July 19, 2025
Another travel day so we were up and packing like normal but no pending laundry issues at all this time. No dryer in the apartment either!
Lenny said goodbye to his submarine Lego during breakfast as it is going home with Meme and Papa. Our flight wasn’t till noon and the airport was only 30 minutes away so we were packed up early enough that Kayleen and I went for a walk to get coffee. Our neighborhood in Copenhagen was sleepy till the very end with us seeing almost no other people on our last walk.
Jim and I lugged the suitcases down the four flights of stairs, easier down than up but still no easy task. Everyone loaded in the van and we were off to the airport. After another robot bag check machine, this one was easier than the last, we made our way to our gate where we said goodbye to Meme and Papa. See you for Christmas in Hawaii!
Our flight was quick to Bergen, only 1.5 hours, but before we left we found out all our friends that are meeting us there had some issues with their flight from JFK. Their first flight was delayed from JFK to Reykjavík so the window to make their connection was very tight. When we landed in Bergen we got the messages telling us they made it after a full sprint through the Reykjavík airport. Their bags made it too!
We grabbed our rental car and headed to a grocery store to get food for the house. Our car is electric, like most cars in Norway, so took some getting used to but we made it without issue to the grocery store and then our house. The boys were excited to see their friends as soon as we pulled in the driveway and suffered a let down when we told them we were the first ones here.
Fortunately within an hour of us arriving the rest of the crew showed up. It was great to see everyone and they all pushed through their jet lag to take full advantage of our first evening. We had pizza and salad for dinner as the kids bounced back and forth between eating and the trampoline. While we were cleaning up and getting ready to walk down to a little rocky beach I heard Ollie tell Connor, “Connor, to be honest it’s really nice to see you.”
After the kids were told to end their game of spitting water at each other we headed down to the beach. It was rocky but I was dying to get in the water. I wadded in and then went back to carry Lenny in with me. The water was cool but warm enough with the evening sun that we could stay in as long as we wanted without feeling cold.
The boys were happy to throw rocks into the water while everyone else hunted for different sea creatures. There were some horse flies that started to bite us so we decided to move on. The jet lag got to Roy and Lindsey who headed home but I convinced the rest of the group to walk down the road to the boat.
We drove around on the boat and quickly realized how deep the water was everywhere. 10 feet from the shore the water was 25 feet deep and when we drove to the middle of one of the fjords it was over 200 feet deep. We had to jump in and Chris was the first to take the plunge, followed by the rest of the adults. I tossed Lenny in against his will but he quickly got over it as he jumped in again shortly after on his own.
The water was saltier than we had expected, similar to when we swam in the Mediterranean. We all expected it to feel like a polar plunge but the water felt great even at 8PM as the warm sun says out till 10:45PM.
We headed back home where the kids had dessert, ice cream cones, and jumped on the trampoline until we called them in for bedtime. What a great end to an exciting day for a kid.
