a weekend of sand and stairs

it's been a stormy weekend out here in norway and not a lot of signs of summer--at least not until this afternoon when the rain stopped, the clouds broke and we headed up to volsdalen for our sunday picnic. there are camping cabins around this little sandy beach area and we found a great blanket spot just up the rocks. owen quickly scrambled down to the sand and went to work with his bucket and spade. note the two gleeful children in the background who are definitely taking advantage of this fleeting summer sun--yes, swimming and jumping off the rocks. our norsk picnic skills are getting much improved as we made some grilled shrimp and asparagus and even found some proper blue and cheddar cheeses (a nice diversion from the ubiquitous white cheese that's simply "norwegian).

we also sighted the preparations for summer solstice--the tall tower in the background of the next picture is actually a pyre for the bonfires that will commence tomorrow evening to celebrate the longest day of the year. after tomorrow, however, the days will get shorter. i doubt, however, that we will see dark evenings (unless the clouds come in). and the last picture was right in the middle of the park. we did note that the fire department was conveniently right around the corner.

the rest of the weekend had been pretty quiet. owen and i are recovering from nasty colds and michael's getting ready for the big "go live" next week. friday we joined a dozen or so of michael's colleagues at XL for some superior bacalo and owen couldn't have been more of a gentleman. of course, the new lego firetruck bribe helped ;) on saturday we joined what seemed like all of sunnmøre at møa--the mall outside of town. we wanted to get some provisions from the coop (the mega grocery store pronounced like chicken coop not co-op) and escape the miserable weather. the highlight, though, was walking up the escalator and hearing owen say "oh? what's this button?" and suddenly the escalator stopped. the funny thing about that was that nobody seemed fazed. i swear had he pulled the emergency switch out in a cali mall we'd still be filling out forms. when discussing the incident this afternoon owen said, oh mommy, it's ok. i just made stairs. and you can't really argue with that. . .