Today was Gunnars turn to go all out on the half marathon. Louisville, KY was the venue, and cold morning weather set the stage for his record run. 46F/7C felt cold at the start, but it got a little warmer as the race proceeded. His finishing time was 1.27.54, which is almost 2 minutes better than his previous PR.
This years half Marathon was Amandas 4th and Jonas' 1st! Amanda was close to setting a new personal best, and Jonas had no problems running the 13.1 miles/21.1 km. Hopefully this will be the first of many for him.
We came back just a few days ago from 16 wonderful days in Norway. Not the best of weather in Harstad, but that didn't prevent us from having a great time. (Will be back with more here soon)
Click here to see some pictures from our trip.
Since last post we have been to 2 weddings. Jonathan and Joshua, who both work with Gunnar, has now gotten married and we congratulate them. We drove all the way to Oklahoma to see Jonathan say "yes" to Joslyn, and just had to drive an hour to Evansville to see Joshua marry Monica, who is Amandas sister.
In beautiful spring weather we went to the Dubois County Park and enjoyed some of the wildlife there.
Here is also a video clip of Jonas having his hand full of caterpillars. They were falling down from the trees everywhere.
Spring is here, and we have had over 20C here the last weeks. We have used this time to plant a small flowerbed in front of the house, and the lillies are blooming beautifully.
This is by far the best time of year over here. We wish it could stay like this all year around.
At 5.38 this morning I was woke up by the whole house shaking back and forth. At first I thought yhe house was collapsing, but wondered if it could be an earthquake. I was about to check the news for any info in case of the latter when Amanda called from the hospital. (she was working the night shift) "Did you feel the earthquake?", she asked.
Everyone is fine here though, it was just a minor quake (5.2 on the Richter scale), but still a little scary. The center of the earthquake was in West Salem, Illinois, about 56 miles/90km west of Jasper.
At 11.15 we had an aftershock of 4.5 on the Richter scale, noticeable but not nearly as strong.
The image shows the epicenter on the left, and Jasper in the right. Close one.
A weeks stay has come to an end, and we are sorry to see them leave. But in just 10 weeks we are taking the trip overseas and will have the pleasure of seeing them again. Weather has been really nice the last couple of days, with temperatures over 20 C. It will therefore be somewhat of a change coming back to Harstad. Hopefully spring is not that far away.
We dropped them off at the airport in Louisville, KY and they went off to New York. Last I heard, they were on a bus taking them to Manhattan. We hope they will have a wonderful time.
The last evening of my parents stay is here, and we went to an Amish restaurant nearby. The Amish people are known for forbidding electricity or telephones in the home, but also for living in close connection to nature.
The Amish are divided into several groups, and this restaurant is run by Mennonites and are therefore able to serve customers in a regular, modern facility. The food here is always excellent, and we never leave hungry.
After resting the night, Gunnars parents were treated to breakfast. Amanda made a delicious vegetable omelet and Gunnar made fruit salad. We all enjoyed the time together, and spent the rest of the day in Evansville, IN, where we went to the museum and later visited some of Amandas relatives.
Gunnars parents, Ola and Aina are coming today for a full weeks stay. We are very excited to have them here, and look forward to spending time with them.
They will need a couple of days to adjust to the 6-hour time difference, but that will no doubt go just fine.
This week it has been raining quite a bit in Jasper, but today it was beautiful so we took a walk around to take a look at the water that has accumulated here and there.
This weekend has been a stay-at-home-weekend, due to Jonas being sick.
Thursday evening he said he didn't feel well, and we could tell he had quite a fever going. That night he started throwing up, and didn't get much sleep. Friday he had to stay home from school, and threw up more while still carrying on the fever. He was in good hands as Amanda took the day off work to take care of him. He slept well Friday night and woke up Saturday feeling better, but now with a constant runny nose. Sunday morning Jonas woke up with the same cold he had yesterday. He had a sore throat and a stuffy nose, however he was more active.
Amanda has started working dayshift at the Hospital, at least for the next few weeks. We are all very happy about that, and look forward to her having a regular working schedule.
Still cold here, and the car looked like this when we woke up. It was totally covered in 1 cm of ice, after it was raining while getting colder yesterday evening.
School was closed today and it will be tomorrow too. Just like I used to laugh about back in Norway, when they told about that on the news. But without spiked tires, it is truly dangerous driving around when it is snow/ice on the roads.
The last few days have been windy and nasty. A tornado hit the states south of Indiana, and over 50 people were killed. We are very glad it didn't hit here, naturally.
The whole of USA is having a cold spell at the moment. This last week have produced temperatures as low as 10F / -10C, which is cold even by Norwegian standards.
We have to survive about 4-5 more weeks of cold weather before spring starts settling in. I can't wait for that, spring is the best time around here I've been told. Click on the image to the right to see average temperatures for Jasper.
Jonas spent 4 weeks at his Mom's in Norway, and the rest of us drove all the way to New York to pick him up. We also spent a few days in the big city, and had a great time. We went to the top of Empire State Building, visited the Statue of Liberty, went to Times Square and just walked the streets of New York.
Click here to see some pictures from our trip.
A few days ago we had the second snowfall of the season. Not much as you can see on the picture, and it only lasted a day or so. The first snow made the roads slippery, and had a truck slide into our car which was parked outside our house. The were damage to the rear bumper and body of the car, but most important - noone got hurt.
Fall is here, it's getting colder in Indiana and the temperature is as low as 55F / 13C. Amanda thinks is REALLY cold while Gunnar thinks is quite nice and. The last few weeks have been spent on even more housework, and getting the last few things organizes and tucked away.
Business for Gunnar is going very good and Amanda thrives at the hospital. But her 12 hour nights is a killer. Working all night is nothing to desire, and something she needs to get out of as soon as possible.
Jonas' trip to see his Mom this Christmas is now booked. He will be flying to Norway December 22th, and will be back here January 18th. He'll have a great time there, we're sure.
August 12th was the date for the happy occasion, and you can see pictures from the ceremony here.