what we love about winter: weekend getaways.

Something I love about Norwegian culture is the love for nature.  I've already mentioned how much Norwegians love to ski, but there's also a wonderful habit amoung Norwegians of staying in cabins in the woods for a little weekend getaway to ski, drink coffee and hang out. In February we went on two of these lovely weekend getaways. The first was with Fulbright- they paid for all the fulbrighters and their families to stay at a hotel in Skeikampen near Lillehammer. Our hotel was a minute away from the cross country ski trails.  We took advantage of the blue skies and skied every day while we were there. On Friday we did a short 6 kilometers before dinner, Saturday was our long trek- 18 kilometeres, and on Sunday we went with the Fulbright director, Petter, on a gorgeous 12 kilometer loop. The weather was quite perfect for skiing.  We took our time on Saturday's trek; we went slowly up the steep hills, whizzed down the downhill slopes and stopped to chat and catch our breath. 

Around Oslo we usually ski in the forest with pine trees towering all around us.  In Skeikampen we skied in valleys and over little mountain passes.  The scenery was so open compared to Oslomarka (Oslo forest).  Needless to say, the view was stunning.  In addition to skiing a lot, we did our fair share of relaxing in the spa, chatting with other fulbrighters and their families, and eating way too much food at the all you can eat buffet.  

Our most recent getaway to the woods was with Christian Union two weekends ago.  We skied in to a cabin by Nordmarkskappelet on Friday evening.  This trip was more focused on fellowship than skiing.  The weather happened to be rather warm, resulting in icy ski tracks.  Not so good for skiing.  About 30 of us stayed at this super cozy cabin with a fireplace and ate together, talked about doubt (the topic for the weekend), played soccer in the snow, drank coffee and played card games (Bohnanaza!) late into the night. 

On Saturday night we did a prayer walk around the chapel.  Josh led the worship music, which was a new thing for him. We sang several hymns and a Taize song.  I thought the music really set the right contemplative tone for prayer.  

On Sunday we did chores, attended church and skied home.  That was some of the toughest skiing of my life!  All my limbs were dead tired at the end from pushing along the icy tracks.  I really appreciated the time during the CU weekend to talk and laugh with friends, as well as focus on God and get away from modern technology/distractions.  I like meeting God in the woods.

It's been pretty warm around here lately, so we haven't been skiing as much as early last month.  We are hoping, though, to squeeze in one more cabin/ski trip before the snow turns to mush and we have to return out skis. 

Is winter melting in your part of the world?

peachy press update.

After my long Christmas holiday, Peachy Press is back open!  I've added a bunch of fun new things that I really enjoyed making. More moleskines, of course, but also cards made with stamps that I made (!!!) from a rubber stamp making kit and ecosystem notebooks.  The arrow stamp and the heart stamp are ones I made myself.  Ecosystem notebooks are super cool and 100% recycled.  Read more about them here.  I hope you'll take a look around the shop!

Have a beautiful Wednesday.
(The high for Oslo today is 6 C/ 42 F.  That is SO warm.  It's been feeling like spring around here!)

wedding favorites no.2

The flowers were probably my favorite detail at our wedding.  My mom headed up the flower committee and used a mix of wildflowers, flowers from friends' gardens and some flowers from the florist.  I wanted a wildflower look and I think all those involved with the flowers (Mom, Grandma, Kelsey Busby, my Aunts and my cousins) did a beautiful job.  My mom made my bouquet with just purples, whites and greens so it would stand out.  Actually, come to think of it, I even put a bouquet together!  I did all the paper products for our wedding and reception, with the help of my skilled artist friend Kelly Baker-Trapp.  She graciously designed on the computer whatever I asked of her.  For escort cards we printed out all the tags with guests name and added different stripes of washi tape on each card. I drew the emblem on our ceremony program and scanned it into the computer.  We had cupcakes and a small cake at the reception.  Friends from Greenville, Kim and Mark Meyers, made the cake and cupcakes.  We had SO many delicious flavors of cupcakes (creme brule, lemon and blueberry...), but I only tried one.  I can't even remember which one.  I heard rave reviews from my Dad, though!  Kim decorated the cupcakes with sage leaves and flower buds.  It was a stunning display.  The food at our reception was awesome.  Another friend (so many friends helped out), Kenzie Brister, was the head chef for the meal.  She got some friends and family together to chop fruit, make bread and cook the food. We tried to use local produce for each dish; Josh and I visited the farmer's market and talked with the farmers who provided us with tomatoes, melons, onions, basil and peaches.  We used cheese from the Marcoot Dairy in Greenville.  The dishes we ate were: melon salad with mint, caprese salad, homemade bread, vegetable quiche, and black bean sweet potato enchiladas.  So good!  This was Josh's favorite part of the day.

detail:

Before the reception, Josh and I stood in the hallway and greeted all of our guests as they entered the reception hall.  We wanted to thank each person for coming and the typical receiving line at the ceremony didn't seem like a good idea.  We also knew we would want to dance at the reception, so we didn't want to go around to each table during the reception.  Our solution worked out really well and we really enjoying greeting everyone. In addition to the delicious food at our reception, we had the usual speeches and parents dances, flower toss and group dancing.  But, you know, it didn't all feel usual.  I thought it was all exceptional.  The speeches made me laugh and cry, the dances were a symbol of our love for our parents and their love for us, and the group dancing was so inclusive and full of joy.  We did a contra dance, which is a type of folk dance with a fiddle and caller.  As you can see from the photos, it got most of our guests involved in the dancing and was great for all ages. After a few hours of dancing, our friends and family sent us off with tons of confetti!  Then after a couple days of hanging out with extended family in Greenville, we honeymooned in Long Beach, Washington.

reception:

This was such an amazing day!  I am still overcome with so much gratitude for all those involved. MANY THANKS! 

wedding favorites no. 1

Today our marriage is seven months old!

I have never really shared any of our wedding photos (except the ones from a project life spread), so seven months of marriage seems like a good time to share.  My good friends from my semester in Costa Rica, Allison and Josh took the photos and did an amazing job.  I love the way the captured the spirit of our day.  We got married on July 21, 2012 at a pine grove outside of Greenville, IL.  Josh's cousins' grandparents (on the other side) live on a small chunk of land which includes the aforementioned pine grove and they so graciously let us use it for our wedding.  We did a "first look" in the pine grove and it was fun.  It was definitely a good way to calm my nerves.  Even though we had seen each other earlier that morning (we helped all our family and friends work on reception food and decoration), it was still SO exciting to meet each other in the pine grove.  The smiles in that second photo are proof.

j & r:

what we love about winter: skiing.

We are totally on the skiing bandwagon.  Cross-country skiing is big in Norway, so when we came back after Christmas we rented skis and gave it a try. Although I can’t say it’s always been easy nor has it always been 100% fun, it’s good and just keeps getting better.  If you remember, I did try cross-country skiing before Christmas and you can read about it here. 

We most frequently ski from right outside out apartment.  We live close to Sognsvann Lake and close to a section of Nordmarka (North Forest), so there are tons of ski trails starting about 200 meters from our door.  The trails near us are pretty popular for people in Oslo.  On any given day of the week the ski trails will have lots of individuals and families gliding along, but especially on the weekends.  Woah, the weekends.  It’s like Disneyland in the summer over here.  A machine smoothes out the ski trails and puts grooves in the ground so our skis don't slip around (and we use ski wax).  There are a handful of lakes nearby and none of those have machine made ski tracks, but there is often a man made ski track that is the result of lots of skiers going across the lake the same way.  This is Sognsvann: 

Even though I have a job and Josh is studying, we have lots of free time. So we ski. I love this new hobby for many reasons: 

It’s new, so I have a lot to improve on.

I get to spend time in the beautiful outdoors. Sometimes it’s hard to be outside when it’s -10 degrees Celcius, but skiing makes being outside less freezing.  Plus, it’s beautiful here, especially after a big snow.

 Skiing is exercise.  I can kill two birds with one stone- I can have fun and get a workout at the same time. 

I feel like I'm participating in Norwegian culture. It's exciting to ski with people who love skiing so much.

When I go skiing it’s usually with Josh and/or a small group of friends, but Josh often skis by himself once or twice a week.  Together we probably go 3-4 times a week. If we don't have plans in the afternoon or evening we will often fill the time with skiing. The past few weekends groups from Christian Union have gone skiing.  It’s interesting to go with these groups, because there are so many levels of skill and speed amoungst the skiers.  Last weekend we skied to church with a CU group.  We took the Tbane to a place called Frognerseteren and from there we skied to a chapel in the woods called Nordmarkskapellet.  We had a pretty big group, but Josh & me and our friends Jana & Thomas skied together to the chapel in about 30 minutes.  I was freezing before hand, so I skied as fast as I could!  The forests near Oslo (and probably most of Norway) are scattered with cabins that serve food and have warm fires.  This chapel is sort of like those cabins with the fire and food, but it also has a church service at noon.  We enjoyed the fire while we waited for the rest of our group to arrive.  

I love actually skiing, but I also love the idea of skiing.  Early on in my skiing career I think I loved the idea of skiing more than I loved actually skiing.  This resulted in some tearful moments during my ski trips.  I wanted to love skiing, but it was kind of hard and Josh skied so much faster than me.  Josh was also improved his technique more quickly than I did and he just wanted to give me some helpful tips.  Sometimes I didn't want tips.  I just wanted to ski.  I didn’t feel like I could enjoy skiing while also killing myself trying to get better.  Over the past couple weeks I built up some skiing endurance, so I didn't get as tired while skiing and I could focus on improving my form.  This made skiing more fun!  I’ve also been able to cultivate a better attitude.  Even when it’s hard to go uphill for ten minutes, I remind myself that this can still be fun.  And it usually is.  

One of our best ski trips was last Friday afternoon/evening when we skied to a nearby cabin in the forest.  Although we took a minor detour through an incredibly narrow, unkept patch of woods, we managed to get up to the cabin with positive spirits still intact.  At the cabin we happened to run into some friends who had also been skiing and we all sat inside for a while enjoying the fire, warm drinks and baked goods. After a little rest we headed home.  Since we live at the bottom of the forest we have to go uphill to go anywhere on skis.  That means that the way home is usually downhill.  In my mind, going down is the best part of skiing.  It's so exhilarating to fly down the hill while trying to stay inside the grooves for the skis.  What made this outing so great was that we had no major arguments and no major falls or problems.  We just skied to the top and then back down.  We're starting to get the hang of skiing and we're loving it.

Have you tried cross-country skiing?