Preikestolen - Pulpit Rock

The last time we hiked Preikestolen was our site visit to Norway - we'd just found an apartment and were excited to see some of the beautiful landscape. Unfortunately, we had typical fall Norwegian weather (aka rain). The hike was great, but it was too foggy to really see any of the fjord.

This year, however, was a world of difference! We headed out early to avoid the crowds and were rewarded with only a few people at the top when we arrived (and masses of people coming up when we were our way down - so glad we went early!).

Kathryn checking email, me posting on Instagram, Jason hiking, and Madi eating. At least some of us can multi-task. ;-)

Sister selfies!

Another fun family hike! :-)

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Weekly Wrap-up: Aunt Lil Takes Over!

This week's Weekly Wrap-up is special - Aunt Lil has been here watching Madi all week. You can see in the pictures below they are both having a blast! It's been great having her here to help around the house and of course, watch the duck. :-)

So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Aunt Lil for an update on her week with Madi!

Hello everyone! I'm not as experienced with this kind of thing like Darcy, so we will see how this goes. Spending time with her and J+D has been a lot of fun so far! Norway is definitely different than what I'm used to, so that has been interesting getting accustomed to everything for sure (especially how pricey things are over here.. Geez!). So, getting to the point, Madi and I had a lot of fun this week. I realized how tired I could really get from watching her, which led me to conclude that I'm definitely going to wait a while until I have a munchkin of my own. :P

Enjoy this little slideshow of pictures from our week, definitely got a lot of smiles from this little one! Well, along with some sass... but who doesn't have that ;)

Sass Example A... that smirk gets me every time.

Swinging in the backyard, enjoying unusual summer weather here :)

Bath time!

She decided to get in the splash pool with her Hungarian dress on... and had more fun
in that rather than in her bathing suit... Silly duck.

You can see the Cece cat to the left of the couch
enjoying the sun, and Madi was excited that she found the cat :)

Went to the Tananger harbor on Friday and fed the seagulls and swans.

My inner photographer came out.. Really like this picture
with her little Sperry-Topsiders on :)

Darcy took this of us at the harbor.. such a nice day!

Selfie with the Madds.. she knew what to do and everything!

Went to Capella Play on Saturday and I got to be a kid 
with her in the play area... I think I had a little too much fun.

Thanks for reading my first blog post! I have enjoyed my time out here so far, and can't believe I leave in a week from today... It has been such an honor and privilege to be able to take care of this little charm, and spend time with Jason and Darcy as well. Looking forward to my last week with the crew :)

Aunt Lilia signing off! :-)

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Månafossen - Wonderous Waterfall Hike

We relaxed Saturday night after our long, but amazing day at Flor and Fjære because we knew we'd have another long day on Sunday. When Madi was getting close to her first nap time in the morning, we hit the road to drive about an hour southeast to Månafossen. It's a short, but steep hike that we tackled back in October with our friends and were excited to hike again with Madi and Lilia.

Since we have plans to hike Preikestolen and hopefully Kjerag while Lilia is visiting us, I needed to get some practice wearing the hiking backpack and carrying Madi. (Jason and I will have to trade off on the other hikes because they are longer.)

The weather was a bit overcast when we began, but cleared up immensely after we'd hiked up to Mån Farm and back down to the waterfall overlook. You can see the difference just an hour made in the clarity!

The hike was great and it was definitely good practice getting used to carrying Madi. I would highly recommend this hike if you are in the Stavanger area! It's a bit steep, but there's a handrail on the worst parts and overall it's pretty mild.

No Madi's were put in danger during the photographing of this picture ;-)

After the hike we headed to Byrkjedalstunet, the candle factory nearby. We snacked on pancakes and shopped a bit before driving to Gloppedal, a glacial terminal morraine.

We headed back home after that stop and let Madi nap while we picked fresh berries in the backyard and had our friend Anthony over for bbq. It was a relaxing end to the weekend and so much fun to have family here visiting that we can show off beautiful Norway to!

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