Doing the happy dance!

Monday was interesting. Ingredients: exam, duroc pig, rice porridge and moon light.

I had my last exam for this year, a group exam on how we advice each other on our texts. In other words, how we work as editors. My group did great! It was a pass/flunk exam, so no grades were given, but I had a nasty dream last night that I actually got a D, based on criterias that weren't a part of the deal. That dream still bugs me, but it's nonsense of course. We did good.

Being the big 'ole Class Dictator meant I could decide where we would go to celebrate us all being done with exams. Well, I did ask what people wanted first, but our two alternatives were pretty much neck and neck. Going to a pub or driving those extra miles and visit the farm of a class mate in the middle of the woods with full Christmas package?
Duh!
The farm had cows!
And they have a full programme with rice porrige in the barn (oh goodness, that was amazing!), a fjøsnisse (barn "nisse") and generally great Christmas mood.
I was a happy camper, that's for sure. I got to see the cows also. Burpy, lazy, humongous cows who didn't bother talking to me. The piggie on the other hand... I scratched it behind its ear and it got all oinky on me. We had one seriously deep conversation, that's for sure. I was about to start discussing wold peace with the goats as well, but they were more of a "let them rot" kind of goats.

Last weekend was fun also. Mum and sis came to visit on friday and stayed for the whole weekend. On Saturday us girlies went shopping (big surprise!). I only had dad and Love left to shop for, but sis hadn't bought a single gift yet, so I helped her.
Oh, the blissful days of my youth where 500kr (ca. 80$) was enough to buy the entire family and assorted friends gifts... It was interesting buying gifts on that kind of budget again. An angel for granny, 30kr, Snoopy make up for friend, 40kr and so on.
I have no idea how much I've spent on gifts, but it's more than 500kr, that's for sure. I'm pretty good at sniffing out great deals, but still... And I found the perfect gift for Love also. But he's such a spy, so I can't tell you anything yet. *sigh*

After the massive shopping round, we headed home with still loads of things to do. Sis desperately needed to have her hair dyed. People, do not bleach your hair unless you plan on keeping it up. Yeurch! Big sis to the rescue! Du-du-dum!
With that sorted out, the tripled gingerbread cookies dough had to be rolled and "stamped out" as Love put it. Oh goodness... Tripled recipe means tripled time rolling and stamping out. Talk about being pooped afterwards! But my recipe is a damn good one if I may say so myself. The dough itself tastes lovely (yes, I did get a stomach ache this year also. It's tradition!) and the cookies aren't that bad either. The cows taste the best. I have Yule Cows, Yule Moose, Yule Nemos, Yule Bugs (the car) and the other traditional cutters.

Sunday was equally busy as Saturday. We had to get out of the house pretty early, as we were headed for Oslo and the Yule fair at "Folkemuseet" (Norwegian Folk Museum, basically old houses and a Stave church). Take this: us THREE females and one male were all ready and out of the house within an hour. And that's including breakfast! Impressive, I know.
On the way we picked up Love's four year old neffypoo. It was his first time going anywhere with us without his parents. I was worried he'd get scared (he's a regular Piglet), but he was so excited. And that little smurf behaved so good, it was no hassle at all. I'm afraid mum got certain ideas seeing Love and I with that little smurf. And sure, if kids behaved like that all the time it would be no problem. But they don't. *lol*
He didn't want to enter Nissen's (Santa) Workshop though. That was too scary. He didn't want to put on his mittens either. Not until he was so cold I told him his fingers would hurt really bad if he didn't put them on. Then he agreed, even though he claimed the mittens give him splinters.



This is the stave church. It's pretty cool to look at, I must admit that.


Bad close-up of the wooden carvings.



The smurf didn't find this too scary. The red spot? Smurf on Love's neck, eager to get a peek inside the church.

All in all some busy days for this girl. But I'm all done now. Phew...