First Days Photos

A few pictures from our first few days here. More soon!

Please be praying for William & Daniel as they start school on Monday!

"Can" you figure this out?

We are settling nicely into our home and town. We have small victories and minor setbacks on a daily basis.

Today I was excited to make chili for dinner. That is, until I realized I don't have a can opener. So I rummaged through drawers and came upon something...

Take a look at the picture. I have never seen anything like this before. I thought it must be a can opener, but couldn't for the life of me figure it out.

Superman to the rescue... Zack worked with it and finally figured out how to use it. My hero!

I found out later from my aunt that it is just like one my great-grandmother used to use (hers wasn't so rusty though!).

And for those who already expressed concern, we are all current on our tetanus shots!

Moving in the Right Direction

Looks like we have a home!

Zack and William took the train back to Sandefjord on Monday to sign the lease, and we made a trip to the bank on Tuesday to make the deposit (our first banking experience here - success!). All looks to be in line for us to move in by Wednesday of next week!

We are renting the second floor of a beautiful home built in 1897. It has lots of windows, beautiful floors, and way more than any expectations than we had. The landlord has been great to work with so far, and we look forward to getting to know him and his family (including two sons not much older than our boys!).

Here is a sneak peak...

The view from the master bedroom

Living room

Kitchen (this is where God really knocked our socks off!)

Sandefjord

On Monday, we rented a car and drove to Sandefjord, the city where we will ultimately be living. We stayed two nights, toured the city, looked at several apartments, met with a local friend, and visited the boys' school. We are incredibly excited about our new town and can't wait to get settled there.

We have one apartment that looks to be a very good option - awaiting the final lease and all the details to fall into place. Hopefully we'll have everything finalized early next week.

We are back in Oslo now, spending some time trying to learn about the city, the culture, and little bits of the language. Zack is excited to get to spend some time with several of his Norwegian friends tomorrow, and we hope to visit a couple of museums over the weekend.

It is SOOOOO cold for Georgia natives (supposed to get down to -16C tonight!), but we are thankful to have lots of warm clothes that make it bearable!

Here are a few pictures from Sandefjord:

Our first official Note from Norge!

And now we can officially live up to our blog title!

The last week and a half were a whirlwind, to say the least. But here's the short version: we got permission to travel to Norway, and we are here!

We arrived late Friday evening. We were greeted by several friends and are now in our temporary apartment in Oslo. It is good to be here... and a bit surreal!

Jet lag is a killer. We slept well our first night, mostly from exhaustion I guess! But it is about 4:30 AM right now, and Zack & I are wide awake. Guess it will just take time to get adjusted!

We will write more as we get settled. For now, here are a couple of pictures from our first day here.