Happy Birthday Mom!

First, I wanted to make a shout out to my wonderful mother, on her 50th birthday today! Half way to 100 and you don't look a year older than 28 (as Anders said) ;) It was definitely good timing on the flowers--we're glad you liked them! We hope that you and John have a lovely weekend at the lakehouse! I love you!


Mom & I, last weekend in the US.

Now, here in Norway, "mørketida" has begun! Directly translated it means "the dark time". This is the time period when fall slowly morphs into winter and takes away with it the sun. We live in the southern part of the country, so it's not nearly as brutal as the more you venture towards the arctic circle, but you can still notice a drastic difference in the amount of sunlight there is through the duration of a day. Unlike in the summer where it seemed like the sun never set and was bright as could be at midnight, the sun sets around 5:30pm now! The sky also turns completely pitch black now at night, just like I remembered it always being back home in NH. In the morning the sun doesn't rise until after 8:30am now too, but lately it doesn't even seem like it rises at all, because of how cloudy and gloomy it has been! It definitely will be interesting to see how the weather will progress in the months to follow, because I have been told that it's only going to get worse, ha ha. After the start of the new year though, the days will slowly start getting a little longer until around the start of April when the sun will seem to be out all the time. It's definitely a phenomenon that is a little strange to get used to!

This weekend is Halloween weekend! Halloween isn't actually a traditional holiday here in Norway, but over the years Norwegians have adopted it as their own. How they celebrate it though isn't nearly as extreme as Americans do! There isn't any "trick or treating" but people of all ages still dress up. Anders and I are throwing a costume party at our new apartment Saturday night... I'm really looking forward to it! It should be a lot of fun! I'm planning on being a hippie and am pretty sure that I have gathered everything that I need to complete my outfit! I will definitely post pictures after the weekend so that everyone can have a good laugh :)

Also, I met with one of the trainers today at my gym where I've been going to for the past few months. I finally worked up the courage to ask him some tips on good knee exercises and was able to plan a session where he showed me several different ones. My knee still hurts, from time to time, even being 10 months post-op. Many of the exercises that I have from physical therapy before aren't very challenging for me anymore, so I need new ones. I learned some great new ones today that I will continue to use and develop. My muscles in my right leg aren't quite equivilant yet to my left leg, but I've been working hard to even them out. I think I still have some months of recovering left to do though before I'm back to where I was at before... or if I'll ever be able to get back to where I was at before.

That's all for now though... nothing new otherwise. Hope everyone has a great weekend and a little Halloween spirit! <3