Ruby likes to scrub things whenever I give her the chance.

Katy(posted on Jan 23, 2007 at 9:40 pm)

A popular topic of conversation this month was what color people’s eyes are. In this movie, Ruby very earnestly checks to see what color Chris’s eyes are.

Katy(posted on Jan 23, 2007 at 9:44 pm)

Ruby’s returned to Tårnhuset åpen barnehage (our playgroup) with gusto. She is very busy with all the activities, and really likes the kitchen area. The children are mostly younger than she is, but she is very sweet with the babies and plays well with the 18-month-olds, or happily by herself.

Katy(posted on Jan 23, 2007 at 9:50 pm)

Ruby’s got just enough hair for pigtails. And they’re curly!

Katy(posted on Jan 23, 2007 at 9:53 pm)

Auntie Lauren played trains with C and Ruby when she came over this morning.

Katy(posted on Jan 23, 2007 at 10:06 pm)

It’s actually pretty rare to hear C singing songs. By “rare” I mean, like never. So I was surprised to hear his reaction when I absent-mindedly sang a song that Ruby and I heard at our playgroup. I guess it’s a common holiday song here, and C heard it at barnehage. In this movie he sings it (the part he knows, at least), enthusiastically if not melodically.

Katy(posted on Jan 23, 2007 at 10:04 pm)

Ruby likes playing in my closet, but forgot which side is the exit.

Katy(posted on Jan 23, 2007 at 10:19 pm)

I haven’t seen hardly any pictures of Libby, not since the first baby pictures. What a freakin cutie!

Katy(posted on Feb 9, 2007 at 7:37 pm)

This trip was just awesome. Maybe the best vacation I’ve ever been on. The weather was perfect. Our holiday apartment was perfect. The beach was perfect. The food was perfect (well, Portugeuse food is not that great, but we mostly cooked for ourselves, and we cook good!) The pace was perfect. And for future reference, we will always vacation with people who are willing to take the kids on walks to the beach at 7 am. Because we’re not.

Katy(posted on Jan 23, 2007 at 9:25 pm)

The flight from Oslo to Portugal is about 4 hours (or 5? I can’t remember with the time-change). It was an uneventful flight for us, anyway. We arrived in Portugal in the early evening and picked up our rental car with no problems. Driving again after over a year’s hiatus was interesting. I’ve observed before that the mechanics of operating a car come back easily, like riding a bike. But the rules of the road don’t come back so easily. Driving in Portugal is a bit different from driving in the States, anyway, so I was on alert. We never had to go around a traffic circle more than once, though!

We arrived in Salema and took possession of our lovely beach-front apartment after only a brief unintentional tour of some scenic dirt roads. Well, it would have been scenic except it was pitch black. We collapsed into bed and had a wonderful night’s sleep with the ocean “tinkling” on the shore (that was C’s description).

The next day we explored the beach and the village of Salema.

Katy(posted on Jan 5, 2007 at 1:18 pm)