year on the Mediterranean coast of Spain where we will hike and eat good Spanish food.

We hope you have a wonderful peaceful holiday season. We believe that 2010 is a year of promise and opportunity. And we hope to spend some time with you in 2010...the fresh mountain air in Norway is amazing.

Update...pre-Christmas 2009

Can you spot the new Yellow Belt? Hint, front row and standing.

I have a lot of new photos...but my card reader is broken. I need to find the cord to attach my camera directly to the PC...I will do that during the holiday vacation and post some new photos of us, Norway, Spain, nature.

The last few months have been a busy time for our little family unit. My father-in-law, Ole, had surgery on his leg which had complications so JH flew to Bodø (in Northern Norway where Ole lives) and flew Ole back to our house where he spent sometime recovering. The leg had further problems and Ole ended up in two local hospitals before being flown back to Bodø in an air ambulance. Ole has since recovered and is back at our house for the Christmas holiday.

It has been nice to have Ole around. Of course NK really enjoys spending time with his grandfather. Although Ole is a recently retired airplane pilot, he is also a jazz trumpeter. He has a band which meets and plays in the Ålesund area, which is on the west coast of Norway in the village where Ole is from, Myklebust. So NK has been jamming with his grandpa, NK playing his guitars and Ole on trumpet, and sometimes joined by JH on the sax. I play the part of an enthusiastic fan. It is widening NK’s music interest. He loves playing his guitar, but it is nice to hear him play different genres of music. Lately he has been playing and singing a lot of Sting.

NK is busy at school. The for the second time this semester he had the highest test scores of any sixth grade student. Smarty pants. He is such a good student. We have been working hard at teaching him “how” to learn, including how to study, and how to learn the critical information and sort it from supplementary information. I think that learning how to learn has helped him. Of course we did this to help him learn Norwegian language, and it has helped him in all subjects. I spent a few hours volunteering with his class at school and it was fun. There are 30 boys and 6 girls in the sixth grade. The school has asked for more parent involvement due to some behavior problems. This isn’t uncommon in Norwegian schools. I have blogged before about Norwegian school classrooms, whereby the national law, the students are in charge...and they know it.

NK has been busy with soccer; he is in the winter league playing indoor soccer. He loves it and it keeps him busy, and he gets to hangout with his best buddies. He started back to Tae Kwon Do late this fall. He had taken a break during the early busy fall months of outdoor soccer where 2-4 days each week were games or practice. He is working out with his Tae Kwon Do class two nights a week and last Saturday he graduated to a yellow belt. He is really excited about going up a belt. It is also fun and of course a good workout. He is sweating and red faced by the end of practices. He loves the part where they break wood with their feet, elbows and hands. They are starting the combat training. It is interesting to watch, and sometimes looks like kick boxing since the kids love to kick.

JH received a promotion at work. He moved into a new position in October and he has been trying to phase out of his old position. His new position in project management will require more travel in Europe and to the US. This is good news for me, as he can know be my personal shopper on his business trips to the US! He has been working long hours though trying to get the work caught-up and learn his new program. He seems to really like it. I think it was a good move. The position leads one of the most profitable product lines for our company so it is a big responsibility in management.

I have started an executive training program at work. It is really good. The program includes learning the entire cash flow and finances of the company, and then all the management core areas. It has been interesting. It is a cohort group from our European locations, so some of the classes are in Sweden, Finland and Germany. It has been fun working with my colleagues in these other countries. I kind of get a kick out of being a Norwegian representative to this group; because of course...I am not Norwegian. I have always preferred working environments with heavy diversity and since I am an American working at a foreign company...I am the diversity. Also, working for a multinational company based in a small country, I work with customers, and colleagues from all over the world. I have a time zone map, because each call I make I have to think, “What time is it in Australia...what time is it in Italy, what time is it in Hawaii, what time is it in Washington DC?” And of course I go to meetings and there are multiple languages being spoken at the tables. Sometimes I feel so lucky that I am the person who is the native English speaker because of course the default language that everyone reverts to so that we can all communicate with one another is English. During my meetings with my Swedish colleagues we speak a tangled Norwegian-Swedish dialect. I guess it makes life interesting.

Being the odd person is a little lonely. When everyone is talking about cultural issues, sometimes I don’t have the experience or the knowledge to relate to the issue and sometimes the people. It can be isolating. When I feel a little isolated I also start to get homesick. I try to keep my rose colored glasses on.

To fend off homesickness I try to stay engaged and busy in community activities and busy going places with NK. Lately we have gone to watch NK take part in some Advent activities at church, attended Handle’s Messiah concert (long, but good), watched the Harlem Gospel Choir perform in our local mountain hall Olympic arena, attended the World Speed Skating Competition in the Olympic Hall in Hamar, I started a craft club, and we love to watch good films and TV sitcoms that make us laugh, like reruns of Ugly Betty, Scrubs, That 70’s Show and Dharma & Greg. NK thinks he looks like Betty with is braces, and well they do kind of look related.

NK and I had the great opportunity to go to Oslo and take part in some of the Nobel Peace Prize activities. Our friend from Wichita who was studying in London, Adam Mc Gonigle, came to Oslo to meet-up with me and NK. Ironically friends of ours from the Gjøvik are were on the same train, so we all spent time together. We went to see fantastic art, we watched Obama go to the Oslo City Hall to receive his Nobel Peace Prize and then we walked across the street to the Nobel Museum which sits on the shore of the Oslo fjord where we watched some of Obama’s speech and we had a lovely lunch while looking out at the old castle and fortress. We marched in the Nobel Peace Parade with the American Committee of Norway and the Democrats Abroad Caucus. We also attended a dinner sponsored by those groups and the American Embassy.

The parade was an evening parade, and since we have only a few hours of daylight each day at this time of year, it was dark, and cold. We marched along carrying lit torches and waving our American flags. There were protestors too, some of them peaceful and others a little rowdy. The award for the creepiest protestors goes to a group of American’s wearing denim jackets with the words “Jesus Saves”, but unfortunate for them (and the rest of us) they were chanting racial and religious slurs. It reminded me of the nutty Fred Phelps clan from Kansas. There were some anti-war protestors who tried to hijack the event and they probably created a tense situation for what was supposed to be a family friendly event. The police in riot gear surrounded them and walked them back a block or two away from the thousands of people who were standing silently with torches outside of the Grand Hotel and the Parliament building in Oslo. At the parade we met some other Americans who live in Norway and I made a new friend, Julia from New Orleans who lives in Olso.

Watching history unfold was amazing. NK really enjoyed it too. He and Adam and I had so much fun watching all the ambassadors arrive and the royalty and then of course the Norwegians in their national costumes, the bunad, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunad. I am a huge supporter of the Nobel Foundation and the Nobel Prizes. So, taking part in some of the activities fulfilled a dream of mine and I hope an experience NK will never forget.

During our free time...well, what free time? I guess we like to cook new recipes. We are always trying to get NK to eat new foods. He hates dairy, sauce, rice and raw vegetables. We find new recipes on the internet which look good and then we modify them to try to persuade NK to try them. He is my helper in the kitchen since he has been taking a cooking course at school. He has also learned how to set a table and how to use the silverware and glasses on the table. What glass does the red wine go in? Could you imagine learning that at school in the US? At his school concert the last week they sang a drinking song. Coupled with the bare breasted Madonna painted by Munch which hangs at his school (a print...not the original!), I still have my “Toto, we are not in Kansas any more” moments.

I have also tried to keep reading. I love to read...when I can find the time. I have read most of the Vince Flynn books, and each time a trot through an airport I pickup a new thriller, or biography.

Our front foyer is again becoming a storage area for skis, skates, boots, Snow boards, sleds, shoe dryers, hats, gloves, coats, and coast and more coats. Winter in Norway. Ho hum. Every attempt at organization of our winter stuff is in vain. I have coat racks, shoe racks, benches, rugs, hooks, and it still looks messy. How does IKEA make it look so simple?

We have snow, snow and more snow. Today is the shortest day of the year with just a few hours of daylight. The good news is that tomorrow it starts to reverse itself and we get a few minutes more of daylight each day until midsummer when it will start to rewind and the days will get shorter. Like the previous winters we are using our sunlamp to keep from going kooky. It helps. Forrest our cat loves the sunlamp and since he is always the kookiest, he needs it.

Just like in the states, we kind of kicked-off the holiday season with a Thanksgiving feast. We invited some American-Norwegian friends and we ate turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pies and all the trimmings. It was fantastic. For Christmas, Norwegians have traditional foods too - boneless ribs, fish – both fresh and fermented and pickled, meat cakes, dried meats, and sausages, also lots of gingerbread cookies, berries, cakes with marzipan, and warm drinks with a side shot of aquavit.

We went to a dinner party the other night for a Swedish feast. Anchovies and potatoes and gingerbread with Roquefort cheese. Yummy.

Well...enough for now, I also am working on a Christmas message to post in a few days. As I type this I am listening to the news in Samisk. The Sami have a sizable population in Norway (and Sweden, Finland and some in Russia). It is interesting to watch (and listen) to their TV programs. Norwegian is hard enough. I can watch programs in Swedish and Danish and understand...but Samisk...NOT!