Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted. I vowed to keep up with this blog, if for no other reason than to have a record of our life in Stavanger that our family can look back on years from now to help remember this experience. I've fallen behind, and while I don't want to bore you, I do want to remember everything I can, so I may have to break this up into several posts.
Let's see. The last time I posted, we'd solved our housing crisis, and found a temporary solution for our childcare crisis. We love our house! It is wonderful to have the kind of space that we have, and it's so much fun to walk to school with Meredith every morning. She absolutely views the walk to school as an adventure, even when we get poured on. Speaking of getting poured on, it only took two mornings of getting seriously drenched for us to learn that unless there is not a cloud in the sky, we do not leave home for the walk to school until we are fully decked out in our rain suits and boots (now that we are walking to school in the dark, the rain suits are a given). We learned this lesson the hard way about two months ago. It was cloudy, but not raining, and we figured we'd be ok; it's only about a ten minute walk to school from our house. No sooner had we closed the gate out of our neighborhood that the sky opened up and drenched us. Ryan had to go back home to get us dry clothes once we got to school and realized that our clothes were too soaked to make it through the morning. Now, annoying as it is to bundle up every morning, it has become part of our daily routine, and it has made for a much happier, less grumpy me!
Graciela is still watching Joel, and we are so thankful for that. I am secretly hoping (well, maybe not so secretly, as I flat out asked her this the other day) that she will change her mind about traveling to Australia in January, and will just keep watching Joel. We are fortunate enough to have another excellent babysitter, Fredrik, who has taken over for Graciela a few days this fall, but he isn't permanent, either, as he works in the oil industry and goes offshore every few weeks. The last time he was here, I asked him if he really wanted to return to the oil rig, and tried to convince him that watching Joel must be more exciting...ha ha. Seriously, though, we have been blessed by both of these people who have done such an amazing job with our son. We have also found a woman who is interested in watching him starting in January when Graciela leaves. She is Norwegian, and has a son just a few months older than Joel. The only problem is that she lives a bit far from us, and considering morning traffic, we may end up spending much more time in the car than we'd like to. However, it is very appealing to us to have Joel playing with another little boy, and since it doesn't look like barnehage is in the cards for us this year (more on that later), it may be our only option. Stay tuned!
Ryan and I were finally issued personal numbers about three weeks ago. This means that we were able to open a bank account, get on the waiting list to take our driving tests, choose doctors...and obtain discount cards at the grocery store. Believe it or not, the store will not issue you a card if you do not have a personal number. You truly cannot do anything in Norway without that number!! We are still waiting on numbers for the kids, but each hoop that we jump through brings us one step closer to feeling settled and beginning to enjoy life here, instead of just living life here.
This was a pretty boring post, as I'm rereading it, so I think I will close for now. Next time, I will recap our trip to Bergen before so much time has passed that I have forgotten everything we saw and did while there. Sometime in the near future, I also need to learn how to dress this blog up a bit. I read these blogs with great backgrounds, colors, and pictures, and realize how dull this one is to look at right now! I hope to change that soon!
