Ancestry

I am so inspired by the records kept by my Norwegian people. We got to study books of all the family farms in Norway and see this AMAZING family tree dating back to the 1500's.

Once landing in Trondheim, AnneBrit (Kate's namesake- Kailtin Annabritt Graham) and Kate were instant name twins.

It warmed my heart to be welcomed off the airplane with such loving, open arms.
We went from the airport to my family's home and had a delicious dinner. This is where the fun begins for me! I kept asking about how the meal was prepared and what types of food was a typical meal in Norway. Everyone spoke impeccable English, so talking was so smooth and easy. We were welcomed so kindly. It was when we compared our family trees after dinner that we realized our family relation went back quite a few generations, hahaha! We used 'cousins' but never the 'distant' part of the term when referring to each other, it was fabulous.
After dinner we had a special table set up with desserts. We were treated like royalty.

This is Einar's brother on the cover of the local newspaper celebrating his 95th birthday!

 We traveled around the country visiting all kinds of family. It was an amazing experience to meet everyone!

A cringe worthy anecdote in the middle of my Norway posts

Sooo... I can’t explain myself to the the person who’s been the victim to my erratic behavior. But something must be said. Seriously.
I work on the Film Festival operational team each year. I freaking love my job. LOVE it. I work with pretty spectacular people. Well, this year being a part of the festival was a great time to be too busy to think about the fire. I was running around like crazy getting work done and it felt so good. The ops team worked in conjunction with one another to get all the background stuff running to make the front of the house look pristine during the festival. Most of the people I worked with on this team were men. I endearingly called them my ops boys. Jimmy thought that was a little weird. However, it does not compare to the weirdness to ensue.
Because the film festival is so dear to me, I had total post festival withdrawal. One of the ops guys, whom I love so dearly, lives out of state and is going home soon. Because I wanted to see him before he left to say goodbye, I thought I'd get a couple of my boys together for dinner. Now, you all know me well enough to know that I am a doer. I get stuff done. And I am over the top. And I talk too much. And I am a little too bubbly for most people to handle. But you also know that I am sincere and love to make people happy. Well, imagine that you don't know me that well. Imagine that you are not immune to my shenanigans. Imagine that you only see me about 7 days out of 365 and those 7 days I am mostly professional. Now, my dear ones, imagine that you are a single man that mentioned that to me. And that I might get the idea to set up said man.
Trouble, folks.
This poor defenseless man didn't know what hit him. In fact I think he might have thought that I was the one HITTING on him. Gah!
So our conversation went something like this (now I paraphrase because the real words are just too embarrassing. Guys, I made a fool)
Me: So what kind of girl are you into?
Poor Defenseless Ops Boy: I'm into crazy- the good kind of crazy- chicks
M: Well, I'm already taken, hahaha! (I am an idiot)
PDOB: uhhhh... (nervous laughter)
M: I don't mean that- I was just kidding, I can find crazy.
and the conversation continued okay, until I chose to deliver on my promise.
The following day I proceeded to text this PDOB and pretty much scared the living daylights out of him. Why, you ask? Because I may have mentioned the words: stalker, creeper, intense etc., in reference to my awesome self. And then offered to bring him lunch (Because I was swinging by another friend's house and Jimmy's work to drop off lunch to them as well. But he didn't know that.)
And rather than cease and desist I kept texting....
because, you know, he needed to understand that I was just trying to help.
(insert face palm here)
Then, I was really good and stopped myself from continuing to dig my hole and actually consulted the level headed member of my marriage.
That's when Jimmy said, "Now don't freak out, but you kind of sound like the main character from that show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. You should probably apologize..."
So, the following day I decided to follow the advice of my level headed husband. But, I think I followed it too closely.
How my text read:
My husband said I sound like the crazy one from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and I should apologize to you... (then listed some great qualities of a dear friend of mine I'd like to set him up with. I KNOW GUYS. I need to stop the madness)
I sent the text. I.sent.the.text. !!!!!
I swear, the girl was PERFECT for him. I felt like I had a duty to true love.
But, oh my goodness, I am writing this and cringing.
So, I let the text marinate.
And then deleted it.
So, what's worse? Sending that awful text or sending it and then deleting it?
Jimmy came home to me sheepishly cuddled in bed and listening to T-Swift. Because that is honestly the only way I could deal. I showed Jimmy every single text I wrote (and I did not censor it like I did for this here post. My husband is a saint.) He first look horrified and then we just laughed hysterically. We decided I'm not allowed to text boys anymore.
You guys, I am not a creepy stalker. But that poor boy did not know what hit him. Rapid fire texts from a crazy lady may change his mind about what kind of girl he's looking for...

Getting to Norway

My mom called asking if she could buy a laptop for Kate for her birthday. Kate already has a laptop for school, so I suggested that maybe she plan an adventure instead. When I was thinking adventure, I had a drive around Napa in mind. My mom had other plans...

Kate got a ticket to Norway for a birthday gift and I decided to invite myself. Because if not an over enthusiastic and overbearing mother, what am I? How glad I was in the serendipitous decision. Purchasing tickets was almost as difficult as finding the right time to travel. But definitely not harder than acquiring passports. You guys, this was the pre-adventure. 

It takes months in Napa to wait for an appointment at the post office, so it is recommended one goes to another post office to get passports. To receive passports, one must also obtain passport photos. 

Because I am a cheapskate (strike that: frugal), we chose to go to Walmart for photos. Dude, mistake. We waited approximately 3 hours (1 in line, 2 in a corner by the passport photo backdrop). The two hours were abysmal. We had Vivy. Enough said, right? When we were nearing the end of our wait time, I ignored Vivy's antics hoping that the clerk would want us out so bad that they would speed up our service. That was a no go. All it did was make my passport photo sweaty. 

After getting photos taken, we went to the passport office in a dinky little post office up valley. Jimmy had to take the time off work and we had all the paperwork necessary. Because we were so well prepared, our family was abke to pop to the front of the line. Whilst in the office, the post master asked for our IDs. I smugly pulled out my wallet ready to deliver. Those unprepared people we cut in line had nothing on me! Except that maybe they remembered to take their ID out of the copier when preparing their needed documents. Because that is something I did not do... Gah!

Round two: we run up valley again. Jimmy has to take a day off work again. This time we have Vivy. This time we had all documents. This day, the post office had a sign on the door saying that no passports would be given because the postmaster was sick. Are you freaking kidding me?! Darn quaint little post office with two employees. 

So, we drove an hour to another neighboring town's post office. With my documents, with my license, with Vivy. We got to the post office right before closing and stood at the end of a veerrrry long line. But, stars aligned, folks. Because we were entirely prepared, again we got to cut to the front of the line. This time I was humble. Because we know what smug got me last time. The woman processing our paperwork talked so fast that I couldn't keep up. The first thing she did was discard of the photos we so painstakingly took at Walmart because they were done wrong. Niiiice.... but that was the only hiccup. After taking new photos, we were out of the post office in 15 minutes!!! 

That post office worker is hero status, people. 

We received our passports less than two weeks later and were ready to rumble. 

Our first flight into Oslo was uneventful. But late. So late that we ended up missing our connecting flight to Trondheim. We had to buy new tickets and board on a very small plane to make it to our final destination. A rainbow welcomed us to Trondheim as we disembarked off the back of the plane. It was magical. And that was the last day I called Atlas Peak my home. 

Just the beginning...

My trip to Norway and the wild fire that tragically took our home happened simultaneously. It seems that these two events sit on the opposite end of the world and my spectrum of experience. But because life is so achingly beautiful, these opposite events brought great peace by working in tandem in the fabric of my life.

I'm finally ready to write about it. I have been putting this off for over a month. Unfortunately, with the delay in writing, I am sure to have lost some of the most raw emotion and true feelings that came with this life changing time. It could be a bad thing. Or possibly good.

Here I am, sitting at a computer I do not own in a house that is not mine, wearing clothes I did not purchase. I spend my days confused mostly. I am constantly having to redirect myself while driving because my auto pilot still has our old address as the beacon. I ache. But that's not why I'm here. I'm here to tell you why I am not decimated. Why I still have hope. And to tell you about how amazing Norway was...