Polenta

Merry Christmas! For Christmas dinner we went back to our roots and did it Italian style. An easy and fun dish was warm polenta with chopped chives, handfuls of grated Fontina cheese, some cooked corn kernels, and toasted pine nuts on top.

Glogg party

It is nice during Christmas to stop by friends' houses to drink Glogg (mulled wine with spices, raisins, nuts) and eat kransekake, krumkaker, gingerbread cookies, and clementines.

Shoe, nei, fish

Charlotte is expanding her vocabulary and has started say variations of the words: shoe, sock, fish, brush, milk, up, cheers, hot, and of course... nei (means no). Why is it always that they learn no before they learn yes? She likes practicing her cousins' names too. Bryce comes out pretty well, but Zachary sounds more like "za zee!"

More on stars

I checked into it, and as far as I can tell, the Greater Dog and Lesser Dog are actually Orion's hunting dogs. Ursa Major or Big Dipper is something else.

Stars in the morning

I walked Charlotte to Solhellinga in the morning (her daycare) and it was really magical. It is so dark out at 7:30 still that you feel like you are out for a stroll in the middle of the night. She babbled to me and I talked back and we looked up at the stars. I saw several triangle groupings, but could not make out a full constellation. Here, they talk about the Dog and the Big Dog. Maybe that is the Big Dipper and Little Dipper? There are several meteor showers to be seen in the skies here now as well.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas

Wait a minute... isn't this Norway? Norway - the place far far up North (part of the country even North of the Arctic Circle) where it is cold and dark and snowy? I have been hearing reports from friends of lots of snow in Michigan, New York, and Europe, but none here! We finally got an inch or two one day last week, but it was gone by the afternoon. And that is it! Just rain, rain, rain. Things are still very green because of all of the rain. It has even been pretty warm lately with temps up to 7 degrees celsius (45 F). I have been asking people - what's up? Global warming, or what?! Nope... typical. It is not uncommon to have a Green Christmas in Oslo. The snow begins in January and lasts until April or May.

52 Pick up

Charlotte has been in the habit lately of doing the following. She walks around with a little bowl of dry cereal bits. She inadvertently drops a couple. Then, she bends over to pick those up, and is unaware that the bowl is tilting with her. All of them pour onto on the floor! She assesses the situation, takes a deep breath, and says "uh-oh." And each and every time it is in the same reaction. Isn't there something about learning from one's mistakes? Or maybe she does it intentionally... either way it is funny to watch. Now I am teaching her to pick them up and put them in the bowl, but usually she picks them up and puts them in her mouth.

Fit

I have never seen so many athletic and fit people! It is very common to bike to work (and not just leisurely bike - it is racing speed!) and so many people roller ski when there is not snow. People hike, walk, everything. Then in the Winter it is skiing, skiing, skiing - alpine, telemark, and nordic. And still some bike to work throughout Winter.