from across the Atlantic…

So this week I’m not posting a favorite thing…I’ve been far to busy with the folks being in town!

We’ve been up to the mountains and to Sweden since the last time I posted!  And we’ve taken a TON of pictures since then too!

I’ll use some time tomorrow or this weekend to get some more pictures up…so you’ll see some soon!

Have to run!  More fun in store!

Having soooooo much fun with mom and pappa in town…but just to darn’d busy to write!

Here’s the quick sum up:

Wednesday the 20th - they got into town and we headed home for dinner and catching up.

Thursday the 21st - (Lars worked) we walked down to Drøbak center…walked around the shops…met Sissel for a coffee…headed home and met Lars for dinner.

Friday the 22nd - (Lars worked) rained in the am.  Went to Ski Storsenter to shop.  Sun when we came out.  To Drøbak City for more shopping…a fantastic seafood dinner at Sissels.

Saturday the 23rd - Sunny!  Down to Drøbak center for more shopping…bought shimp…out on the boat for 3 hours or sun and fun…home again for dinner…Mette came over…to bed early!
shrimp man
mom and me
mom and pappa

Sunday the 24th - SUPER sunny!  Golfing at 0948…Mette met us on hole 14…lunch at the course…now resting!
mom and pappa, me and lars
mom and sissel
mom and pappa, mette and lars
mom and pappa
lunch on the course

Phew…thats the quick catch up!

Here’s the pics I promised of our place…

master bedroom

kitchen 1, kitchen 2, kitchen 3

fireplace/living room

living room

SUPER DUPER new drawers in my kitchen cabinets

Check out how "scar-ily" accurate this horoscope is for me with all my fixing up at home and my parents arriving today.  FREAKY…but I LOVE IT!

Your horoscope for August 20, 2008

Ideas for making your home more beautiful could be filling your mind today, Marit. Perhaps you are expecting a well-loved visitor, and want the place to look great for him or her. You could be looking at new posters, pictures, or other art objects, and a number of short trips in your near neighborhood are strongly indicated. Don’t waste time trying to decide between things, however. Your sense of aesthetics is very high today, so follow your heart!

So…I’m at my last day of work before some much needed va-cay!

Hubby is picking me up at 1400, so we can be up at the airport by the time that mom and pappa land!  I am soooooo excited, I can hardly stand it!  I have a TON to get done at work today, but having a hard time concentrating!  Its been 5 years since they’ve been here!  Not so long ago since we saw them though, considering we were home for Christmas, but still…I just can’t wait to see them!

We finished all the work we wanted to get done on the apartment last night at 2130…not the most glamorous Birthday celebrating for Lars…but I did make a fantastic dinner.  I made macadamia nut encrusted cod…baked.  HEAVEN!  And then his dad came over (amidst our cleaning) and the boys had cake…then we went to his moms (where we’ve been sleeping due to wet paint in the bathroom, no showering) and they had cake there too.  So his parents really covered for me!

I managed to take some pics of the apartment too…so I’ll try to post those before too long.  I’m sure that you’ll see a bunch before too long…as I’ll also post from all the fun stuff my parents and I are up to! 

Just keep your fingers crossed for nice weather for us…we’re going to need it!

Might not post for a couple of days while everyone is "settling in", but I’ll see what I can do!  Going to try my best to get pics up ASAP!

(posting this today, just in case I don’t get to posting for the first couple of days that my parents are here!  FUN!)

This weeks favorite thing is Skagen watches, from Denmark.

I have this one and have been absolutely thrilled with it since day 1!  I wasn’t sure that I’d like the look or the feel of the mesh bands…but its fantastic, and I think it gives my watch such a unique look.  Another plus about the mesh band is that my arm hairs don’t get pinched in it!  Ha, ha!  I also love the mother of pearl face (I bought the one with the pink hue) and tiny diamonds…And I so love that its called "mesh with glam"!

Check out their site as they have soooooo many chioces for both men and women.

Lots of great gift ideas, and I’ve totally ordered from their site with no problems.  I ordered this beautiful pocket watch for my brother to give to him as his best man’s gift (before our wedding)…unfortunately Skagen no longer has it in stock, and I seriously hope that its something that they sell again soon.  I thought it was the perfect gift idea.  There is a fantastic Skagen emblem engraved on the cover, which gives it a really nice look.  

Happy Birthday to my handsome Hubby today…I am so lucky to have him in my life, and I will be celebrating him all day today! 

And BFF, Jessica is having her baby today…on a day that I’ll naturally never forget!  Little Colin John Enger will be born today!  I’m just waiting for the news and the first picture!  I can’t wait!

An exciting day, today…thats for sure!

Update, Message from Ø: "Made in Norway, born in the US.  Colin John Enger came into the world the 19th of August kl 1822.  3455gr, 50.8 cm.  Everything is wonderful with mother and baby."

No blogging for me lately…

waaaaay too busy getting things ready around the house…and trying to wrap things up at work too!

I’ll blog and post pics sometime after our visitors are here!

This weeks favorite thing is a little something special that I have in my bathroom cabinet…Hérve Léger Eau de Parfum Spray, available from Nordstrom.

This perfume just seems made for me.  I absolutely adore the scent, and I feel like when I wear it, it just melts into my skin.  It feels so natural on, almost like I’m not even wearing a scent…I could never imagine a more natural feeling and smelling perfume.

But the thing that makes this such a special perfume for me is the way that I got introduced to it.  I went into Nordstrom several years ago and was browsing the perfume deparment…not sure what I was looking for.  A saleswoman approached me and asked if she could help me, and I began to ramble on that I was looking for a great perfume that I could use for every day.  I didn’t want anything too heavy, nothing to strong smelling.  She told me that if I gave her the names of some scents that I’d used before, that she could then get an idea of what I was looking for.  I told her that I had previously worn Clinique’s "Happy" and Estee Lauder’s "Pleasures".  She thought about it for a second, and then she said "I think I have the perfect fragrance for you".  So she led me to the Hérve Léger section, and from the second I smelled it, I was sold. 

And I get sooooooooo many compliments when I’m wearing this fragrance.  I can’t even tell you how many perfect strangers have approached me and asked me what I was wearing!  And I’m always tickeled pink!

Here is a write up of another pages summary of the perfume: "this perfume is inspired by the captivating cinderella flower, which does not open until nightfall.  This exceptional flower is mingled with the rare purple orchid, these two sensual flowers create the heart of this fragrance.  A fusion of heliotrope, vanilla and sandalwood provide a delicate, woody base.  French sculptor Serge Mansau designed the bottle, which echoes the curves of a woman’s body."

I know that sounds very girlie, but its not…its very subtle, and very sandalwood in my taste.

Here are the products that Nordstrom has available from the Hérve Léger line…they have great creams and body washes…yummy!

Soooooooooooo…movie review time…

Went and saw Sex in the City last night with Andrea.  I loved the HBO series and was really looking forward to seeing the movie…and to see if all the hype measured up to my expectations.

I have to say, I am very split on what I think.  I liked the movie, but the more I think about it I was really disappointed at the same time…and the more that time passes, the more disappointed I feel.  Its a happy-go-lucky movie, with lots of fun scenes, clothes, and characters…and definitely a great movie for girls night out.  But when comparing the movie characters to those from the series, I felt almost like they were completely different people.

The gay guys (Standford and Anthony) - These two couldn’t stand each other when someone tried to set them up on a date in the series, but now they’re friends and even kissed on new years?

The assistant (Louise) -  I didn’t really understand why her character was in the movie at all…to bring Carrie "back to life"?  The entire character could have been dropped from the movie and it wouldn’t have made a difference for me.

Charlotte - I felt like Charlotte was hardly even a relevant character in the movie!  It didn’t seem like she had half as much story line as the other girls.  And I thought her pregnancy would have been "more" of the movie.  The movie was half over before she was pregnant…and then in the next scene she was giving birth!  And they were always showing her little girl (Lilly) "hanging out" with the girls…which I don’t think is realistic.  She probably would have gotten a sitter when all the girls were going to Carrie’s to drink champagne and go through her clothes…and again for the girls night before Carrie’s wedding.  PLUS, the girl hardly said peep throughout the entire movie.

Samantha - Living in California?!  I don’t think Samantha ever would have moved from New York.  Plus, I thought it was sooooo obvious that they would make Samantha go back to her "slutty" ways.  There was really nothing else to do with her character at the end of the series.  PS, Samantha totally would have slept with the hottie neighbor post-breakup…maybe even pre-breakup!

Miranda - She was a big character in the movie…I think the biggest character after Carrie.  She made a HUGE thing about the affair, so I had a really hard time accepting that she would take Steve back, just like that.  They met on the bridge and then she was sooooo happy he was there.  Of course he was going to be there…he was the one who had the affair and was begging to have her back!  I understand that he was happy…but I think she was a little to eager to get back together with a guy that cheated on her 6 months ago.  Especially when she was coming to terms with the fact that she deep down resented him a bit for changing who she was as a person.  I thought they should have gone a little deeper into that.  Plus…I thought that was a seriously crude sex scene at the end…didn’t think that that did anything for the movie or the story line.

Carrie (and Big) - I guess I was most surprised with Carrie and Big.  I don’t think that these 2 would ever get married…to much bad history, and not in either of their natures based on what we learned about them in the series.  Realistically if Carrie brought up marriage in the kitchen over dinner…I think Big would have blown it off.  I thought that it might turn out believeable at the end when they were lying on the closet floor wondering why they even even considered getting married….but then big proposed again?!  LAME!  I think it would have been 100 times better if he didn’t, and they just stayed together…unmarried.  Plus, the engagement with the shoe at the end was just way over the top.  And I think they should have kept the apartment…which was another kind of unnecessary storyline in the movie.  PS, Carrie SLEEPS in a long pearl necklace?!?!

I was pretty much just turned off by the fact that it was like they took at the characters from the HBO series and turned them into the polar opposites of who they were and what they were doing in the series season finale.  I mean, what else did they have to write about if they didn’t do that?  It just made the movie story lines a little too obvious for my taste.

Another thing is that all in all, I feel like there were a lot of "props" in the movie…the apartment, the assistant, the daughter, the sexy neighbor…Samantha’s dog…lots of story lines that didn’t even get tapped into, so they weren’t really entertwined in the story at all.  Bizarre…it left me feeling like the movie was very incomplete.

I had quite the treat when I picked up the mail yesterday!

I got some ultrasound pictures in a card from Whidbey…little Baby-Bentsen/Collins is beautiful, strong and kicking!  It was so much fun to see peanut’s little face…and fingers…and toes!  I totally cried when I saw them!

I’m soooooo excited to be "Auntie Mar" and can’t wait to meet peanut in person in January!  I’m planning on taking a trip state-side mid- to end-january, for baby’s big debut!  Oh, the fun we’ll have!  I’ll be bringing a carry on with my things, and 2 suitcases of goodies for baby!

Here’s the 1st pics of peanut at 16 weeks, 4 days!
Happy Feet
Peanut’s Profile

So tonight Andrea and I are going to see Sex in the City…FINALLY!  I really can’t believe that its taken me this long to see it…and I just can’t wait!  Andrea’s being a great sport, given the fact that she’s already seen it…but she said its definitely one she could see again!

So we’re meeting up post-work and grabbing some
dinner…and then "shopping" our way (to use Andrea’s words) from National Theatre to Majorstua, where we’re catching the flick.  I know of a detox-friendly place to grab dinner…so it’ll be really nice to eat out!  Detoxing is great…but sometimes its just nice to not have to fix dinner!  I’m sick and tired of washing spinach!  Ha, ha, ha!

I’ll write more tomorrow about the movie!  FUN! 

Last night Lars and I cleaned out our shed.  Man, talk about stuff I hadn’t seen in awhile!  So we loaded up the car with old treasures from the shed combined with leftovers from the apartment clean-out this weekend…and we headed to the recycling center!

We’re actually super lucky because there is a great place just 20 minutes from Drøbak that is open every evening and you can dump for FREE!  What a dream!

Anyway, you should have seen all the stuff we had to toss!  And all the stuff everyone else was tossing!  There were sofas, old tvs, beach chairs…and plenty other discarded goodies in those recycling bins.  Part of me was sad to see how much eveyone was throwing away…it made me realize just how good everyone (including me) has it in Norway.  We’re just so lucky.  We have so much of what we need that we just throw away things that are perfectly funtional and buy new…I hadn’t thought much about it until I saw how many "nice" pieces of furniture people were throwing away.

But at the same time I couldn’t feel too sad and guilty because it just felt so good to get rid of all the stuff that we haven’t even used since we moved into our apartment 3 years ago!  That was my rule to Lars when we were cleaning…if we haven’t used it since we moved it, its definitely going!  He tends to want to hang onto things for some reason.  For example an old mix master that smells like its on fire when I plug it in…I don’t know why, but he just didn’t want to let it go.  We comprimised.  He got to keep a firewood holder-basket-thingy (that we also don’t use, and is just sitting out in the shed) and I go to throw away the broken mix master.  Whatever, I can live with that.  Who knows when we might need 2 buckets of wood in the livingroom at once!  Ha, ha, ha!

My highlight from the recycling center visit was throwing my old flower pots in the ceramic bins…it was like a ceremony for me, as they were one of the last things that I threw out.  I used all my energy to throw them in as far as I could…one at a time…and listened to each of them shatter into a thousand pieces.  It was was a fantastic feeling and was a perfect companion to the weight off my shoulders after getting rid of so much unused stuff.

Your horoscope for August 12, 2008

The idea of expressing yourself will seem like a joke to you today, Marit. Everyone is asked to "express" themselves these days, but have you ever stopped to question what this really means? This is the ideal time for you to think about this, especially if you have artistic objectives. Do only what you want to do. Don’t force anything. Or, in other words, "express yourself" for your own sake, not for the sake of others.

What a refreshing horoscope!  Something for me to keep in mind today…and from time to time in the future.