big week

Last week was a big week for us, with lots going on for everyone.

waiting for pre-school to start

Rory's first day of pre-school (and if you call it school she will quickly remind you it is pre-school) was Monday, August 23rd.  She was excited and ready to go.  After walking down the hall to her classroom she was happy to see her new peg is marked with a ladybug name tag.  She went right on into her classroom without hesitation and settled, once again, at the play dough table.  When she got settled in, I told her good-bye and she puckered up for a kiss and gave me a wave.

she loves the play dough table

After dropping Rory off at school I picked up Stepler to take him to his driving test.  He passed!  We are now both licensed to drive in Norway.  It's a big relief for us to be finished with that as the whole process is lengthy and rather expensive.

We both went to pick up Rory at school and I think that threw her off a little bit.  She was certainly not ready to leave!  All the other children were running out of the classroom and Rory wanted to stay behind.  We finally got her to leave without too much fuss.

Rory got to blow out a candle too!

Thursday was Stepler's birthday!  We started the day with his birthday present and blueberry cobbler (kind of like when we were on vacation!).  When he got home from work we had pizza and cupcakes.  He chose golden cake with chocolate fudge frosting.  They were delicious, if I do say so myself.  A little later we had some of his co-workers over for drinks and fireworks.  A big conference was in town and ended on Thursday with fireworks!  We had a great view of the show from our roof-top terrace.  The weather cleared for us and we were able to enjoy the night outside.  Everyone needed their jackets though.

On Saturday I ran my eighth half marathon.  I hadn't trained as much as I might have liked to so I didn't really have many goals for the race.  I just wanted to finish under 2 hours and 36 minutes.  Which is pretty slow, even for me.  I did it!  I finished in 2 hours and 27 minutes.  I was most excited to finish under two and a half hours.

getting a high five during the race

The course was quite nice -- started and ended in downtown Stavanger, ran around one of the lakes in town, by the Three Swords monument and along the fjord.  The weather was less than favorable for a long run.  It rained harder than it normally does in Stavanger, but then it would stop and it would be a nice day, until it would start raining again.  Every time I took my jacket off, it would start raining again.  By the time the race ended it was a beautiful day.  Marathon (Oil Company) was the sponsor of the marathon and hosted a post-race party with hamburgers and hot dogs so we stayed downtown a bit to eat, enjoy the day and talk with friends.