This has been a week with some rain and some sun but mostly nice weather. Temps around +20-25 Celcius degrees.

Im mostly gonna do just a short entry for this to sum up that Ive been quite busy on the hosting range. Sam still stays with me and I promised him he could stay for a while. I also hosted other people every day of the week.
On monday Judith Penu from USA stopped by. We met at the central station after I got out of work and did some touring Oslo and some shopping. We met up with Sam and headed over for Aker Brygge. It was a gorgeous sunny day though quite windy. Sam left us to wait at Aker Brygge and read in his book when we entered a souvenir store to do some shopping.
When done with the shopping and tax-free we went up to Akershus Festning to take a look of Oslo before going home and cooking pizza !!!! Yummy for the tummy !! Judith left early in the morning when Sam and I left for work.

After work on tuesday I met my friend Hilde at the National theater and we went to Aker brygge to Pascal restaurant and had a fantastic dinner there. It was really nice to see her again but when the rain started pooring we left each to ours.

On wednesday I hosted Elisabeth from Austria that is just settling in to Norway to start studying. Maida Hals came over to film us for her documentary on couchsurfing. We sat in the couch while we were filmed and it was quite funny cause Maida wanted us to be more at ease with each other and left the room.

On Thursday I hosted Fabio and Eva from Italy and they came in like a fresh wind. I was a bit busy packing for my trip to my dads place this weekend and making food but we still had time to sit down and enjoy some relaxed time together. Eva and Fabio brought some really nice cookies from Italy and a great wine and that was sweet of them.
Friday in the morning we all left at the same time and said good bye before we all rushed off in each our direction.

Weather was mainly nice, some shattered clouds and rainfalls. Temps around +20-25 Celcius degrees.

This weekend I finally got my ass down to where my dad lives.
It has been so long since i was there last. I think November last year. Thats hmm.. How many months? Like 8ish or even 9. Scary. Anyways. Little sister Linda celebrated her birthday and of course the big sisters had to join in for the party. Linda just turns 6 years and will become a schoolgirl during the few next weeks !!!

Linda was really happy for all her gifts and she is playing the little princess. Participants of the birthdayparty was both big-sisters, Christian, Grandmom Mathilde, Mom and Dad and of course Linda herself with 2 friends from kindergarden.

We had great food and a nice time. Good pasteries and good to meet the family again.
I got a ride with Ingrid and Christian from Oslo to Sannidal and back again.

Beautiful sunny weather and warm nice temperatures !!!

These two last days has been GREAT !! Nice, warm weather and LOTS of fun !
Actually so much fun that It has been 2 of the best days of summer according to my memory.
Amazing I remember so much at all. Hehehe. (NO COMMENT)

Monday
Amongst 34 people came for the Monday BBQ party where we had set ourselves up with volleyball nets and the traditional one-time bbqs on a huge area. We had lots of fun and the chat was pretty easygoing amongst all participants.
In early june I applied to become a CS ambassador for Oslo and I just got accepted but still did not get my flag. But Flavio announced the news to everyone that in a few weeks I would have my flag and the title as Oslo CS city Ambassador.

I had prepared for Sam and I to have Salmon for BBQ meal with aspargues and it tasted deliciously. We had enough beer too but when John fished up the lemon vodka from the sack the party grew really funny ! Thats when we started drinking straight from the bottle - and that on a monday - Youth nowadays !!!

I even made a bet with our finnish member of CS Oslo to drink him under the table. He thinks he can drink me under the table for being a Finn!!! Nah. Not this girl.

It was great to get to know Flavio as well. Since Oyvind and I am going to Rome in october and he is from Rome, perfect opportunity to get to know more Romans. F even says he will arrange a huge BBQ camp for us when we are going to be there and he will also try to help us finding a nice host ! YeAHHHHH

Tuesday
Party today was even wilder than yesterday and Im not so certain that I am particularly looking fwd for Rome camp any more. I have found that Flavio and Oyvind are a lethal combination when it comes to feeding me with licor. Hehehe. I have ended up even with BITE marks on my arm and I did bite back at least Bente, Oyvind and Flavio. It was self defense to avoid getting fed with the vodka bottle when I was held down. Nice.
Oh.. It started off way easier and we were even a few people less than last night.
We played games, BBQ was great and fantastic weather.

The evening soon became very fun as Oyvind brought the vodka today and in the beginning it was all calm and nice :) Then we had some funny picture posing and party spirit rose pretty fast. hehehe.
After some while most of the participants left to go home but a smaller crowd would stay behind and we did a pub-to-pub crawl that was very intimate and fun. I think it has been a LONG time sicne I have laughed so much. Sam was way tired at the end of the night, as we never intended to go home. Most people split after the visit at gamle majoren pub but I think I could have kept it going for a long long time still, but work duties were calling so Sam, Oyvind and I got a cab when Flavio, Carlo and Haavard headed towards their place.
This way Sam ended up sharing the living room with Oyvind. I think this party can definately be defined as one of the summers best parties !!!!

For some pictures: See Martins blog entry.

Most of the day was really nice but we had some clouds turning up towards the end of the day. Nice temperatures too. Around +23C.

Today was pretty hard at work. Yesterday was a hard turn on my health hehehe. But, I must admit I would not have been without it !
Fortunately I was called into a meeting today for the 3 first hours. This way I had and easy task to just pay attention to what was being said in the meetign instead of having to use my head too much.
That way most of the day passed with not problems at all dispite last nights heavy party.

Early morning today I invited Flavio and Carlo for a dinner party tonight. I also recieved Joy and Chen from China for CS hosting. They are the first honeymooner backpackers I ever heard of so I think it was kind of cool to offer them to stay at my house.

I spent a LONG time preparing food for the gang and we had Elg (Moose) meat and Roe-deer. The Elg came out a bit dry but the roe-deer is something of the most tender and soft Ive had for a long time. We had great wine, great accessoires and all in all I think everybody enjoyed a lot. I think I can guarantee they all overate. It was like a feeding frenzy where Sam after blamed me for feeding him too much like I was standing over him and forcing him to eat. Hehehe. As if.
But, it was a relaxing evening in company of good and new friends :)
I followed Flavio and Carlo to the train back to the city and prepared the room for Joy and Chen and we were all in bed before midnight. Good after so much parties.

The weekends weather was mostly the same. A little bit of sun some parts of the day, then rain, sun again and rain. Temps were good though :D About 25.

First thing in this entry:

I HAVE to CONGRATULATE DIONNE AND GREGG becoming the proud parents of little Zara Jayden Healy born on august 7. Best wishes for the little family.

This weekend I spent at my moms place and it was great to visit her place again. It was the first time since last year... Ouch.. I really should become better for these things. Family visits is not my strong side and the summer has been so full with activities. Still. Its great to be home once in a while.
We did lots of nice stuff. Went visiting friends of my mom and Tron, we went fishing at the ocean and I also worked 7 hours (my mom and Tron was at a party) to get a day off next week !

There was also time for tanning, relaxing in the sun, and sleeping and good chats. :D

One amazing thing about this trip was that the ocean was full of algaes. Noctilucaceae algea. That mainly means that they are nocturnal and that they glow in the dark. So at night when splashing around in the wather with your hands or feet or when the rain hit the ocean all of the sea was glowing all blue. It was amazing to look at. One of the nights was clear and I spent hours just looking at the sea.
Wave with Noctilucaceae algae
Wiki in glowing algae in the ocean

Thursday - As I had helped out with ordering canoes for the camp obviously I was in no shape of travelling alone on the train with the Canoes so Bente Brenna sent me Flavio with her car to help out.
We stopped in the store to get more beer as well and some other kind of stuff that Bente wanted us to pick up. Very few people had arrived yet to the camp area so we were all up at Bente and Påls house. They are both so hospitable and great.
Bente prepared us a fantastic meal and we had a great dinner with Amy (USA), Bente, Pål, Jessica (Australia), Flavio and Carlo (Italy). Great conversations, great talk and ots of fun.

Friday
To fall asleep so late as I did last night I woke up early and was met by some new arrivals, Liewe and Lien from The Netherlands. Bente, Amy, Jessica and Flavio left for the store and I sent with them a list of ingredients I needed for my planned baking-day.
I think I ended up baking for 6 hours. I baked chocolate chip cookies for 50 people (minimum), and my favourite chocolate cake as well. Flavio was running around and having fun being a macho-Flavio that was fun in the beginning but after working 6 hours in the kitchen baking and then starting on dinner.. I couldnt see the fun in it any more. A positive thing in it was that the cakes were appreciated so much that Dave propsed (you baked these? wanna marry me?) hahahaha. Though. Its pretty obvious he wasn't speaking seriously about it.
I think we arrived to be like 15 -16 people for dinner (not counting Jim and Shai that arrived piss drunk about 2:30 (they should have been in for dinner). Shai was obviously hungry and I was quite amused about how much she liked my chocolate cake. First trying it out with a small piece then she took this 1/5 size piece of cake and shuved it in her mouth with her hands. It was such an amazingly funny view that Flavio and I both started lauging and it wasnt even registered). And I made food for them all with of course some help from the others. Food ended up great although potates werent as well cooked as they could have been. We all had dinner outside on the veranda in the sunset and it was so great. A fantastic summernight.
The party was on again and we had lots of fun :D

Saturday
Very tired. I felt like I was starting to get sick and just wanted to sleep. Most of the morning I did. When Bente, Amy and Flavio went grocery shopping I went down to the cabin to the others and spent some time with the chatters and came to the sense that I wanted to be alone and relax a bit and found a book in a shelf that I brought down to the sea. I spent about 2 good hours on the dock mainly watching the waves passing by under me and listening to the waves crashing towards the bare rock-face. You know, those nice summery waves that comes from a tiny bit of wind and lots of boats passing by on a sunny day.
Martina and Dave joined me after a while and I got to know them better as well. Relaxing company but also fun and enjoyable :D All in all I spent like 4 hours down there and they did me good. I felt like all the last weeks work stress just dissappeared. Though not that it was a lot of stress though but some. I felt - by far - as sociable any more and allowed myself a break from kitchen duties today :D. Bente prepared an awesome meal for us that tasted absolutely fantastic.It was enjoyed with wine and beer and everybody enjoyed their time.
Party went on. Lots of fun. During the day Shai had corrected the really bad first impression she had made and she proved to be really nice.
Since it was Flavios last night in Norway his friend Haavard came down with his cousin and even Oyvind came down for the fun of it :D It was quite lively in the cabins :D
Suddenly the whole group wanted to go skinnydipping. That was great fun but also very interesting case the water was full of fluorescent algae and it was blue all around us when swimming. At 4 am Martina and Me took Flavio and Carlo to the airport shuttle and said good bye. After that it was finally time to go to bed.

Sunday
I slept in and that was great. When I did wake up I went with Liewe and Lien picking mushrooms in the forest behind Bente and Påls house and we lost each other. Its a good thing my inbuildt compass works but I arrived long after the two others. I got checked for ticks and immediately took a shower to get rid of any possibilities that the others had missed.
The mushrooms we cought was gonna be used for dinner later that night. It was a lot of fun during the whole day. Mostly relaxing in the sun and by the sea but also shotting rum in the kitchen watching the others making food. I made waffles for the guys while Dave and I was shotting but they still tasted great. Dinner was delicious like all days (Bente is a fantastic cook) but after dinner Øyvind and I had to pack our stuff and be out of there to go home and prepare for work tomorrow. I forgot my suitcase at Bentes. Probably not the smartest idea :D
Oh well. Not much to do about it and I will go down there next weekend anyways.
What a fantastic weekend !

Monday.
This week has been kind of hard for me. On monday I had to bring one of my cats to the vet and put him to sleep. It was a hard decicion for me and It took me almost 2,5 years to manage to do it. He was the sweetest cat ever (when he didnt pee on the floor 3 places in one day) and he was so wonderfully special in his personality (in the mornings he would hop up in my bed and rub his head on mine and walk on me to show it was time to get up - He would also have this really royal way of posing when he was resting putting one paw over the other and his head held high in this overly eminent way). But many tears have been shed in frustration about why he pees, how to avoid smell and how to not ruin this and this and being careful about where I leave stuff on my floor. It was too much in the end. I even tried giving him a new home (the new owners were aware of his problem) before taking the final decicion to see wheter it was beause he didnt like my house, me, if he was lonely or if this was a problem with him. In the beginning all was ok in the new house but suddenly he started peing on the floor there too. And after he severalt times increased numbers of times on how often he peed on their floors, clothes and even bed we decided to put him to sleep. We went to the vets together too. Sam was great. He cooked for me today as I felt really really crappy.

On Tuesday I felt even more crappy and really sad. I left work after 2 hours and went home to sleep the rest of the day.

By tuesday I had cought a flu and stayed home feeling sorry for myself but ... on saturday I was finally better and back to Hvitsten at Bentes house to be with the CS group there. I went with Martin and Sam came after when he got off work. Ricard, Celine, Jon, and a couple of other OSLO CSers were already there. And many of the guys from last weekend !! LIke Cat, Jim and Shai. Some were new from the group last weekend like Susanne, James, Per, Barry and Erin. But, we had lots of fun no matter what. I did miss to have Flavio there though :D

Nice sunny weather. Some clouds. Cold weather but we could sit outside for parts of the arrangement.

I got up early and cooked some stuff for breakfast for Susanne and Sam (my two CSers for the week) and then we even had chocolate cake for breakfast before taking off to work.

Friends and family kept on calling me to pass on birthdaywishes all day and It was great to get so much attention :D

After work I walked to Asylet and met all my CS friends and several of my other friends there. Like John, Jorun and even my sister and brother in-law Christian showed up with gifts !!!
All in all about 45 people showed up and it was such a great ambient at the place. They all had fooled me into believeing they had all forgotten about my birthday even though. Im pretty good at announcing this. They had lots of fun with my dissapointment for them not remembering the day. So, in the end, Ricard asked me to join him for a cigarette (no smoking allowed indoor in Norway) and when we got back they all had party hats, fleutes and even cake with my name on it :D
This was a great surprise and Celine was the master mind behind it. It was great. I was very very happy to have them around me.
I went home with Sam and Susanne. Sam has stayed with me for 4 weeks and is already a part of the daily routine. Susanne I have met many times before and she is a really really easy guest to have in the house. I had such a great day !!!!

View pictures from the party in Martins blog