Cream Puff Day and Wife's Day

     On Monday it was Cream Puff Day! Spencer, Joslyn, and I woke up at 6:45 in the morning to hit our parents with our wands (sticks). They didn't immediately jump out of bed so we couldn't hit them any more, but rather sat in bed while us kids joined them. For breakfast, everyone had cream puffs, except Joslyn because she had thrown up earlier in the night due to bad cream puffs. Sunday, my family and I went to a cream puff party and there they served cream puffs with (we think) brandy in the cream. Joslyn's stomach didn't like that. Anyway, at school, delicious cream puffs were served at lunch. After school, Joslyn and I got home and found that there were two packages from all of my grandparents. Before we could open it, though, Joslyn, my dad, and I had to go get Spencer. At the preshool/ kindergarten, my dad has been teaching English to the two to five year old kids. One of the two year olds went up to my dad and said 'happy' in English. She was so cute!  Once we got back, we received Valentines cards and nine pounds of candy! We are planning on giving it out on Halloween on Wednesday.
     Sunday was Wife's Day. On Sunday, like I said, my family and I went to a cream puffs party. At the party, there was a very friendly Sphinx cat named Birta. She was very cute, SO lovable, and felt like a peach. Birta is actually famous! Her owner wrote a book about her and how it is okay to be different, and she even made the front cover of the cat magazine in Iceland! When we arrived, Birta was wearing a beautiful, green necklace that was like a boa. In the middle of the party, Joslyn and I asked if we could have her change collars. Then, we told everyone that she was such a diva! Her owner was SO nice and very talkative.
     At the party, all the guests did this religious thing where we wrote down our sins and then burned them in a metal bowl. With the ashes, we drew a cross on our foreheads. Before we did that, though, we sang songs about robbers and other things in Icelandic. Sometimes it was a fast moving song, so I just kind of mumbled along most of the time.

Bless,

Alex : )

Upcoming Holidays

     Two days ago, like you know, it was Valentines Day. People don't celebrate Valentines Day here very much. Instead, they have about five days of holidays all back to back! Next Saturday, Sunday, and Monday are Cream Puff days. The cream puff here are HUGE - about six times the size of the box cream puffs. Monday is the real Cream Puff Day, and you get to wake up and hit your parents with a stick while their still in bed! For every time you hit your mom or dad, you receive a cream puff! My mom and dad told us that a couple of hits is enough, though. Tuesday is called Stuffing Day because everyone eats a lot of this bean soup. It's sort of like fat Tuesday. Wednesday is Halloween! At school, there will be a Halloween costume contest for the sixth and seventh graders while the first thru fifth graders go trick of treating. Oh, for trick of treating, you have to sing a song instead of saying trick or treat.

I can't wait for all the holidays coming up!

Bless,

Alex : )

Winter Festival and Children's Day in Reykjavik

     This weekend, my family and I went to the Winter Festival and International Children’s Day 'fairs' in Rekjavik. I really enjoyed going to the different activities on Saturday and Sunday. Friday night, my friend þorgerður (pronounced thorkathou) and her family came over for dinner and we had a very nice time playing Uno and kicking our little brothers out of the room. Then, the next morning, everyone got up, got dressed, and headed to Reykjavik.

     In Reykjavik, we first went to an event called Game World where you got to design Lego castles. That was a mistake. In a large room were probably eight tables with Legos on them and at least 200 people milling around them. Two tables had Legos that you could play with, but it was almost impossible to get to the table. Instead, we all went out and fed the ducks. Spencer pet a duck by following it until it put its head down to eat a crumb and then 'gently' putting his hand on it. The duck's head shot up and it quickly walked away.
     The flea market opened up at 2:00 and closed at about 5:00. Spencer and I bought Halloween costumes there. Oh, by the way, here they celebrate Halloween in February, so this year I will get two Halloweens! I'm going to be a Japanese Dragon Lady sort of thing. I'll post pictures of me in it later. Anyway, everyone got a lot of stuff at really good prices, like I got one Icelandic wool sweater for about $32 and another for $20. I think the whole family really enjoyed it.
     Later that day, at eight o'clock p.m., everyone went swimming with live music. It was that or riding on a boat to go see the lights of Reykjavik until 11:30 p.m. The pool was awesome! It had an inside pool that connected with the outside pool through a lane that went through the wall. There was also a big slide, a lap swimming pool, and a small, shallow area all connected with the inside pool. Two hot tubs at different temperatures were on the outside of the pool. All of my family was very tired from the day’s events, but we managed to enjoy the pool other than the hot tubs.

All in all, I feel everyone had a fantastic time in Reykjavik this weekend.

Bless,

Alex : )

Touring Iceland

     This weekend, my parents, Joslyn, Spencer, and I all went touring Iceland two out of three of the weekend days. Everyone saw even more adorable Icelandic horses and a lot of gorgeous landscape. I have been dieing to put up pictures of the horses and here they are.

I really like this photo because of how cute the horse looks!





Some adorable horses.



More horses.



These horses were staring at me and my family and wanting food.



This is a waterfall that seems to just sprout from the lava!

Here is my dad, Joslyn, Spencer, and me standing before the bridge over the waterfalls. 

Another picture of the waterfalls.

This is a reconstruction of the type of houses there used to be here in mid evil times.

Look at how the hair falls over the horses eyes!

More horses.

Another horse.



There is a very snowy glacier in this photo near the middleish.

Bless,

Alex : )

Swimming Sunday

     Last Sunday, my parents decided to 'tour' some of Iceland (I guess living here wasn't enough). For us kids, it means spending the day in the car reading on the kindles or playing on the ipad. I can't say it's that bad because it gives me an excuse to read (not that I really need one, though. Mom and Dad love it when I read). Plus, every time we go driving, I get to see a lot of super cute Icelandic ponies! After driving around the area near Borgarnes for about an hour, we all went swimming at the hot springs in Borgarnes. It's a sweet pool, too! They have the tiniest lap swimming pool I've ever seen, but the in the outside area there are three slides, three hot tubs, a very shallow and little pool, and a larger lap pool. The three slides are green, blue, and yellow. Short and wide, the yellow slide is only about 12 feet long, yet probably 8 feet wide! Next highest is the blue slide. This is a like the slide in Gunnison. It is fairly slim (3 feet wide), but very windy and slow. The green slide had a top on it, so it almost felt like going into a deep hole. A very, very, wet deep hole that the sun shows through everywhere in the sides.
     Although the green slide was higher than the blue slide, it was a much shorter and direct (and fast) route to the ground (or pool) below. In fact, Joslyn and Spencer raced each other down them, Joslyn on the green and Spencer on the blue. To win you had to get down last. Spencer is not stupid in choosing his slide. But neither is Joslyn. While Spencer was busy slowing himself down on the already slow slide, Joslyn zipped down the green and then came back up for round two in the green slide. When Spencer reached the bottom, he was shocked to see Joslyn was still in the slide. Spencer would have won if they had set the ground rules beforehand, but that didn't stop Joslyn from gloating her victory to everyone - especially Spencer!
     Hot tubs are supposed to be hot, but I don't really see the point in having one so hot that I'm not allowed to stay in it for more than 30 seconds. The temperatures were 37, 39, and 42 degrees Celsius which is about 98,  102, and 108 degrees Fahrenheit. They were so relaxing, too. My mom and dad insisted on staying in them almost the whole time.
     Another place I swam was the outside pool. There were diving blocks at the end of it and I dove off of them with Joslyn after we swam to the other side. Then, Spencer joined us and we began to pretend to eat him over and over and over. Each time, though, he started to thrash around when we grabbed his arms and legs. I guess he didn't like being eaten, or it was simply getting old. The nice thing about this pool was that it wasn't that hot so we were all able to cool off in it. Or as much as you could cool off in a hot spring.
     My mom, dad, Joslyn, Spencer, and I all went into the inside pool to check it out. There were tons of pool toys and a foam turtle which I tried and tried and tried to straddle, but always failed by being tipped backwards by the turtle shooting up from under me. My mom could do it, but I just couldn't balance right. There was also a toy boat that I kept pushing around the pool. Sadly, the toys had to stay in the inside pool, so I had to leave the toys to play on the slides.

     I enjoyed the pools for about two hours before it was time to go home. Joslyn and I had swam in the pool at our school, but this was the first time my family had gone to a pool together. I'm surprised we waited three weeks to use Iceland's natural resources, but better late than never.

Bless,

Alex : )