Happy New Year!

I'd like to wish all my knitting friends and blog friends a happy new year. A lot of bloggers do a re-cap of the previous year this time of year and I will do too but I'll leave that until we get home. In this post I'll share a bit more about our last few days in Norway. We are all packed and ready for a very, very early flight tomorrow. 7am!!  Fortunately my parents live very close to the airport and it's a tiny airport so we don't have to be there too early but we still have to leave by 5.30am! I'll be having an early night last night.

Last night we celebrated new years eve with my parents and my sister and her family. Her boys weren't going to last until midnight so we sent up the fireworks about 10pm-ish and then they left. The boys were very lively and enjoyed their last evening with their English cousins. Here's Simon and the girls while we were waiting for the fireworks:

We stayed up to watch the fireworks at midnight. I wish I could have captured it. In Norway most families send up their own fireworks so the display at midnight in populated areas is quite spectacular. We didn't get any fireworks of our own but enoyed all the neighbours fireworks. It went on for a quite a while too.

This morning we went for a walk down to the Oslo fjord. it was a lot warmer today, at around 0 degrees. WE'd all put too much clothes on and got hot. We took the 'sparks' and had a lot of fun. Someone (sorry I don't remember who now and don't have time to check the comments) asked how you stop when you use a spark, apart from driving it into a snow drift. You put your foot down on the ground or just put your heel down on the ground while your feet stay on the runners.

When we got down to the water today it was frozen and there were people out on the ice fishing:

I'm not sure how safe it is but Simon decided to give it a try, he didn't go far and the girls were not allowed on the ice.

This is an inlet off the Oslo Fjord and this is the view in towards the town on Son.

Yesterday we went shopping in a big shopping centre. We didn't really buy anything and didn't spend much time there. I thought there was a yarn shop there but it must have closed since last time I visited. We did find this interesting looking 'santas workshop though'. The girls thought the santas look a bit scary.

Afterwards we drove to the seaside town of Drøbak which is a beautiful little town. it was rather cold and windy and we walked down to the water and then back to the car.

We also popped in to the famous Christmas Shop which is full of Christmas decorations all year around. It's a wonderful place to visit. I took a few pics but only this one came out okay.

A few days ago we went to a local 'eco' farm with my sister and her family. We did a horse and sleigh ride:

Watched my sister and her boys skate on the duck pond. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get hold of skates for the girls. Very few places in Norway hire out skates as most people own their own.

My youngest nephew, Storm, is not yet 3 and this was only his second time on skates. He did need someone to hold on to but his brother, Sondre who is 6 is already a pro:

It did get cold watching the bosy on the ice so after a while we moved to the camp fire to warm up:

We also had a look at the pig pen and there were quite a few pigs there and Storm was extremley interested in them but I forgot to get my camera out.
I've done lots of knitting too. I've not finished as much as I'd hoped and I'm bringing quite a bit of knitting home with me untouched. I'll do a round up of what I did and didn't do when we get home. After the success of Emily's flip top gloves Vanessa wanted a pair but didn't like any of the sock yarn I'd brought so we popped into the local yarn shop a few days ago to choose some yarn for her. Once I got started we realised there wasn't much contrast between the colours she chose: stone, pale peach and pale lilac. I'd already done the ribs in stone and lilac and the plan was to do the hand and fingers in the peach and stone but we decided to swap the peach for a brighter colour. I did the whole hand and all the fingers on one glove and the hand and one finger onthe other glove last night and finished it off this morning. Vanessa also decided she wanted proper gloves instead of flip top gloves.

The pic makes them look a bit odd. Now Simon has asked me to knit him a pair of gloves too so when we get home he'll choose some yarn from my stash for his pair.

this evening I cast on for the one secret project I'd brought and forgotten about. It's in two halves and I'd hoped to finish it on the holiday. I'm not planning to finish part one onthe way home tomorrow (halfway though) and type up the pattern and do part 2 on Monday and Tuesday. It needs to be posted by Thursday but luckily it's a pretty small and quick project.

Have a wonderful 2011 and keep an eye on the blog over the next week for some special offers. Or even better, sign up to the newsletter to be the first to know about updates and special offers. See the sidebar.