The weather has not been very impressive this autumn. A lot of grey days and rain, but there are some beautiful days in between and then it's so good to be on maternity leave so that I can make the most out of them. I spent a sunny day in wonderful Bygdøy with my friend Marte and our babies recently. We walked around Bygdøy and had a pit stop at a cozy cafe called Hjemme hos svigers.

 

You don't always have to travel far to find exciting things to do. Now when we have small children we try to explore the more local areas where we live. Our family excursion last weekend was a trip to the urban district Stovner in Oslo to look at Stovnertårnet which is a new lookout tower. You walk along a wooden access ramp all the way to the top. It's not steep so children can walk on their own and you can easily bring a baby stroller or a wheelchair all the way to the top.

 

I'm so lucky that one of my best friends is on maternity leave at the same time as me. :-) Now we have plenty of time to meet each other every week and do things with our babies. This week the weather report looked very promising and we decided to go for a walk along the Akerselva river in Oslo. We started in Nydalen and walked along the river to the Operahouse, where the river meets the Oslofjord. It took us almost two hours to reach the fjord. A lovely walk in the beautiful weather. The sky was all blue, not a single cloud was visible!

 

From the Operahouse we continued over the floating bridge to Sørenga, a new residential area in Oslo. There we went to a coffeehouse to have lunch and feed the babies.

 

On the outskirts of Oslo you can find Hvervenbukta, a place well worth a visit. I went there last week with one of my friends and her baby daughter. I'm lucky that one of my friends is on maternity leave at the same time as me! Her daughter was born only four weeks before my little boy. Now we have lots of time to see each other, go for walks with our babies and discover new places. This time we walked around the bay Hvervenbukta and visited the cozy cafe; Anne på landet, where we had lunch.

 

Last Sunday we made a family trip to Fredrikstad and went for a walk in the woods. In Fredrikstad there is a trail in the woods with lots of wooden sculptures of Scandinavian animals. It's called Bjørneløypa, the Bear Trail. The trail is about 1 km long and suitable for children. Liam walked almost the whole trail by himself. It looked like he enjoyed it and he was very interested in the animals. He hugged them, patted them and even sat on top of some of them. It seemed like he was having a good time in the woods. :-)

 

Yesterday we had a cozy family trip to the little town Drøbak located by the Oslofjord. The weather was perfect and we spent a couple of hours strolling around in the old parts of the town. They have very good seafood in Drøbak and I had a fish soup for lunch. A perfect day!

 

Last week I was out with my colleagues on a summer dinner. This year the venue for our dinner was the lighthouse Dyna Fyr in the Oslofjord, just outside Bygdøy. We were picked up by boat at Aker Brygge and were transported to the lighthouse where a three course dinner was served.

 

Back in the old days the lighthouse-keeper was living at Dyna together with his family. They had a pretty limited space to move around on. :-)

 

I have been on a weekend trip with my friend Linda. We have a tradition to travel somewhere together every year, and this year our destination was Serbia, where we visited the capital Belgrade and the second largest city Novi Sad.

 

In Belgrade we started with a visit to Kalemegdan fortress where we walked around and enjoyed the nice view over the rivers Sava and Danube.

 

During Easter we spent a couple of days in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is a nice city for shopping, they have a lot of large shopping malls, but the only thing we bought was a T-shirt for Liam. We visited Emirates Palace where I had a cappuccino sprinkled with gold. We also tried the world's highest afternoon tea at Ethiad Towers. The view over the city was spectacular!

Liam and I have spent a week in northern Sweden together with his grandparents. We enjoyed a sunny winter week. One of the highlights was a trip out in the archipelago in Luleå. This time of the year the sea is frozen and you can actually drive your car out to some of the islands. We made a trip to the island Hindersön. There we went out for a walk and visited Jopikgården where we enjoyed fresh waffles.

 

I surprised my darling with a winter holiday in Alta for Christmas. Finally it was time to go there. Liam stayed with his grandparents and we boarded a flight that took us to Alta in northern Norway. We spent the first night in the city centre and visited the Northern Lights Cathedral.

 

The following day we went out on a snowmobile safari on Finnmarksvidda. We were out driving for a couple of hours and enjoyed the scenery. In the evening we had a fantastic dinner at Sorrisniva Icehotel, where we also spent the night. Tucked inside a warm sleeping bag I slept very well in the cold room.

 

 

I have not been active on my blog for quite a while... Now I felt that it was about time to start to post things again. I will start with some highlights from the previous months.

 

In November we celebrated Liam's 1st birthday. I had prepared a baby Mickey Mouse party for him and invited some friends and family. He was in a very good mood the whole day and seemed to enjoy his birthday party.

 

I had decorated our house for Halloween already last week since we were having friends over for dinner on Friday. We served pumpkin soup, pulled turkey with side dishes, carrot cake and meringue ghosts.

 

We live close to one of the largest lakes here in Norway, lake Øyeren. We are also lucky to have a boat so that we can explore the lake. This summer we made two boat trips on the lake and we were also hiking in the area a couple of times. The lake is popular for migratory birds and attracts bird watchers.