Unlocking Kiki

An Icelandic Cabin Getaway

First off, thank you all for your sweet comments on my post last week. For me, blogging has always been so much about the community that comes with it, and the comments on last weeks post was a good reminder of the amazing community I am lucky to have on my site!

If you follow my Instagram then you already know that the past few weeks have been very snowy and cold here in Iceland. Before you say anything, I know I know, I live in Iceland, doesn’t this mean snow and chilly temps are to be expected??

I would answer that back with a yes, and a no.

In Reykjavik, where I live, it is not a guarantee that you will get lots of snow over the winter. In the mountains or north of Iceland most definitely, but not so much here in the city. But these past few weeks we have had snow storm after snow storm, and the temperature hasn’t been above 0 C in days which is very unusual for Reykjavik.

But thanks to the freezing temps this means that all that snow has stayed nice and fluffy outside.

Thankfully our little Viking is loving playing out in all the snow, we can’t get him out of the house these days without his sled in tow. So before the temperature warms up just above freezing making the snow a slippery mess we made sure to make the most of the beautiful winter weather with a a countryside escape to spend the weekend playing in the snow.

Before we go on there is one very important fact about Icelanders you should know…

Cabin trips are a big deal to Icelanders.

Many Icelanders own their own countryside cabin and escape to it whenever they can. For those of us that do not own our own charming cabin just yet we take advantage of renting a cabins through our labor unions.

Side story. The demand for these cabins is high, especially during the summer and Easter holiday. Demand is so high in fact that you have to wait for the unions to open up their application for a cabin during this time, and then try and be one of the first to apply to better your odds of getting a cabin. In case your wondering, I have never been successful with my cabin bids, maybe this summer will be there year.

It’s no wonder everyone wants to rent a cabin, I mean, just look at how charming these cabins are…

Somehow I have only had one other Icelandic cabin experience during my 5 years in Iceland. I won’t complain too much about this because that cabin trip is when H and I got engaged.

But back to our recent cabin trip adventure.

For our cabin trip we decided to stay in a cabin area near the beautiful Laugarvatn. Only 80 km away from Reykjavik, I highly recommend this area for visitors who want to be near the main attractions of the Golden Circle, but still far enough away to enjoy the peacefulness of the Icelandic countryside.

And the road trip views on your drive out from the city, they aren’t too shabby either.

Note to self, wash car windshield before roadtrip.

We had big plans to spend our weekend walking out in the snow, soaking in the hot tub (most cabins have one, they are a def must for a cabin trip!), and checking out the Golden Circle sights in their winter beauty. Unfortunately (or fortunately because the sun was shining) the weather took a very chilly turn that brought temperatures -10 C and colder, not exactly ideal weather to be outside for long periods of time with toddlers in tow.

But, these little ones are Vikings, so playtime in the snow for at least a few minutes still had to happen.

Our little guy clearly got his love for the snow from his Dad, but I love that he is such an outdoor lover.

Even though it was nice and crisp outside our little ones had a great time playing in the snow, I am pretty sure little H’s sled is going to end up being our best purchase of the winter.

I’ve never mentioned this on the blog before but we are really lucky to have several little ones close to our little Viking’s age in H’s family. H has a twin brother and a sister who is my age. The three siblings all had their first kids in the same year, all being almost exactly 6 months apart, with our little man being the middle guy.

This means family gatherings are absolutely chaos, and a blast at the same time. And spending a weekend all together in a cute, but little cabin with toddlers running around, it was motivation enough to get my winter gear on and let the kids burn off some energy in the cold.

The beautiful views just outside our cabin didn’t hurt either.

We spent a lot of time playing inside this little igloo. Thanks to the previous visitors who built this, our little ones loved it!

After some morning playtime in the cold it was food and nap time, which basically sums up our cabin routine. Play, eat delicious food and then take a nap, it was a schedule I could definitely get used to.

Yet another tell of our little one’s Viking blood, he loves his Icelandic skyr. In case you are wondering, this was actually a much cleaner face than he usually gets when he eats his skyr.

Once everyone had rested we bundled up again, but this time to head out for an adventure to some of my favorite stops in the Golden Circle area.

Stop number one, Efstidalur Farm for ice cream, because in Iceland it is never too cold for ice cream.

I have mentioned Efstidalur Farm’s a few times here because I have a serious love for their salted caramel ice cream. Trust me, it is the best ice cream in Iceland, even our little man agrees with his mama.

Note to self, next time don’t offer to share with this little man, apparently salted caramel is also his favorite, he wouldn’t touch his dad’s coconut ice cream but was all about mine.

Beside the ice cream we also came to Efstidalur for the little ones to say hello to the farm animals. Little H is all about any book with animals in it at the moment, he loves running around the house making different animal sounds. As soon as he saw the cows he was running around making mooing sounds laughing away.

An outdoor lover and animal lover, he is definitely our little boy.

Our farm visit kept the kids entertained for longer than we expected (you never know how long something will keep a toddler happy for!) so by the time we left the farm we only have time for one last stop before it was dark out. Some of our group went to Geysir, but my Viking and I had to head to Gullfoss for a waterfall selfie.

Just like the old days when we used to spend our weekends chasing waterfalls all over Iceland.

I’ve seen Gullfoss a few times in the winter, but never have I seen it this frozen over. Nature is so crazy, and beautiful, the dark picture (it was almost nightfall) doesn’t do it justice. You just have to trust me, and then book your ticket to come seen the frozen Gullfoss in person.

The rest of our cabin trip was spent snuggled up in our warm cabin, enjoying games once the little ones went to bed, and sitting in the hot tub watching the Northern Lights dance across the sky.

It might of been a bit colder than we hoped for, but it was the perfect cabin getaway with our family.

If you are planning a trip to Iceland and are interested in staying in a charming cabin yourself here are a few resources to check out:

Bungalo and VisitIceand.is both have cottages from all over Iceland that you can search. There is an option to search by the region you will be traveling to as well.

For cottages in the south of Iceland use Icelandic Cottages.

If you are looking for a great cottage to stay in the north west part of Iceland I highly recommend Hvammstangi cottages. I stayed here one year for my birthday and have been trying to think of a way to get back up this way again.

For a more unique cabin stay check out Hey Iceland. They list both charming cabins, but also accomodation on Icelandic farms where you can get a real insider experience to countryside life in Iceland.

You can of course also use booking websites such as booking.com. to find cabins in Iceland.

Question of the Day?

Would you be up for a cabin trip when visiting Iceland? What time of year do you want to visit Iceland, winter or summer?

February 5, 2019 by Kiki

My 2019 Blogging Plans

Happy 2019 friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and your 2019 is off to a great start. Here in Iceland our 2019 has kicked off with a very snowy, but beautiful, few weeks.

Even though we are almost a month into the new year it feels strange to not mention it since I haven’t been back to this space since 2018. Not like this long time away from the blog is anything new, as any of you readers who are still around this space are all too aware about ;)

2019, will you be the year my blogging mojo returns? Only time will tell I suppose, but I certainly hope so.

On that note, let’s talk about the blog shall we.

Lately I have been getting questions about my plans for the blog. Okay, only my Grandma and the Viking have been asking this question, and by plans for my blog what they are really asking is if I am ever going to blog again?

This is a question I feel like I have been asking myself on repeat for the past year. What am I going to do with the blog? Am I going to keep on blogging or call it quits?

By the look of things around here it would seem that the answer I am leaning towards I am done with blogging.

But am I really done with blogging?

There is something in me that is not ready to walk away from my hobby and little community I have created and come to love. But I know that coming back to blogging how I used to is not in the cards either. And this is where I have finally realized I have been making a mistake in my attempts to get back to blogging over the past year.

Here is what I have realized.

For a long time I loved writing all about Iceland and my new life here. Because of this my blog naturally became an Iceland travel blog of sorts which I was fine with. I loved blogging about my adventures around Iceland. It was my passion, and I felt the words flow so easily each time I came to write.

Once little H was born our adventures took a new path.

No longer were we spending our weekends out hiking around trying to find a new waterfall. Instead we were discovering what life in Iceland was like with a little one, a completely different and wonderful adventure in itself.

But when I would come to blog I tried to put myself back in the box of only writing about Iceland like I had done in the past, only to realize that I didn’t have any new waterfall or hike to talk about and felt like anything else I did want to write about was not good enough for the blog.

So even though I felt like I didn’t have anything new on Iceland to share I still kept the limits on my topics and tried to write about traveling around Iceland, but every word I would write down didn’t feel like me, and I can’t post something on the blog that doesn’t feel like me.

So, as we all know, nothing was posted, but the urge to write and share stories on the blog was still there, the direction of how I wanted to share my stories however was still unclear.

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record over here always talking about how I miss blogging and that I plan to write more again, even my Viking is telling me I need to stop just talking about missing blogging and make a plan on how I want to get back to blogging.

Which leads me to the point of this post.

With the new year comes the time for new goals, and my Viking and I have some big ones on our list for 2019. One of the things I love about my Viking is that he challenges me and is always pushing me out of my comfort zone. I know when I share my goals with him he will hold me accountable.

So with that long ramble let’s talk about my blogging goal shall we.

One of my top goals for 2019 is to figure out what exactly I want to do with this space of mine. What type of topics do I want to write about? What type of community do I want to create, and be apart of? What do I enjoy writing about most?

As my Viking has been telling me for months now, it is time to stop trying to blog in the way that I think I am supposed to, but instead do it how I want to.

Step one towards this new goal, (because every goal needs some action points) sit down every day and just write, no limits on topics, just write whatever comes to my mind.

So every morning, before our little man wakes up I sit down with my iced coffee (yup I drink iced coffee all winter long, usually under a blanket because its freezing here right now!) and sit down to write before starting my day. The list of topics I have written about is quite random, anywhere from my favorite spot in Reykjavik to take little H to how stressful it is driving in the snow and how wonderful it felt to have a conversation completely in Icelandic, no topic is off limits.

Writing is just so therapeutic, anyone else agree?

So while I am still working on figuring out what this new blog of mine will look like I do hope you all will stick around. What I do know is that I want to write and connect with others, how exactly I want to do this is still under construction.

There might be a mix of random topics covered here in the coming months, but that is what having a lifestyle blog is all about isn’t it? So here is to a new year, and pushing myself to put myself back out there and write what I want to write, not the type of posts I think will attract new readers.

This is my online diary, I hope you all will enjoy following along:)

January 27, 2019 by Kiki

Our Wedding

Growing up I was never the girl that dreamed about my wedding day, and for a long time I had no interest in ever getting married. But the day I returned back to Oregon from my time in Australia I said something to my family that surprised them…

“I am going to marry him one day”

The him I was talking about, that was of course my handsome Viking. Who knew I could predict the future, add that to my list of hidden talents ;)

All jokes aside I remember saying this to my family, and them saying to me this must be really something special since I had never said anything about marriage before.

And they were right, what my Viking and I have, it is something truly special.

Now I can’t say that 8 years ago when I returned back from Australia I actually thought the Viking and I would get married, but I certainly had my fingers and toes crossed that we would.

It might not of always been easy (long distance and visa problems I’m talking about you!) but I am certain this is no one else I would want by my side.

When H and I started talking about marriage we knew that we wanted to have our wedding in Oregon. With this in mind we decided that when we would get engaged we would want it to be a long engagement (think 1 ½ – 2 years) so that as many of our Icelandic family would be able to plan ahead and join us. At the time I truly did not know how this would work out and feared that our wedding would be almost entirely my family and friends with H feeling a bit like he missed out by having his wedding in Oregon.

Oh how wrong I was to worry!

We were so lucky to have over 30 Icelanders join us in Oregon where they made up almost half of our wedding guests. I was constantly hearing from my family and friends how amazing the Icelanders were as they all spent our wedding day and night mingling and getting to know all about each other and the very different places they came from.

It was an absolutely dream come true to have both sides of our loved ones all in the same place and made our wedding day that much more special.

My entire family all in one picture, all the feels when I look at this image:)

But let’s back up a bit.

When it came to wedding planning we had two goals in mind, keep it simple and throw an amazing party.

As this was the first time our family and friends would all be meeting we wanted to keep the guest list as small as possible (a tricky task for someone like me with a big family) to make for a more intimate setting. We chose to skip on having bridal parties (which are actually not really a thing in traditional Icelandic weddings) and decided to only have our siblings as our bridal party. While it was a bit stressful at times going over our guest list I am so glad we chose to do our day this way as it really made the evening all about having a great time with those closest to us.

Even though we didn’t have a bridal party we still wanted to involve our closest friends in our day and decided to have our friends join us for the getting ready fun.

H had 11 of his closest friends from Iceland to my parents house for a pre-wedding brunch and photo shoot. All the guys coordinated outfits and it was such a hit! Everyone at the wedding loved that all the Icelandic guys were dressed the same, and it made it very easy for everyone to tell who was from Iceland.

I love these pictures of my Viking with his best friends in my parents backyard. Never did I think that the backyard I spent much of my childhood in would be filled with handsome Icelandic guys, funny how life turns out.

As for me, I spent my morning getting ready with my sisters and some of my best friends who I have known since I was 5 years old.

I did have one little man crash the all girls party…

When H and I were trying to plan out the day our biggest worry was making sure little H was taken care of. Not the usual item on a wedding checklist, but it was at the top of ours. Thankfully I have an amazing family who had volunteered to help out, but as most of them would be with me as I got ready we weren’t quite sure who should take on parent duty during the getting ready time.

Since H was having his friends over, and whiskey was likely to be involved, I thought it was the best that I had little H with me during this time as I would have my sisters, mom and grandma around to help out with him. Little did I know that our dear little boy was going to skip his nap and only want his mommy to be holding him.

While I was somewhat on mommy duty during the getting ready portion of my wedding day this did not make things any less fun. I had my sisters and closets girlfriends right there with me, drinking mimosas, dancing around and keeping me laughing the entire time.

Right before me and my crew headed off to the wedding venue our photographer showed up to take my getting ready pictures, as well as a few special detail shots I asked for. Please note the amazing bride crown down below, my crazy talented mom made this for me and it is now sitting on my dresser all the way in Iceland:)

Before I knew it it was already time to start making our way to our With our wedding venue where the Viking and I would have our first look pictures.

Thankfully the ride to our venue was only 10 minutes away from where I got ready because all the nerves and butterflies hit me then and I couldn’t wait to see my Viking.

Patiently waiting to see my Viking.

A first look was one part of our wedding that was a must for me. It was also the thing that was most recommend to me by past brides, and something I highly recommend to future brides.

I absolutely loved these special moments where it was just the two of us. It was the perfect way to start our wedding celebration.

The wedding venue we chose is located very close to where I grew up at an outdoor location that I have spent a lot of time at over the years. Thankfully this area has a lot of lovely trees to provide shade as our wedding day happened in the middle of an Oregon heat wave with the temperatures sitting in the mid-90s all day. Luckily there was a breeze otherwise I am not sure how all our Icelandic guests would of coped ;)

Aside from the I am assuming usually wedding day chaos (ie. our bartender arrived and said she was too sick to work due to the heat, the cater was over an hour late, my little H pulled my hair out just a few minutes before I was set to walk down the aisle) everything worked out perfectly in the end. And all these little stories of chaos and stress, they just add to our special day and make me laugh now.

The entire day and night I did my best to stay in the moment and take it all in, but it really is just like everyone says, the day passes by far too quickly in almost a blur. Thankfully we had an amazing photography to capture all the moments for us to reflect back on. So instead of me doing a play-by-play of the entire day I will let the pictures tell the most of the story, well the story up until the after party happened, those pictures are going to remain offline ;)

Our wedding ceremony was everything I hoped it would be and more. We asked my cousin to marry us and he couldn’t of done a better job of putting together a speech that was the perfect mix of funny and serious and was filled with all of our personal details. And to my surprise our little man even walked down the aisle with his Yaya, something I didn’t think he would do once he saw all the people but he didn’t even hesitate.

Before my Viking and I joined the rest of our loved ones for the party we snuck off to get some pictures taken. We aren’t usually ones for posed pictures but our photographer did an amazing job listening to what we wanted when she put together the poses and I love how they turned out.

Then it was time to get the party going!

To kick off the night we ate delicious BBQ (I am still thinking of the mac n’cheese our cater made) while listening to speeches from our loved ones. H’s twin brother speech was hilarious, my parents made me laugh and cry with theirs, and H’s mom gave a beautiful speech that our little H made sure to be apart of.

From there it was time to get the dance party started, and to kick it off me and my handsome little man danced away to his favorite song from the Wiggles.

This might be my favorite memory from the night.

The real dance party got started though once everyone had enjoyed some of our signature cocktails.

I will give it to them all that it was very hot out and they needed to stay hydrated, let’s just say there was no alcohol left by the end and everyone danced until we moved to the after party.

I am a total Daddy’s girl and am lucky enough to have two amazing ones:)

Before things got too crazy we made sure to finish off the cake and get some pictures before we said goodbye to our photographer.

Love these two boys of mine.

Our official wedding party ended with H and I singing our favorite songs with the wind blowing in our hair as my mom drove us off in her old (I don’t know how old but old enough to be called a classic car ha) bug to our after party in my parents backyard.

While I am going to keep to what I said and not post pictures from the after party here I have to say I can’t believe how many of our wedding guests continued on with us to the after party!

Our after party included beer pong, backyard karaoke, a song our Icelandic friends wrote about H and I and sang to everyone (twice!) and one or two people may of ended up in my parents pool by the end of the night. I loved seeing my parents backyard filled with all our loved ones and we kept the fun going until H and I snuck off to our hotel at 3 in the morning.

– – –
Our wedding day was everything I hoped for and so much more.

The memories made with both sides of my family all in the same place, it was amazing.

It was the perfect way to start this new chapter with my Viking and I can’t wait to see what new adventures are in store for us.

For any of my Oregon readers planning a wedding here are a few of our wedding vendors that we loved and highly recommend!

Flowers: GypsyBleu Florals
Photographer: Kelsea Joann Photography
Music: DJ Fallon Love
Catering: Philyaws Cookout and Catering
Wedding Cake: Market of Choice Bakery

November 12, 2018 by Kiki

My Blogging Story

Five years ago I hit publish on my first post.

That 300 word post took me over two weeks to put together, and a few more days before I got the courage to actually hit publish.

Never did I think that my new little hobby would bring me so much over the next five years.

To keep it short, my blogging experience has brought me:

* A creative outlet that has taught me SO many new skills

* The chance to connect with individuals from all over the world

* Wonderful opportunities like going inside a glacier or on a delicious food tour through Amsterdam

* A detailed diary of my first years in Iceland

That last point is my most cherished one, but all of these things have brought me so much joy these past few years.

When I decided to start my blog my only goal was to give myself something to do as I navigated my way through surviving my first Icelandic winter. I mean, what else was I going to fill my time with while I waited for my work visa to be approved???

Writing and reading is something I have always been passionate about since I was a little kid so when I discovered the world of blogs shortly after moving to Iceland I was hooked. This was the hobby I was looking for! I loved (and still do!) reading about the daily happenings of others from all over the world. I mean how cool is it that I can sit in my house in Iceland and read about the life happenings of someone who lives thousands of miles away and feel like I am talking to a friend?!

Thanks to my blog over the years I have been lucky to meet several bloggers in person when they have traveled here to Iceland. Every single time I was so nervous it would be awkward, and every single time I was surprised at how quickly I felt at ease, it was no different than meeting up with an old friend.

And I have my blog to thank for one of my best (in real life) friends, the lovely Jeannie from Life With a View. She was a reader of my blog before she made the move to Iceland and I am so lucky she found me online so that we could meet up in Iceland! We became instant travel partners in crime ;)

Needless to say, as soon as I discovered blogging, I was beyond hooked.

In fact, I would wake up at least an hour earlier than needed just so I could have some time to work on my blog before heading into my 9-5 job. And when that alarm went off I never once felt like I wanted to hit snooze, I was just excited to get some time to work on my blog and connect with my readers.

As someone who never would of labeled themselves as a creative person I sudden felt like I couldn’t turn off the creative side of my brain until I got all my ideas out. My mind seemed to be a never ending flow of post ideas and I couldn’t wait until the weekend so I could spend the days getting lost in my writing.

Sharing new places I visited in Iceland on my blog quickly became one of my favorite things to write about. I was constantly dragging my Viking off for random weekend adventures. Sometimes these adventures were a huge success, other times we never could find the place we were attempting to find, or the weather took a turn for the worse cutting our trip short. But these little trips of ours, they have ended up bringing some of my favorite memories here in Iceland.

And to be honest, these weekend adventures truly helped me keep my sanity that first year away from my family. With each new beautiful place we visited I felt my love for Iceland grow and it really helped me appreciate my new home.

I feel so lucky for all the places I have been able to visit around Iceland, and that I have the stories and pictures on my blog to always look back on.

After a few years of fun weekend adventures the Viking and I traded in our weekend adventures for school work when we started our MBA program in the Fall of 2016. At the time I had no intention of changing anything about my blogging. But with each week that passed and the list of assignments and stress piling up I found myself getting less and less time to write for my blog.

It wasn’t long before my blog started feeling like another task on my never ending to-do list. Feeling like I needed to write something in the limited time I had made me come to resent blogging and took all the fun out of it. But then I would get a bit of a break from work and school and the first thing I wanted to do was to write for my blog. So I just told myself one day I will have more time for my blog again and kept on writing as often as I could.

Then something else happened that completely rocked the Viking and my’s world.

We found out we were expecting our little H.

When I started my blog the Viking and I made a deal that I would keep the personal details about him to a minimum, hence his nicknames the Viking or H. And if I am being honest I struggled with (and still do) the amount of personal information I wanted to write about myself. Pretty early on I decided I would go with my gut and if I felt comfortable sharing personal information on my blog then I would, if not I would just keep it to myself.

This balance between what I did and didn’t share about my personal and family life seemed to be working great. So when we found out we were expecting our little man I just assumed that I would continue blogging as normal and share whatever information I felt comfortable with.

And then little H was born.

Once our little man joined our family I suddenly felt very uncomfortable writing about our little guy and our family life for all to read.

But at the same time I wasn’t ready to give up blogging.

And this begins my blogging stalemate.

Time kept passing by and I still felt uncomfortable writing about our family life. I started thinking I needed to change my blogs focus completely. So I spent some time attempting to work on my blog with the idea that it would be an Iceland only blog. But that just isn’t me and my motivation for writing quickly died. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing about Iceland, but I didn’t start my blog to only talk about Iceland. My favorite posts to write are usually those about my daily sheeningangs so I knew I didn’t want to stop writing these types of posts, I just wasn’t sure how I wanted to write about them with little H in the mix.

This past summer brought a crazy busy schedule so I decided it was the perfect time to take a complete break from basically all things social media and blogging. The idea was that this would give me time to rethink things and see if blogging was something I still wanted to do, or if it was time to say goodbye.

So I spent several months pretty much social media and blogging free. In fact I don’t think I opened up my wordpress site for over four months, that hasn’t happened in years! During this time I basically decided that I was done with blogging, and since I didn’t feel like I was missing it (obviously since I never even opened my blog) it seemed to be the right choice.

Fast forward to a few months later, we are back in Iceland, I am back at work, little H is in school and life has settled into a nice routine.

But after just a few weeks of this nice (aka much less stress thanks to no MBA) routine, I found myself itching to do something during the evenings and little H’s nap time. So one day during nap time I decided to open back up the blog just to see if I was interested. Before I knew it I had wrote for the entire nap and felt like I could of kept writing all day.

All it took was this one writing session and I was reminded why I never official called it quits on blogging.

Writing for my blog makes me so happy.

Ever since this nap time writing session it was like a switch flipped and suddenly new ideas for posts came flowing back into my mind. I have now been spending my evenings writing down ideas, playing around with photography and coding and wow how I have missed all of this!

I still have no idea how I want to share my family life on the blog, nor how active I am going to be able to be, but for now I am just enjoying feeling passionate about my hobby again.

—
If you have made it to the end of this long winded post about my blogging journey, thanks for reading. This post truly has no real purpose other than the fact that I just had to get these words out there.

And to end this post, a picture of my little man on a recent adventure to Þingvellir to see the fall colors. Now that little H is running everywhere I have so many places I want to take him to, I can’t wait to watch him explore.

Question of the Day?
If you are a blogger has your blogging style changed over the years? What is your favorite types of blogs to read; lifestyle, travel, family?

October 30, 2018 by Kiki

The Summer of 2018

Over the past two years I think almost all of my blog posts have started out with something like….

“Hey guys, remember me, the person that used to blog all the time?”

And here I am again, after not writing on my blog in over five months, and I am going to start this post out saying the exact same thing.

Hey guys, remember me?! The person that used to blog all the time?

While my opening lines have not changed, life sure has changed!

Let’s just say Summer of 2018 was definitely a memorable one…

That’s right, my Viking and I are officially travel partners for life!

Like I said, it was a really, really good summer.

I sure do love seeing my Viking with that ring on his hand;)

I have a full wedding recap post in the works (I know, a second post, can you guys believe I might actually blog twice in a month?!) so I will save all the wedding talk for then. But for now I just have to say that having both of our families in the same place to celebrate with us was the most amazing time.

In other things we got up to over this past summer …

We spent 6 weeks in Oregon with my family

When your whole family is together you make sure to fit in several cheesy family photos ;)

Our six weeks in Oregon was everything I could of hoped for and more. We enjoyed relaxing family dinners, soaked in the beautiful Oregon summer weather, and loved every minute of watching my family bond with our little man.

Let me just say it again…

It was a really, really good summer.

I am not going to lie, spending my first year as a new mom without my family around (although I was very lucky with lots of visitors) was really, really hard. I missed my family like crazy and it was a bit hard to not feel like my little Viking was missing out on having that side of his family around. So when H and I were planning our trip back to Oregon for our wedding I was thrilled when the possibility came up that H would be able to work remotely for a few weeks meaning that we could spend even longer in Oregon.

Those 6 weeks with my family were spent with the biggest smile on my face.

When you don’t get to see your loved ones all the time you really do appreciate every single moment you get with them, and all the moments we had with my family this summer, they will be forever cherished by me.

Speaking of these special moments, there was an extra special one that happened during our time in Oregon…

My sister had a baby

When my sister first told me she was pregnant I remember feeling so sad that I would miss out on her pregnancy and being there when my nephew was born. Living so far away from family I know I will have to miss out on many special occasions, but having recently become a new mom myself this was one I did not want to miss. So when the possibility of being able to be in Oregon right before my sisters due date came up I was beyond thrilled.

I feel so lucky that everything worked out and I ended up getting to be with my sister for the last few days of her pregnancy, holding her hand in the hospital room and getting to kiss my nephew when he was just a few hours old. Even better was getting to bond with my sister in a new way as we both start our journey together as new moms.

And watching our sons already start bonding, gah it was major cuteness overload!

Our Iceland family joined us in Oregon

For a long time now it has been a bit of a joke that I lead a double life, my Iceland life and my Oregon life. Well, this is no more as these two worlds of mine finally collided this summer when 30 of our closest friends and family from Iceland made the trip to my hometown in Oregon!

Showing my family from Iceland around my beloved hometown was soo much fun! Finally, after almost 8 years they got to see where I came from and meet all my friends and family.

I was super nervous actually to have everyone over to Oregon, I mean what if they didn’t like it and they came all that way just for us??! Thankfully though everyone seemed to love it as much as I do (at least that is what they told me) and I hope this means they will have many more trips back to Oregon to visit us if we move back there one day.

Wedding Shenanigans

Okay, I know I said I have a post coming soon with more wedding pictures, but I am just too Type-A to not keep this post in chronological order so it has to be mentioned again. And I just wanted to put in another wedding pic or two:)

Since our wedding included a lot of out of town guest we actually had almost a week full of wedding fun. While it was a bit hectic planning all the wedding shenanigans it was the best week ever.

A very brief summary…

My bachelorette party kicked things off where I spent a day enjoying my favorite wineries in Oregon with a group of my best friends that included my childhood friends and my Icelandic ones,it was a blast. The Viking then headed off to Vegas for his bachelor party with 10 other Icelanders in tow where they got hit with a major rain storm bringing the most rain to the strip in years! I joked with them that they must of brought the Icelandic rain to Vegas. From there we had a dinner that my grandparents hosted where both of our families all met for the first time after H and I being together for almost 8 years!

This dinner is one of my favorite memories from the trip. While it was a simple family BBQ it meant so much more as it was the first time we had all our family in one place with us. It was truly the most special time and I couldn’t be luckier to have amazing grandparents who made it happen for us.

We ended off the wedding week fun with a pool party in my parents backyard for all the Icelanders in town as they arrived to Oregon in time for a major heat wave, especially for them ha. More than once I had one of them come up to me and ask why I would ever leave somewhere that had such nice weather. I told them the thought had more than once crossed my mind during those 9 month long Icelandic winters.

Okay now I am rambling but seriously this wedding week was too much fun!

For a long time I couldn’t really picture what the Viking and my’s wedding would be like. I mean how could we possibly have all our loved ones with us when we were from places so far apart. The fact that it did happen, it just made our day (and summer) that much more special.

Enough with the wedding talk…for now.

The Viking and I Headed Honeymooned in Cabo

After a crazy busy two years of juggling our MBA, little H, planning a wedding and everything in between my Viking and I finally got the time to completely relax, just the two of us.

I won’t lie though, saying goodbye to our little man was ROUGH! We were away for five days and I defintely shed some tears during that goodbye. But he was in good hands as both his grandparents, and great-parents, spent the week with him on a camping trip at the Oregon coast.

With our little man being spoiled by his family that left H and I to fully enjoy the most relaxing honeymoon.

This is by far the most relaxed trip we have taken together, and we loved it.

Let’t be honest, we spent basically everyday poolside fulling enjoying the pool bar and sunshine. We did get crazy and sneak in a few adventures like exploring downtown Cabo and all the fun dance clubs, taking in a sunset hike, and crossing off something on my Viking’s bucket list, swimming with dolphins.

Our honeymoon was the perfect way to recoup from all the fun and start off our married life together.

After our honeymoon we had one last week in Oregon to soak up as much sunshine that we could before going back to Iceland where some big changes where awaiting our little family.

Daycare for little H, New job for me

After a very special 14 months of getting to be at home with my little H the end of our summer fun in Oregon also marked the end of my maternity leave.

Those first days back at work after being home for so long where an emotional rollercoaster. On the one hand I was thrilled to be back at work and getting to put my mind to work, as well as socialize with adults. But on the other hand I was so sad to leave my little guy after spending every day of his life thus far together.

This new chapter in our lives though is an exciting one. While I returned to my same employer I took a new position that will bring new and exciting challenges and projects. This position does come with a more demanding schedule and task list, but I am loving being able to put to use all the skills I learned in my MBA and have already learned so much in my two months being back.

And for our little Viking, while the transition to daycare was probably harder on me than him, there has been many days of tearful drop-offs. Wow those are rough! Thankfully with each day they are getting easier and easier and our little man is really thriving in his new environment.

Things are finally starting to settle into a nice routine here for my little family, and while I have loved the past few years of chaos I am looking forward to a little bit of a slower paced schedule, for a little while at least.

And with more free time opening up my desire to sit down and write has finally come back, so hopefully this means more frequent blog posts!

Speaking of blogging, wow the blogging world has really changed in these past few years. I am so proud of all my blogging buddies doing amazing things with their online spaces, but don’t expect anything crazy happening here. I just want to come and write my life stories and happenings with my Viking boys. So if that interest you then I hope to see you around.

Thanks for reading, and making it through this very long post!

Question of the Day?
Any questions of what we have been up to lately that you want to see answered here on the blog??

October 21, 2018 by Kiki

A Year With Our Little Viking

These next few weeks are full of birthday fun in our house with all three of our birthday happening over a three week period.

The most important birthday of all recently happened to kick off the birthday celebrations…

Our Little Viking is 1!

Happy First Birthday to our little Viking!

You guys, I can’t believe I have a one year old little boy!

Where did the time go?!

Cue the mama tears as I look at all his newborn pictures!

Since making his entrance into this world (quickly and right on time!) our little man has kept us on our toes and has us falling more in love with him each day.

From the early days when he would open his eyes and look at us, to those first smiles and giggles, to crawling over and asking for a snuggle, this little boy just melts my heart every single day.

Our attempt at a family birthday photoshoot in sunny Boston the other week. Family pictures aren’t getting any easier with our active one year old!

Speaking of Boston, our little guy, he has had quite the busy first year of life traveling around.

With multiple international trips marked in his passport and several visitors who he took exploring around Iceland I think we already have a little world traveler on our hands:)

Airport baby:)

Aside from his big traveling adventures our little man has had a year packed of firsts.

I made it a goal to remember all of these little firsts by keeping little H’s baby book up to date, and while some months aren’t as detailed as others I am so happy I kept this up! But, sadly there is not an update for month 12 in the book, so I am making my own little update here on the blog.

A few highlights from our sweet little man’s recent accomplishments:

*Our little guy took his time moving around (he did his own version of crawling by dragging himself around on his belly for weeks!) but has now mastered crawling at an impressive speed and is pretty determined to figure out how to walk on his own. This means there is lots of falling over a mini meltdown’s in our house at the moment but I know once our guy figures out walking I am going to be running after him all over the place.

*For being a baby that sure made nursing a challenge those first few months (thankfully he finally became a nursing champ!) our little guy sure loves to eat! He is seriously the best little eater who loves to feed himself and will eat almost anything we put in front of him. His birthday dinner included his favorites, meat and potatoes, a real Viking boy:)

As long as our little guy has something to eat, or play with, he is a champ when it comes to dining out!

*He is a talking machine that loves to experiment with the different sounds he can make. Mama, Dada, and Nei (no in Icelandic) are the current favorites. I can’t wait to see what other words are going to come out of our little bilingual boy’s mouth. It amazes me to see him respond to both English and Icelandic!

*For months our little H was quite shy in big groups and in new places and didn’t want me out of his sight. Recently this has changed and he now loves going to new places and being around new people, especially babies and little kids. I am so happy to finally see him enjoying all the playgroups we have been going to, and happy I stuck it out even when he was clinging too me most of the time, it was all worth it to see him thriving now.

*Lastly, on to his favorites. Our little guy LOVES playing with balls. Bouncy balls, basketballs, footballs, whatever kind of ball our little man is going for it. He has loved balls for months and now has gotten really into trying to throw the ball, as well as anything else he can grab which means I get hit by random objects multiple times a day. Other favorites, reading his books, (which makes my mama heart so happy to see that he enjoys books) and anything that involves being outside.

While this past year has been all about our little Viking and his firsts, H and I as new parents have experienced an entire new world of activities and experiences.

In a way I almost felt like this first year of motherhood was like arriving to Iceland all over again. I had to put myself out there and join playgroups and baby classes and find new “mom friends.” Sometimes (okay most times) I found it super uncomfortable, but I always packed up and went because I knew it would do us both some good to get out and about.

And I am so glad I did!

We have made some great new mom and baby friends this past year that have just added to the fun. And now both my little guy and I have some new wonderful friends here in Iceland.

So thank you my little man for pushing me out of my comfort zone all over again, it was good for me:)

It is safe to say that our little Viking has complete got us wrapped around his little fingers.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have been able to spend everyday of my little man’s first year at home with him. He will be starting daycare, and me back to work, after our trip to Oregon this summer, and while I know we are both ready I know there will be some tears shed during that transition.

But, I am just not going to think about that now, and instead I am going to keep on enjoying every minute of our days together.

Happy first Birthday our dear little H.

This past year with you in our lives has been our best adventure yet.

We love you!

May 28, 2018 by Kiki

Older Posts