Summer, is here, and summer vacation close behind!

Spring took a long time coming, but when it did, it brought destruction and horrible weather for major parts of the country. We've been blessed to be spared here in Southern Minnesota (and I thank God he has not made me go through horrible storms yet as I am terrified of the American Storms!!). My prayers are with those people in the areas hit by tornadoes, flooding and any other disaster!

Like I said, it is finally warming up around here, and life sure is busy! I am looking forward to my first summer as a stay at home mom since 2000! And to make it even better, I am spending the whole summer in Norway with my family! The kiddos and I leave for Norway a week from Saturday, and will be there until August 30th! Kevin is staying back, dealing with house stuff, selling, buying, moving etc! We're hoping he can make it to Norway to visit us for at least a few weeks at some point during the summer. If he is unable though, at least there is Skype, FaceTime and many other ways for us to communicate.

My hope is that the kids will be able to learn more about the Norwegian culture, the family ties that are so important to me, learn to speak the language (which I really need to work on at home too!!) and just enjoy time with their cousins in Norway as well as make friends. Hopefully it will be the trip of a lifetime, with lots of time to just enjoy being a kid too!

Regardless of if Kevin is able to come visit or not, we sure will miss him! He feels bad I have to deal with the 4 kids by myself for the whole summer, but honestly, I am sure I will have an easier time there than here with all the family around, and all the stuff going on:)

The last few weeks (months) I have been packing up the house to prepare for moving into a new house. Kevin is a minimalist (less stuff = better) and rightly so, but I am afraid that if I left all the packing to him, he would make decisions to rid us of things I am not ready to get rid of:) Plus, if he has to move it all by his lonesome self, I don't want him to have to pack it all on top of that. There are days though, when I was thinking that I should just get a dumpster and toss it all out without even looking at it. Then that voice in my head started nagging me about "what if there is something important in there..."Yikes! Sure has taught me a lesson to get rid of junk as soon as it arrives (read junk mail and ads), pair down the things we have too many of (someone's trash is another person's treasure, right!), and also to label all boxes! It is very difficult to go through box after box marked with "misc":)

I am down to the last two rooms of packing though, and will leave the essentials as well as clothes for Kevin so that our house will look lived in:)

So, when my house packing ends, I will start packing our bags for the Norway trip! Need to go shopping for some essentials - butter scotch chips (can't get those in Norway, and Special K bars are a must at times!), baby gift for my lovely baby sister who is due in August (she better have that baby before I leave!), birthday gifts and other odds and ends.

I found, now that summer is here, that my summer clothes from last year are too big! Yay....or yikes! Not the time to have to go clothes shopping, but I am also excited to only be 5lbs away from my ultimate weight loss goal without really working at it. Seems like when you stop worrying about things, things take care of themselves! I decided to not think about weight loss until I was done nursing my peanut - Kaia - since I will have the rest of my life to stress about that, and voila! I have TONS of toning to do, but heck, I am just glad I did not have to go up any sizes in clothes the last three years with two pregnancies and nursing!

Anyway, rambling along, and no pictures to show for it, so I better get moving. Evenings are family time now that we're going to be apart for such a long time, and I want to make sure I am not cleaning or packing during that important time!

Ha det bra, alle sammen! (Have it good y'all!)