Lars

We have put an offer in on a place to live here in Norway! We have verbal acceptance and should have everything in writing tomorrow. We have been calling it Lars because it is located near a statue of a man named Lars - we had nicknames for our favorite places so we could easily remember and discuss them.

It is an apartment and it is less than half the size of our house. But it is a well-done floor plan with lots of light and - after seeing several Norwegian places - it feels quite large. We have two balconies and a large roof-top terrace so we can enjoy the Stavanger summers. The view is amazing. We were lucky enough to see it on a sunny day - when you can see across the harbor to the mountains.

And Stepler has a short walk to work! You can even see the top of the Marathon building from our terrace.

Pics later....it is a bit slow uploading them from this computer.

Cod

Cod, cod roe, cod liver and cod tounge. That's what I had for supper tonight in Norway. Mmmm. It was actually all pretty good. Never had fish liver or tounge before. Maybe living in Norway I'll have it again sometime, maybe. I do like roe though.

House hunting in Stavanger has turned into apartment hunting. But we've found some good options and we have narrowed it down to three. Tomorrow we go back to see two of them, on Thursday morning we'll see the third and later on Thursday make a decision. I think I could be happy in any of them. They both have their pros and cons. And I know - we have a list.

Before we left Houston we got our house on the market. A big relief to have that ready, photos taken, the sign in the front yard etc. A few people have even looked at it. Hopefully someone will make offer.

Rory is in Cairo. I miss her more than she misses me.

Coats

Buying a good winter coat is quite hard if you've never needed one until now, can't really go to a store to try one on and generally have a hard time making up your mind. Finally I found one that I think I like.  It should be here soon so we'll see.  

Buying a winter coat for Rory wasn't so hard.  I found a cute one on mega-sale and bought it for her in 18-24 months and 2T.  They came and I liked them even more when I saw that they actually had features that (I think) will keep her warm. She wasn't too keen on having her photo taken, but I still wanted to share!

making some progress

I'm feeling like we're (slowly) getting things crossed off the lists.

On Saturday morning we had a yard sale.  SO much stuff to sell.  And so much work to get ready.  We got rid of some things and made a good amount of money.  Unfortunately we had so much that we still have half a garage full of things to donate.  There are a few things that we'll attempt to sell on Craig's List.

This weekend we also had two different Realtors over to our house to take a look.  Now we wait for them to provide information to our relocation company so that we can pick which one will list the house.  We're hoping to get the house on the market prior to our advance trip to Stavanger....

And that's now scheduled.  Rory is going to stay with my parents in Cairo while we're there.  We'll fly to Tallahassee on Thursday, February 19th and then we leave for Stavanger on Friday arriving there on Saturday.  We'll have a week to see what we can see.  Then we pick up Rory and head back to Houston on Monday, March 2nd.  

Rory's passport arrived yesterday!  So she could go with us on the advance trip, but we'll get much more accomplished without her.  And I think Mom is really looking forward to having her visit.

On another note, I went for a 10+ mile run this morning.  My longest run in almost 2 years!  And I had a great time and felt pretty good.  Chris and I are getting ready to run the Austin Half Marathon on February 15th.