Winter highlights

Wow, and just like that, January, February, and March (and April—post coming soon) have flown by, and winter is becoming a distant memory. The big mountains of snow have turned into small piles gravel, and we are noticing flowers just starting to bloom everywhere along our walk to school. I want to write more about how wonderful the Norwegian winter was, but for now, I just need to share some photos showing we didn’t freeze to death.

Ada’s birthday happened in mid January, and she is thrilled to be FOUR!
She celebrated at school with cake, a visit from her big sister, and watching Peppa Pig with her classmates.

Here’s a video of part of the celebration at school

and at home:

Here Diana and I are headed out for our first cross country skiing experience in the field across from the girls’ school.

One T-Bane stop away from us is an enormous ice skating rink that is free on weekends. We managed to pick up some cheap used ice skates at a Loppemarked back in the fall, so it was fun to them to use a few times—carrying 4 helmets and 4 pairs of skates in a big Ikea shopping bag with Ada on my shoulders, however, was not so fun.

There are “penguins” at the rink for the girls (and me) to learn to skate.

Sledding everywhere—this was in a park in central Oslo. Ada is riding on a “bum-board” which many children bring with them to school everyday.

Maddie lost her two front teeth on the same day!

Going out for a family ski in the park across the street from the school. The girls took lessons at their school, and I was amazed at how quickly they improved and learned to love skiing.

We also went to Disney on Ice as a belated celebration for Ada’s birthday, which the girls really loved (even though all the Disney Song’s were in Norwegian).

We all had a great time having dinner with new friends from Denmark in February. Here is Ada swimming at her friend Nikoline’s swimming pool:

We went to an Outdoor Winter Festival at Sognsvann organized by the Norwegian Trekking Association.

Below is a pic of us roasting pinnebrød, a sweet doughy Norwegian camping bread, on a stick over a fire. Recipe (in Norwegian) below.

I was thrilled to have two former advisees stop by in February for a visit—unfortunately I completely forgot to get a picture with Holley, but here’s one of Yousaf with Ada on his shoulders.

After we got back from Greece, we made a trip to the top of the Opera House before we saw Sour Angelica (for $12 a seat!), a truly depressing Opera about a nun who was forced into the convent by her family after having an illegitimate child and who ultimately commits suicide. Before the show, we went up on top of the opera house, and as you can see, most of the snow has melted.

Ada and Maddie manage to turn their environment into a playground. Here’s ada sliding down one of the interior walls of the Operahuset

Here’s Ada, Maddie, and her friend Barrett sliding down the big snow pile at their school on March 1. The school does not put salt on the playground but instead spreads gravel to prevent kids from slipping.

For most of the winter, the playground looked like this (as you can see there usually wasn’t enough gravel to make much of a difference):

March did bring a couple more big snowfalls—with snow that was just perfect for making giant rolls of snow. (It was too cold in January and February for sticky snow.)

The winter was also filled with birthday parties. Here is a pic of Ada and her friends at her best friend Kiana’s birthday party. These girls hail from Malaysia, Japan, Iran, Denmark, Ecuador, Norway, and the US.

On Wednesdays this winter, Maddie and Ada took downhill skiing lessons at the Oslo Vinterpark. I think Ada is just the cutest in her snowsuit and ski skole vest.

And here they are just a couple of weeks later

As Diana mentioned in this post, we went down Korkatrekkeren in mid-March, a 10-minute sled ride in Oslo. Here is a video of Diana at the start of the ride.

Here is a pic of Ada and Maddie on story book character day. Maddie decided to dress up as Roald Dahl’s Matilda and Ada decided to be a princess.

Below is a pic of Maddie’s class on that day. There was a school wide contest and Maddie’s class won. They got popcorn and were shown a movie “Fantastic Mr. Fox” to celebrate.

In mid-March, Diana helped organize a cross-country ski day for Ada’s preschool. 34 preschoolers, lots of parents and teachers cross country skiied across a frozen lake and grilled hot dogs before returning back to school. It was the last day the class went skiing because soon after there was not enough snow to ski.

Ada got a medal at the end of the trip which she was proud of. According to this article, Norwegian’s do a better job that the US at making all sports as fun as possible for kids regardless of ability for most of their childhood which is why they do so well at the Winter Olympics.

Around the same time, Maddie went on a field trip to the Freia Chocolate Factory with her class. During the winter, her class learned about the history and science of chocolate. They read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and learned about bar charts (by doing a chocolate taste test). The unit concluded with a much anticipated trip to the Chocolate Factory. Below is a pic of Maddie with the chocolate she made.

On Friday, March 21, we participated in “School Strike for Climate” in Oslo in front of the Norwegian Parliament.

The strike was inspired by Greta Thunberg in nearby Sweden. There were 20,000 demonstrators in Oslo and 40,000 in all of Norway!

With the International Women’s Club of Oslo, we toured Stortinget, Norway’s Parliament. Our tour guide commented how impressed she was with all the children striking for climate the Friday before we toured Parliament. Touring Parliament also made us feel like Norwegian’s democracy is healthier than our own (they had enough votes to make substantial changes their constitution as recently as 2014!)

Ada is now taking dance classes with her friends from a ballerina from DNBS, the Norwegian Ballet School and Academy.

First sign of spring (on March 30).

We got a free visit to the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History one Sunday in late March and were especially impressed with the interior of this stave church.

We also visited Bogstad Farm, got a tour of their Manor House (which we didn’t understand because it was in Norwegian), learned how to card and spin wool, and saw lots of farm animals.

At the end of March, both Maddie and Ada got free annual check ups at the dentist in Norway. During Ada’s check up, we were reminded to avoid eating too much sugar (though eating candy only on weekends – a Norwegian tradition, was definitely ok). Also, this is Ada’s “official photo pose”—if you’re lucky enough to get her to decide to allowe herself be photographed. Most of the time, she just turns her back and hides from the camera.