So little time, so much to do

Spring came early and all the things and work covered by snow was revealed.

The lawn filled with all but grass, so much dandelion and other unwanted plants. Culminated in a strong attack with Roundup to remove it all, unfortunately also some of the grass so now I had to so new grass. 2 years ago we drained around our house, to do this we had to remove a large terrace. Now this is to be rebuild, but first I must make another trench (1m by 6m and 0,6m deep) to drain some more water coming from the terrain above our house making sure it will not affect the pillars holding the new terrace. Another terrace needed a new floor, the terrace around the pool needed a wash and new paint, and I need to grind the pool and repaint it.

The trees and the hedge of course needed a trim. Two 15m spruces was taken down. SO LITTLE TIME, SO MUCH TO DO!

Ventetida er over

22.11.2010 : Ventetida er over endelig, 11 dager etter termindato kom veslegutten.

Vitalemål : 51cm, 4324g

Alt er bra med mor og barn, og Eline er stolt storesøster.

Canal Street

Richard Bona, probably one of the best bassists in the world, gave us an unforgettable performance.

Warming up for Melody Gardot he made it hard for the young american jazzartist to follow.
As we say in Norway; "It's like jumping after Bjørn Wirkola."

One of the best concerts I have attended in many years.

Vacation

Our summer vacation has started. For the first time in 11 years I will have more than two weeks.
The first week will be spent in Gjøvik with my family.


(this is a picture of Skibladner the oldes paddle steamer in the world)

Lillehammer - Oslo

Atea, the company I work for, attended the cycling race Lillehammer - Oslo with about 300 cyclists. The race is 190 km and my group finnished with the time of 6h 59 min. Not bad taken our goal of 7 hours :-)

The blogg wasn't dead

The blogg wasn't dead, more of a very long hibernation :-)

I can't promise to write much, but some news will be added.

Twitter

Twitter seems to be the latest "hype".
All seem to use it for short notices and updates of their lives.
I will probably not be using it too much, but never the less wantet to give it a try :-)
http://twitter.com/andlervo

Summertime

Much has happend since I last wrote in this blogg.
and I have no intention to write about this as I would take to much time and space for one published story.

Eline Natalie is now 1 year and 3 months. She walked useing here trolley at 9 months, but didn't really let go before she turned 1 year. And now we have a full time keeping up.
Watching here grow up, turning into a girl from being a baby is fantastic, even if it's harder to sit down and just cuddle, she hardly sit still for 10 sec :-)

This picture is taken in the garden at Château de Versailles during our trip to Paris. We went to Paris the first weekend of May and stayed for 5 days, too little to see it all, but more than enough to know that we want to go back some day soon.

These past days we have had fantastic weather with close to 30 degree celcius, almost to hot but we shouldn't complain about the temperature when we struggle with close to 9 months of winter. I have filled the pool and the local beach is only 10 minuttes walk away. We didn't spend any time at the beach last year since Eline was too small, but this summer we will make sure to use it more.

Autumn in Fevik

My wife, Ellen, with Preben and Amanda at the beach where we live in Fevik.

Young artists

Two young artists.
We have visitors from Gjøvik My brother Kristian is here with his wife Lene, their two children Preben and Amanda, and a Border Collie named Oliver.
Preben and Amanda have been busy painting these two past days and the result is remarkable.

My lone island

Sondre has planted his flag on my island :-)

Strange as it may seem, this island became very popular with my little nephew age 5.

A new member of Fjelde Martinsen

My sister in law gave bith to a beautiful girl, and our two nephews got a babysister.

Two proud big brothers!

Sound of Music

The summer here in Arendal and Grimstad is packed with concerts and festivals. We tried to catch some of it bringing with us our 4 month old babygirl who love music.

The headphones kept the volume at a moderate level and made the music experience for her the very best.

Thank you Clas Ohlson :-)

Time flies

Much have happend since my last publish. I have been to Austria and Schweiz twice and one tripp to Poland. Our little girl has just turn 3 months, and today we passed a very special milestone. Our little girl laught for the first time, and I don't mean a little giggeling, she was really laughting.

The new boss

One happy family!
Our little princess has now grown to a total of 52,5 cm, weighing 4500 g.
Figures are not official, but approx, measurements, made by the proud father on the bathroom floor.
Giving her birth measurements of 49 cm and 3040 g, this seems a lot after just 5 weeks.
Up till now she has treated us nice. We often have to wake her during night to feed her, and there are hardly any noice, nothing worth mentioning anyway.
Let's hope this continue!

Vår lille sopran

Vår lille sopran så dagens lys 26.03.2008 kl. 06:53

Eline Natalie var 49 cm lang og veide 3040 g da hun ble født.

Österreich - die land des alpens -or something...

I guess my teacher from German class would be most disappointed if he where to read this blogg. I went to Austria and hardly talked a German word. The first week was spent in Nenzing, a small place next to the Swiss border, and even closer to Liechtenstein. I took the plane to Zurich and drove about 1,5 hours to Nenzing. As always the job took so much of my time I didn't have time to look around. The week after I also arrived in Zurich and droveto Nenzing for a short meeting, the next day I drove to Seekirchen a small town next to Salzburg. The drive took 3,5 hours and I went by all the famous ski-resorts, St.Anton, St.Moritz, Innsbruck and more and didn't have time for a quick look, not to speak about trying out the slopes :-(

Maybe next time.

The travelling was a bit of a chanse to take considering Ellens pregnancy, but luckily nothing happend and I am well at home and still waiting for the big thing.

Danish wedding

My mother in law has met her man!

We spent the weekend in Sæby, a small town near Fredrikshavn in Denmark, where Oddrun and Ove, the newly wedds, live together.
It's only a few hours away by ferry boat and car.  Today the ferry takes about 4,5 hours, but when the new ferries are set in service the trip will decres to approximately 2,5 hours.
The ferry departure from Kristiansand (N) and arrives in Hirtshals (Dk). From Hirtshals there is about 45 min by car to Sæby.
Ove has two married daughters and 5 grandchildren so our family has grown quite a bit over the weekend :-)

Fuel

As promissed to my english  readers I will continue writing some stories in English. This happend on Saturday. It was a wonderful day, the sun stood 
high and bright and Ellen and I wanted to have a picknic with her 
sister Berit, her husband Jarle and their two lovely boys, 
Sondre (4,5) and Simon(1,5). Jarle had to drive me to work where I last night had left my car.
On my way home I made a short stop to tank some gas.
Hughe mistake!!
After just 10 meters my car started to "cough" and then stoped. 
I could not understand what was wrong, I tried to start it again 
but got no response.  I thought the fuelpump of my car had broken and didn't pump fuel to the engine. So I called for help from 
a local rescue car and sat waiting in my car. After a while I got 
bored and got out. I then noticed two other cars standing at a bus
stop just a few yards away and thought I'd go ask if they had problems as well. It turned out they had experienced the same as I had. It was clear the problem was the fuel and not the cars. I called the local supervicor of the unmanned Statoil station and asked him to come up and shut down the station and to check the tanks. I also started to tell all that arrived at the station that they should go somewhere else to get fuel. After a while the supervisor arrived and we had my suspicion confirmed. there was diesel in the petrol tank and vica versa. I was promissed to be contacted to sort out how I could get compensation and get refund for any expences needed to fix my car. My car was then towed to the nearest car repair and was picked up by Jarle, who had driven me to work in the first place to get my car.

The story is found in several norwegian newspapers of today.
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=515832
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/sorlandet/1.4712624

 

Happy New Year