2023: The Year of the Visitor

Our multi-visitor week in October was not the first or the last time we hosted visitors in 2023, which will go down in history as the best year of visitors ever.

Traveling with kids is no joke, so pro tip: host visitors to have the fun people and experiences come to you!

May: Thomas & Honor

I (foolishly) didn't do much blogging about our frequent, casual 4WD camping trips in Australia, but the few I did inevitably featured Thomas.

He was at our wedding, where he gave me the best wedding present I received, bar none, and possibly the best present I will ever receive in my entire life:

This business card that he actually gave to girls when he was in college!  I treasure this thing, literally.  I keep it with my kids birth certificates and if my house is ever on fire, this thing will be saved. 
 

Note I'm purposely not blurring out the number, because it's not his anymore, and I actively want people to call and plague the poor soul who currently has it.  After my wedding I drunkenly called the number and I'm hoping others will do the same, in search of this long-forgotten "International Playboy".  I die at the hilariousness of this! 

One girl did answer the call, his new wife Honor.  This work trip of his was timed just a few weeks after their wedding in Queensland, which we sadly missed out on. 

As is the norm for Thomas, his trip was short and sweet - 45 hours start to finish.  That boy would go through the Louvre at a dead sprint if he were going to visit, so we had to carefully curate our activities.

Gorging ourselves on top-notch Norwegian seafood was a top priority.  We cleared out the oceans while drinking wine and catching up on life in Australia.

We took the obligatory trip to Old Fredrikstad, where the guys got...creative...with the cannons:

No homo.  But mere seconds after this photo was taken, hilarity ensued.

Thomas slid off the back of the cannon and fell arse over tit (as we Aussies say) onto the ground.  It was so goddamn hilarious, and the photo really doesn't do his hilarious indignity justice.  Quite possibly the funniest thing that happened to me all year!

Where Thomas goes, funny antics follow.

July: Cath & Dan

Catherine and Uncle Dan are one of several sets of Baby Boomers who adopted us and Freya during our lives in Australia, especially during the pandemic when we were locked in Prison Australia. 

We visited them somewhat frequently in Australia, but as I mentioned earlier my blogging wasn't quite up to scratch in those carefree days of youth.  I also failed to blog, exactly one year prior, a visit by their actual niece Pia (with husband Ryan + two kids), due to my "delicate condition", mere weeks before I birthed Fiona (baby #2).

One thing I want the world to know is that I love hanging out with people my parents age, 70+ years old.  Their lifestyle precisely fits my desired lifestyle.  Midday naps!  British murder mysteries!  And most importantly, lots and lots and lots of Scrabble!

Catherine is the world's baddest bitch Scrabble player (note to Boomers whose lifestyle I aspire to have: that is a huge compliment).  She whoops my ass almost all of the time, especially on our near-constant Words with Friends games online, but despite my repeated defeat I still love playing with her, very much. 

We did pause our Scrabble games to go outdoors occasionally, this being the best month to be in Norway.  We met up with them at Frogner "nudie" park in Oslo, not for groping statue butts, but to attend the annual American 4th of July celebration that is held there. 

It's supposedly the largest 4th of July gathering outside of North America, but I'm skeptical of this claim.  I had never gone before and it was fun to be around so many of my people for the day, and bust out those adorable red, white and blue outfits!

Cath and Dan went off to the west coast to see proper Norwegian nature before returning to us, where we stayed at the seaside, conveniently located within driving distance of daycare, but just rural enough that you can drink in public without being arrested.

One evening at sunset, which in Norway in July is damn near midnight, Martin took our guests an hour inland for an amazing nature experience.

A moose safari!  Yes you heard that right.  A safari.  For moose!

I couldn't attend because somebody had to stay home with my damn wiener kids, so I entered my twentieth year visiting/living in Norway without ever having seen a moose.

And they saw like 25+!  A record number of sightings, according to the tour guide.  

The very first time I saw Fiona crawl in her entire life (at the ripe old age of 11 months) was towards Uncle Dan on this visit.

This is an early indication that I don't need to worry about the boys she goes after in the future.  She knows how to pick the quality ones!  Seriously, kid, keep up the good work.

December: Pieter & Erica

Our final visitors for the year rang in 2024 with us, and traveled the shortest distance of any of our visitors, from the Netherlands.

Pieter was an Edinburgh classmate of Martin's and is easily our most dedicated visitor/travel friend of anybody we know.  We have met up in Hong Kong, Brisbane, Barcelona, Mallorca, Istanbul and Bulgaria.  And that is to say nothing of the numerous dudes-only trips I was not a part of, or the many, many months he spent living with us in Brisbane when he'd travel for extended periods for work.  We have spent a lot of time with Pieter since meeting him back in 2010, and seeing all those visits typed out in one place is really quite incredible!

We picked them up at the airport and drove 2 hours away to a winter wonderland. 

Lillehammer, which you may remember from such Olympics as the 1994 Nancy Kerrigan vs. Tanya Harding feud.  I have such good memories of this time!  And am still salty, almost 30 years later, that Oksana Baiul won gold that year.

On the drive to Lillehammer I finally achieved a Norway bucket list.  I finally saw a moose!  

What I missed out on during the safari in July I made up for in a split second driving down the highway.  At first I thought they were cows, until my brain registered that cows wouldn't be in such a wild forest area.

I've seen that road sign hundreds of times, but no actual moose, and was starting to think they were mythical creatures like trolls.  It was a great way to kick off our visit, even if the excitement only lasted a fraction of a second and, as such, no photographic evidence exists.

Their daughter is almost exactly 1 month older than Fiona, so I hope they grow up to be the best of friends and attend many exotic destination weddings like we have enjoyed.

We spent our days doing what we could to entertain the kids.  This included a trip to the Maihaugen open air museum, where I got my first up-close experience with a Norwegian stave church:

This thing was built in the 1200's, which is over 800 years ago!  That is insane!

This place would be [much] better in the summer, I think, as I didn't really get a feel for what I was seeing or why it was interesting.

Plus pushing a pram in this level of snow was no walk in the park.  So thankfully right inside is the Norwegian Olympic Museum.

Yay!  Let the games begin!  

Expectation: I want to see a day-by-day timeline of the Kerrigan vs. Harding drama.  Hell, I want to see the crowbar!  And a bloodied ice skate!

Reality: Not so much as a wide shot photo of Kerrigan nor Harding.  Not a single word!  About the greatest sporting scandal of all time!  All around disappointment.

There were a limited number of bright spots, though, including a wall of Olympic torches:

Including the one from Berlin 1936 (far left, down low, silver).  

There were a small number of interesting installations at this museum, but I can assure you Norway's skiing uniforms in the 21st century are not in the top 500 most interesting things that could have been here.  Just give the people [me] what they want [the crowbar]!

As is our custom with friends traveling with kids, we segregated by gender and swapped going out one night with taking care of the kids.

One night you get steak and champagne out on the town, and the next you get to drink boxed wine in your darkened hotel room from a paper cup!  I find this system quite brilliant and I encourage everybody to try it out.

We then drove back to Oslo for New Years Eve, and a rocking wild party.

Traditional Norwegian cuisine, followed by fireworks on TV (and out the window) at midnight.  

We did get outside over the next few days to see what we could of Oslo, though it was no easy feat with two prams containing 18-month-olds, after the recent snow "storm" Oslo received:

We hung out at a lot of cafes - I love Norway for letting kids sleep in their pram outside unsupervized - and took in the Opera House, though in this weather it was nowhere near as spectacular as it was in October:

You couldn't even walk onto the roof this time of year. 

Generally our priority was to just hang out, catch up and bitch about parenting.  We didn't even make it to Vigeland Park to showcase the nude statues, but that's Ok.  Those nudie butts will be there next time.  

I am so grateful for all the visitors we had in 2023; it really was a banner year for visitors!

Six sets of visitors to our little slice of northern Europe.  Are they coming to see us or are they coming to see Norway?  I don't even care!  But we're so awesome I bet they're coming just to see us.