Strawberry season

Well, I know I said the next post would probably be something about what we were doing with Jinni, but I couldn't resist posting this.

It is strawberry season in Norway, which means roadside stands with fresh strawberries and pretty good prices (about $4 a pound). We will often buy a pack and eat the whole thing in one sitting between the three of us. As you can see, Sidney really likes strawberries.

One of our new discoveries is to dip the strawberries in the Norwegian version of Nutella - called Nugatti. The Nugatti is creamier and has more chocolate flavor than Nutella. It also sticks to the strawberries when they are dipped. Very yummy.

The remainder of the weekend...

We finished out our celebration of Independence Day at the Marathon cabin - Marabu - my doing a walk, a hike, a little fishing, and a final pack-up and cleaning.

Just so you all could see what the cabin looks like, I am posting these two pictures. One is the cabin from the outside, and the other is a shot of the inside. The inside is nicely done with the natural wood throughout. Furnishings are simple but tasteful and functional, and you can tell it would be warm and cozy after a day of skiing with a fire going in the fireplace. While there are newer cabins in the area that have a few more features, Marabu serves well as a comfortable base for mountain activities year-round.


On the way to our hike on Saturday, we spotted a gentleman tending his "yard." (Actually, he was scything the grass on his roof.) We though you might like to see what 4th of July yard work looks like in Norway! I think he spotted us taking the picture and wondered what those crazy people were doing taking a picture of a guy cutting the grass on his roof.

We took a little walk around a golf course on the way up to our hike. There are some nice golf courses here, though the ones around where we live seem like they would be difficult to play due to the wind. The one in the mountains was a 9-hole course, and didn't look too bad, though a shot off the fairway would land your ball in some pretty thick blueberry and juniper scrub brush. You might also want to include a fly rod in your selection of clubs, as there were trout in the lakes the course surrounded.

We ate lunch at the Sirdal Mountain Hotel, and were pleased with the food. The presentation was nice, the portions generous, and the prices reasonable (by Norwegian standards.) I had mountain trout, Kimber had a burger (which was quite good) and Sidney had chicken nuggets. We understand that there is a very good lunch buffet during the tourist season as well.


The point of our hike on Saturday was to do a trail that Sidney was capable of doing herself. The hike was pretty flat, with the only difficult part coming at a stream crossing. There were two 2x10 boards laid across the stream, and apparently at one time there was also some sort of rope to hold on to as you cross. The rope was broken and the boards were just loosely laid across the stream (about a 12 foot span). The boards also flexed quite a bit when you stood on them. We decided to opt for the old trail crossing upstream a bit rather than try to fish Sidney out of the water. We crossed over on stones and boulders, and had to make a couple of hops to avoid going in the water. We also saw this little fellow at the crossing, which of course made Kimber happy.


When we got to the top of the hike, there was a cabin and a little pond Sidney could swim in, so we changed her into her suit and let her have fun. She played in the water for about an hour before we had to drag her shivering little body away. A bribery of chocolate covered raisins helped. She enjoyed the hike (which to her means hopping from one rock to another) and even asked to go hiking again soon.

We returned to our cabin and had a barbecued chicken dinner to celebrate the 4th, then I went fishing for a bit while the girls went to bed. I still didn't catch anything, but did have a couple of nibbles on my lures. I think the lake there would be better suited to fly fishing than rod and reel.

This morning we got up, packed and cleaned the cabin (part of the standard in Norway.) We left and came back home, stopping by the Candle Factory (mentioned in an earlier post) and a wool yarn and wool product outlet. We got home, unpacked and then went to pick up Jinni at the airport (our first visitor from the U.S.!) She is actually here to work for a couple of weeks, but it will be nice to visit and catch up on things with her. Our next post will probably include something about what we are doing with Jinni, so keep coming back, and invite your friends to look too!

Mountain Cabin

This weekend is our first visit to Marabu, the cabin owned by Marathon near Sirdal. The area is a popular ski destination during the winter, but is also nice for summer visits for hiking and sightseeing.

We left to come up here (I am writing this part-way through our visit) Wednesday afternoon after Kimber got off work. It was about a 1 1/2 hour drive, and the scenery was nice. The road we took is one that is closed often during the winter.

The cabin sits halfway up a hill looking down onto a lake. There is a ski lift going up the hill behind it, but the lift cannot be seen from the cabin. The actual square footage isn't very large, but it sleeps about 12 people comfortably, so our 3 people crew has plenty of room. There are 3 actual bedrooms, a loft, and a sleeping cubby in the living room. As with most cabins and huts in Norway, almost everything you need is here, minus food and linens. We will also be required to clean it prior to departure.

We started our visit with a cookout Wednesday night, then I tried a little fishing in the lake. The fish weren't biting, and I think the reason is that it is just too hot right now. Whereas we would not consider 80 "hot" at home, it is quite warm for Norway.


The heat didn't help much with our hike on Thursday either, but we did fine. We hiked Kjerag, which is probably the second most popular hike in our region. The hike takes you from a parking lot over three pretty good hills and to a place where there is a wonderful overlook of the Lysefjord. The spot is a popular location for BASE jumpers (those people that jump off of cliffs, buildings, antennae, etc. and parachute down). We saw several people going up for this.


It is also a popular location because at the culmination of the hike there is a boulder that is stuck in a crag between two cliffs and nothing under the boulder for 1000 meters (where the fjord is at the bottom.) Many people hop out onto the boulder and have their picture taken while they are standing on it. Kimber was brave enough to do this. I tend to have vertigo when close to the edge of long drops, so I didn't try it. Kimber assured me that the boulder isn't going anywhere, to which I responded "The boulder going somewhere isn't a problem. Me going somewhere is."


Sidney did her own version of the boulder, as you can see here. This rock was jammed in a crevice over a hole about 10 feet deep. Not quite the same as Kimber's, but not bad for a 3 1/2 year old. She did part of the hike herself on the way up, but not the steep rocky portions. We didn't have any falls this time, but the climbs were challenging and there were many places where you must depend on chains to go up or down.


There were also a few snow fields along the way. Sidney looked forward to the snow on the way up, but once she felt how slippery it was and how cold it was (especially with the weather being that warm in comparison), she decided the snow wasn't all that great. In this picture you can see under Kimber and Sidney that the snow is melting away pretty quickly, though the path to the top is across several of these fields.


This is out of order, but the drive up to the place the hike started was also quite nice. The road is along the mountains, and we saw our share of sheep and other such things along the way. It also looks pretty barren from the top, as seen in this picture. One thing we wondered about is how well the guardrail would work laying on the ground like that.


The drive back down was also pretty spectacular. We decided to drive down from the parking area to Lysebotn, the little town that sits at the very end of the fjord. The reason we wanted to go down was not necessarily to see the town, but we wanted to drive the road down the mountain. It is 7.5 kilometers (about 5 miles) down from the parking area to the town with an elevation change of over 2000 feet, and the road has a total of 27 switchbacks over that distance. It is quite a drive.

It was even more spectacular because we made the drive at the height of a thunderstorm. We had started to hear the thunder while finishing our hike, and had to think about whether it was really thunder, since it was the first time we had heard thunder here since our arrival in April. It steadily got closer, and we were pretty happy to be done with the hike before the rain came. Those steep descents would have been pretty tough on slick rocks.


The nice thing about the rain is that it creates some pretty cool waterfalls very quickly. This waterfall was not there when we passed this spot on the way up. It rained until just about the time we arrived back at the cabin, and by then it had cooled things off nicely.

We took it easy on Friday, visiting Sinnes and a few other little areas locally. We went to the Mountain Museum, which is not bad. The highlight of the visit there is a film displayed on a three screen, 180 degree panorama. The footage is shot from helicopters and other vehicles, and almost gives the sense of flying over the mountains and valleys. For those that have been to Disney World, it is like the Soarin' ride, except without the moving seats and smells pumped in.


The museum also features several old buildings that have been moved to the site and have either been restored or at least made to look like they did in the original location. The oldest is from about 1700, but as you can tell by the carvings in the wall of this summer farm house, many were used in the 1800's as well. Yes, the dates are from the 1800's and 1900's, and grafitti has been practiced as an art in Norway since at least then. Considering the amount of grafitti we see in Stavanger, I actually think it may have been a Viking invention and it is now perfected with the youth in Stavanger. Oh, one other thing we learned at the museum is that the ants here do bite. We were all wearing sandals and were walking on a path between the old buildings that the ants also favored. They apparently didn't like us walking there so much. Most of the rest of the walk was peppered with Sidney saying "Shoo, ants!"


After a lunch back at the cabin, we headed south to Tonstad. Along the way we stopped at this stone bridge that is over a large gorge, and at the site of an Iron Age burial ground. The burial ground was used from the 400's to about 800 A.D.


We did a little walking and driving in Tonstad, and found some local oxen. The calves were pretty cute, but you could tell they didn't like the warm weather. It also just so happened we found our first ripe blueberries of the season. We ate as many as we could find ripe, which was about a handful each. We plan on doing much more blueberry picking as the season develops.


We headed back to our cabin, via a couple of playgrounds along the way. Sidney has been a pretty good sport about all the hiking and deserved a little "4 year old" time. Once we did get back, I fired up the barbecue for dinner just in time for another thunderstorm. Being the die-hard barbeque-er (I have been known to grill during a snowstorm), I did not give up, and we had a nice little dinner of grilled sausages and other fixings. Sidney also took advantage of the rain and got a little wet. Hopefully her shoes will dry by tomorrow, as we would like to do another short hike.

You will all just have to keep reading to hear about the rest of our weekend!

Kimber's Helicopter and Survival Training

The much anticipated safety, helicopter, and survival training for Kimber has come and gone. The class was four days total. The first day was mostly regulations, procedures, and first aid instruction. So not much really to write about although they did a nice job teaching basic first aid. I was surprised at how few people in the class had no first aid training prior to the class. Over half the class had no first aid training. The other area covered during this day was proper selection of personal protective equipment like gloves, fall arrest gear, helmets, etc.

Day two was mostly about fire. Although I have been through several fire extinguisher training classes and even to fire school, I learned several new things in this class and had several important elements reinforced. We went through a very thorough exercise of discussing flash points, explosive limits and auto ignition temperatures. We also discussed the fire triangle and how various extinguishing media worked. After that was an exercise to choose the best extinguisher for various types of fire. Also was first aid practice as well as live fire extinguisher training. One item that was discussed was how to extinguish a person. Contrary to what you see in the movies, you don't beat them with a blanket of fabric, you gently lay the fabric over the person protecting their face and then gently rub out the flame. Although a frightening subject, a good one to cover properly. In addition, the exercise was a good example of the fire retardant clothing. The "dummy" was wearing fire resistant clothing and had been lit with ethanol many times but the clothing had minimal burn marks. Finally, we practiced first aid and used CO2, foam, and dry chemical extinguishers to put out fires. Overall the class was very well done. The only complaint is that we had to wear wool long underwear, then fire resistant overalls, wool socks, boots, fire resistant hood, hard hat, glasses and then fire resistant rain gear. Three rather heavy and hot layers. Now you might say it isn't warm in Norway, no big deal. Except it was 80 and we didn't even get wet. So I am not exactly sure what all the layers were about.


Day three is when the real fun began. This was introduction to the survival suit and the helicopter Houdini routine. First the suit. It comes in 6 sizes from extra small to extra large. The sizes run large so several of my closer to average size class mates wore extra small. So as you may imagine, extra small was a bit big for me. Maybe a foot too long and the boots were a size 38. I wear a 35 on a large foot day. So I couldn't keep the shoes on.


The suit is really quite novel other than the size issues. It is supposed to keep you warm in freezing water for 6 hours, keep you afloat, has a secondary life vest built in which I will talk more about in a second, has cuffs that seal around your hands and gloves that can go over those. It also has a spray shield that is clear and protects your face. It has a buddy line and location beacon as well as light. There is strap on the back that you can get dragged by. It seals (at least mostly) around your face. The only problem with these suits is that they have been worn hundreds of times so the seals don't work and we were all soaked. The suits issued when you actually fly should keep water out a little better. But even soaking wet with my boots full of water, I was quite buoyant.

So another feature of the suit is a rebreathing system. The concept may seem a bit odd when I describe it but it worked well for me. The idea is that you can rebreath your own air for up to a minute. You only use a small percent of the oxygen in the air you breathe (that is why CPR works in case you never thought about it). To fly, you are already wearing the suit but the hood isn't on or zipped. Then after you have ditched and you are going under water, you establish your rebreather. You put on a nose clip and then put the rebreather mouth piece in (like a snorkel or dive mask). Then you breath normally but your hand is on a valve that controls the rebreather. Right before you go under, you take a deep breath and close the valve. The mouth piece is connected to a plastic bag that you exhale into. After that you "breath normally" while making your Houdini escape from the ditched turning upside down helicopter in the cold North Sea. The rebreather should work for at least a minute. Now in theory you should be able to hold your breath for a while but it is nice to breath normally while everything else in your day is disintegrating. I also tried the hold your breath method once and will talk more about that in a minute also. After you surface and don't need the rebreather any more, you inflate the bag for extra flotation.

So the first exercise was to get in the pool and activate the rebreather. First I had problems getting in the pool. Couldn't sink. Too buoyant. Then once I could get about the correct level, couldn't touch the bottom. For all of you who are now falling out of your chair laughing, keep reading, it gets better. After you activate the rebreather, you have to put your face under water using the rebreather for about 20 seconds. Then you repeat upside down (standing on your head in the water), and finally you use it while pulling yourself across the pool along a rope. For the upside down part, I had to be held by my feet and held under water. Too buoyant. Also, after the first exercise I forgot to spit out the rebreather and just kept breathing. Eventually my fingers started to tingle and I got dizzy. Then I realized my problem and spat it out to breath normally. Lesson learned.

Next came 6 helicopter escapes. First time right side up with the rebreather and putting the windows out before you went under water. No problems really except I could barely reach the window, couldn't reach the front of the seat where you are supposed to hang on, and my feet don't touch the floor. Quit laughing. And too buoyant. As soon as I undo my seat belt I go straight up. The idea is that you are part way out the window before you undo the seat belt. That of course assumes you have no problems reaching the window, can hold onto the seat and you can use your legs. Then my boots got stuck under the seat because I wrapped my legs under since they didn't reach the floor. Oh well. I got out and it is good to know these things before you actually need them. Oh and all of this is happening with your eyes closed until you surface.

Second exercise is escape right side up but put the windows out after you are under water. The next two exercises are doing the first two over but you turn upside down once after putting the windows out and once before putting the windows out. You have to wait until you are completely upside down to put out the window and undo the seat belt. Boy it is hard to wait. I had trouble due to size and buoyancy on all the rounds but I did get better. They do a nice job of making it feel safe as each person has a diver right beside them monitoring the situation. Everyone pops up in less than 10 seconds.

The last two exercises of the day were without the rebreather. You hold your breath. The first right side up was OK. The upside down without the rebreather was awful. If you have ever snorkeled and dove down to get a closer look at something below you, you know the pressure. But there is no mask to protect your nose and no nose clip. I also have never mastered breathing out through my nose ever so slowly so as soon as we turned over and were 15 feet or so under water, my head was full of water and so painful I wished it would explode. Lets just say if we had done that first, I may have quit.


But mission accomplished on day three. On to day four. This day was spent in the suit but the first half of the day on land. Again very hot. We practiced donning the suit, helping each other out to get the gloves and hood on, and mustering life boats. There are numerous types of life boats with various mustering procedures. So it was good practice but it was very warm. The other exercise of the morning, and the one I am best suited for was going down the escape chute. You enter the suit and do a bit of a hula hoop dance to slide down. There are rings, each a meter apart with Kevlar mesh outside and running diagonally inside. Since I am little, it is rather easy for me to fit between the Kevlar and rings. The bigger guys actually have to work at it.


The afternoon was spent in the sea. We had to get in and out of a life raft, rescue someone, swim together past a large fan, and jump in from 2 meters. Finally, we had to climb up onto a capsized life raft and flip it over. The only problem with this is getting on the silly thing in the first place once you are soaked and tired. Then once you are on you stand up and lean back flipping the raft onto your head, then swim out from underneath.

All in all, the class was tough and I am glad I don't have to go back for 4 years. In some ways it was less fun than I thought it would be but in others it was a unique challenge and I am glad I completed it.

Beach Life on the North Sea

The weather has been fantastic this past week. Temperatures have been in the 70's (maybe 80's at times) and the sun has been shining. We are forecast to continue that trend for a few more days. Many locals have warned us to enjoy it while we can, as there is the possibility that we may "only get this one week of summer." Let's hope they are wrong.


As the weather has been good, we have spent a little time at the beach this week. Sidney and I went to the beach at Randaberg on Wednesday. This particular beach has a very nice stretch of sand and pleasant, gentle waves. It wasn't very crowded, but there were some entertaining aspects to the visit. If you look really closely in the center of this picture, you can see a horse. The kids that had the horse rode it to the beach, then swam (allowing the horse to swim as well), then went home with the horse in tow. There were also a lot of baby carriages and strollers on the beach. You must understand Norwegian strollers - these aren't the typical little mall shopping buggies you see back in the States. These things have fat, knobby tires and serious suspension. Add an engine to one and you might be able to compete in a Jeep competition. They also cost about as much as a small car!



Sidney enjoyed building sand castles and playing in the water. She was a little leery of the water, as there are jellyfish of various types in it, but she did get about waist deep. The water is pretty cool, but you get used to it (or at least your legs go numb and you don't feel anything after a while.)

Kimber also spent some time in the water this week, though hers was no "day at the beach." She had survival training for her offshore helicopter rides. She will post a separate entry about it later this week.

On Saturday, we took our bikes and went on the ferry to Kvitsoy, which is a small island in the bay leading out to sea from Stavanger. We originally intended to do this a few weeks ago, but I didn't check the ferry schedule and the ferries only run every three hours on Saturday to Kvitsoy. I didn't do a very good job checking it this time, and we arrived at the terminal an hour and a half early, so we rode around on our bikes a little to pass the time.

We met a friendly German couple on the ferry who are spending their holiday biking all over Norway. Their bikes were filly loaded with equipment, but they were just taking their time and enjoying themselves, so it didn't seem too bad. They have apparently done this in the States, Canada and other places in Europe as well.



Kvitsoy is a small, very quaint little island best known for its lighthouse and its seafood. Most of the best seafood sold in Stavanger apparently comes from Kvitsoy. We didn't sample any, as we had our normal picnic with us, but it might be worth a return trip. In this picture, you can see why it might be big business there - there are little channels everywhere. Actually, Kvitsoy is not just one bug island, but over 300 islands (many of them just big enough to throw a ball across - underhanded).




The lighthouse is also quite nice. I is a concrete structure built in the 1860's. The first picture shows the type of "lighthouse" it replaced. There was a very kind gentleman that gave us a tour and showed us all the inner workings of the light itself. It is exactly what one would think of when thinking of a lighthouse. It even had steep spiraling stairs leading to the top. When we left, the guide gave Sidney a cookie, which of course made the lighthouse her favorite part of the visit to Kvitsoy.


Kvitsoy also has a few other sites to see, but none as funny as this. There was a wedding going on at the church on the island, and this tandem bike was a wedding gift. Two lucky young members of the wedding party were volunteered to ride it down the hill from the church to the reception.



Another place we visited on the island is an ancient Viking/Christian site from the 11th century. There is a carved stone cross still standing at the site where an early church was. The cross is original to the site, and is quite impressive. Also impressive are the neighboring radio towers, which enable the BBC to send their shortwave broadcasts all over the world. They can be seen from the mainland, and are an easy way to identify the island on the horizon (though the lighthouse is a pretty nice beacon.)


We biked back to the ferry terminal after visiting the stone cross, and came across this sign along the way. Let's just say it would not be good if you didn't heed the warning.

After returning to the mainland, we made another visit to the beach at Randaberg, which is quickly becoming one of Sidney's favorite places to visit in Norway. She played just long enough to get completely covered in sand and for us to cool off in the water and relax while listening to the waves. Again, it was surprisingly not very crowded.

We came home, cooked sausages on the grill, and listened to a concert taking place just across the water at Vaulen Beach. One of the acts was Rick Astley, known for his song "Never Gonna Give You Up" from 1987. He sang it three times during his performance. I personally like his song "Cry for Help" better, and "Together Forever" is also memorable, but I only heard them once. There were also some Norwegian bands performing. Though I didn't recognize any of the names, I did recognize one of the songs one band played as being a jingle for a commercial here. It is actually a pretty catchy tune, though I don't understand the words.

Kimber will post later on the survival training (with pictures included!) so stay tuned!

Solstice and Father's Day

This past weekend included the Summer Solstice and Father's Day, and we celebrated in appropriate style. But first, I thought I would share a little of the smoked mackerel with you. This was the first batch. I liked them so much I decided to go ahead and smoke the rest of them later that afternoon. I shared some with Nicole, our apartment receptionist, and she wondered how we could possibly smoke fish in a seventh floor apartment. I explained the process of using wet mesquite wood chips close to the burner and placing the fish on the opposite side of the grill, and I think she understood. Either way, she liked the fish, as did I.


I also wanted to share a picture of Mommy and the Mummy. Sidney has had questions recently about mummies, so Kimber decided to wrap her in toilet paper so she could be a mummy. She was very cute. Additionally, it was interesting listening to her say, "Mummies live in a pyramid and they are really just dead people and they don't scare you." She actually was cued to the pyramid thing by me talking about the pier. I just can't imagine what goes on in that little head!









Now, on to Father's Day (sort of). Kimber gave me a surprise trip for Father's Day, but we celebrated on Saturday instead of Sunday, because of when she could get the reservations. It was a trip on a ferry out to and island just north of Stavanger where a family has planted an amazing garden. You may ask why an island with a garden is so fantastic, but you must remember how far north we live. This garden is filled with palms, olive trees, and several other things that "shouldn't grow here." Because of well-planned windbreak planting and the warm Gulf Stream, this garden thrives. Granted, many of the more tender plants are taken into town (by ferry) for the winter (the Japanese koi are also taken in, as there are mink that enjoy a nice meal of hibernating koi too much to leave them.) Here are several pictures to let you see just how beautiful and colorful the garden actually is:

In addition to a guided tour of the garden, the trip included a five course meal served in the on-site restaurant. The ingredients were local with many of the herbs being grown in the garden. The pasta, bread and butter were all made fresh in the kitchen, and the food was all fantastic. Kimber, who is not really a fan of fish soup, had to force herself to stop eating the cream-based fish stew that contained, cod, salmon, shrimp and halibut. Needless to say, we didn't need dinner Saturday night. Oh, and one more picture of Sidney for the grandparents -

We celebrated the "actual" Father's Day, which also happened to be the Summer Solstice, by going on a hike. We left relatively early and took the ferry across to Tau, then drove a little farther to a farm area called Nes. We set off from there on what the guidebook called "a good marked service road" over "undulating terrain" with a height variation of 550 meters over the 15 kilometers. Needless to say, it was a bit more difficult that that.

The trail was actually an old sheep-driving trail built in the early 1900's by Swedish "ruffians" to make getting sheep from one pasture to another and to market easier. If this was easier, I would have hated to see the old way. We did, however, meet some "fellow hikers" along the trail very early on. (This picture was from the lower and better par of the trail.) There is a rivalry between Norwegians and Swedes, and I think this trail may have been laid by a bunch of Swedes trying to exact some sort of revenge. As it happened, Kimber took a fall and got a badge of honor from this hike.
The hike did provide some beautiful scenery, as it ran along a river and lake the entire way. There were three waterfalls as well.



Interestingly, there were signs at several locations describing a little of the history of that particular site. Unfortunately, many of them told of stories of people that fell into the water while boating and drowned or went over the falls and drowned. I think there were at least ten deaths recorded on these signs. We also saw several people swimming in the water, which made me wonder if they actually read the signs before taking a dip. It also made me wonder how they could swim in water that was probably very cold. It was around 60 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, and I wore shorts and a t-shirt, but I had no burning desire to hop in one of those lakes, especially after seeing show still on some of the surrounding mountains.


There were a couple of other neat things along the way. One was this stone bridge that spanned the divide between the upper and lower Viglesdalvatnet (Vigles Dale Lake). The other was this little pool that contained tadpoles (we also saw a couple of frogs.) For those that have known Kimber for a long time, you may remember she used to really like frogs. She still thinks they are pretty cool, but doesn't collect "fog stuff" anymore. She was thrilled to see the tadpoles, though.

The hike turnaround was at a group of hikers' cabins ant the end of the lake. In Norway, you can join the Hiking Association, which allows you access to these cabins. They are all over the place along popular hiking trails, and they are really quite nice. Most do not have electricity or indoor plumbing, but they have propane stoves and wood burning stoves or fireplaces, decent beds with pillows and duvets (you need to bring your own covers and sheets) and pretty much everything else you need besides food. They are occupied on a first-come, first-serve basis, and you are responsible for leaving it at least as clean as you found it. It really isn't a bad deal if you are into the outdoors and want to do some overnight hiking and camping. Certainly better than a tend and sleeping bag!

Kimber has her helicopter survival training this week, so our next post will probably contain info about that. The training facility is actually within sight of our apartment, so it will be nice for her to be able to leave a little later and just walk over each morning.

Mmmm... yummy!

This was one of the desserts we made last night in the pastry class. It is a strawberry cake, and it was seriously decadent! It had a vanilla cream, fresh strawberries and sponge cake all layered. The other desserts were a chocolate fondant and a strawberry mousse. It was a very good class (or at least a very yummy one!)

And related to food, I caught seven large mackerel and one cod yesterday. I fished in the morning, and the fish were biting. The larger ones seemed to be prevalent yesterday. I would like to catch a few more of the cod, but the size of our freezer limits the catch size.