My Parents and Niece Visit

  These girls really are funny.  This was during our walk on dalsnuten.  This is the first hike we did when we got to Norway .  We thought it would be a good one to take my parents and niece on while they were here.  We had a great time during their visit.  It is so nice to have people visit.  We did a fjord cruise, went to the huge boulder field, had AY birthday party, went fishing, and saw the Queen Mary 2.  It was a great couple of weeks.  We are beginning to have a greater joy for being in Norway, but miss our family and freinds.

Grandma and Papaw with grandkids on top of dalsnutan.

Enjoying the fjord cruise

so we are off on our next adventure to Germany.  More on that in the coming weeks.

Melanie

Norway In June/Saving Money in Norway

  This is the view today from my kitchen balcony.  It has been beautiful here for the past few days.  We can only hope that it will stay this way for the next few weeks.  My parents and one of my nieces are coming for a visit.  We cannot wait.  the little girls are counting the days.

I have been trying to come up with ideas for my blog and the task is not easy.  I would like to do many topics and so I am going to narrow it down.  Today I am going to talk a little bit about how I save money on groceries while living in Norway.

This was my savings the other day at the shopette/commissary.  We have a very small one here.  It has very limited items and not really any sales.  You will not see General Mills cereals 2 for 5 or anything like that.  Sometimes they have a table of things that are buy one get one free, but it may not be things we like or use.  They do however have a couple of shelves of stuff that is 50-75% off and when you combine that with coupons you can get some great deals.  The great thing about shopping overseas here is that you can use coupons that are up to six months expired.  So I get my family and friends to sned me their expired coupons.  I clip what I use and then pass them on to others in the community.  Of the $55.74 that I saved, $21.90 was with coupons and the rest from buying reduced items.  

In the states my grocery budget per month for my family of six was $400 here it is $1000.  We have to buy all fresh produce on the economy and things here are expensive.  I try to buy what is on sale and it makes you not waste because you only buy if you are going to use.  A pound of grapes here is $5 not on sale sometimes you can find them for $3.30 a pound whne they are on sale.  A cucumber is $2.45 and again if on sale you might can find them for $1.55.  So I try to buy the fruit and vegetables that are on sale that week.  We always try to have some things like bananas,tomatoes, peppers and onions whether they are on sale or not.  I keep trying to cut back and get an even smaller number for my budget, but after a year of living here I have decided that I cannot cut much more.  Norway has sales, but not many and they don't have coupons.  The closest thing to coupons is one of the stores has a buying program and you pay 300 NOK  or about $52 and you get a percentage each year of your purchases and they send you coupons for money off the items that you seem to buy a few time a year.  Just last week I got 1.75L of milk for free.  So as you can see I still save and search for the deals even in another country. 

I hope that you get inspired to see where you can save money on the things that you buy.  Living debt free has been our goal and except for our mortage we are there and I can say that we have not suffered by saving and finding the deals to reach our goal.  We are even using the envelope system here in Norway.  Come back to see how we implemented that system in a foreign country.

The things Children Say

  

My family loves cheese.  They get it naturally since I grew up loving cheese.

My father makes melted cheese for breakfast when we are there.  They are coming to visit in a few weeks and we are so excited.  My youngest daugther (the one on the left) was talking to him the other day and asked him to bring cheese when he comes.  He wanted to know why?  Because I want you to mak me melted cheese for breakfast.  He knows we can get cheese here at the shopette (military base  "grocery store") so he wanted to know why he needed to bring cheese.  She told him that the cheese here just crumbles you can't slice it so he needed to bring cheese that can be sliced.  The cheese we get has been frozen so it crumbles.  I just think it is funny the things they ask for, I could think of many other things to bring form the states than cheese.

The picture was taken on one of the hikes that the girls hae taken while here in Norway.  It is beautiful here and the water is just so clear.

We are just know getting spring weather.  Maybe we can put up our winter jackets.  I may keep them handy since last June you needed hats and gloves a few days.  

Have a great week.

Chores and Allowance

  

I have decided to tell about our chore list.  We have been having problems with getting children to do their chores.  So we are trying a new plan to see if it works.

In the picture the top item is the daily schedule.  There is one for each day of the week and each family member is listed.  I put it in a plastic sleeve and put a tab on each day.  You pull out the top, but it behind and the next day is up.  It is broken down by the hour.  We started with that for a week or so to fine tune it, add things or change things.  Once we got it right, we added the other charts.

One is a list of things to be done throughout the month, the other is a list of daily things and weekly things.  As you can see people have written their initials beside items.  They do that if they have done that chore.   For us now in Norway we use kroner, local currancy, to pay the children.  They get 1 kroner for daily chores, 5 kroner for weekly and 10 for monthly.  So far it has worked well and I really like it, the kids seem to like it too.

The children each have time in their schedule to do their laundry.  My children have been doing their own laundry for about five years.  When they were all homeschooled they each had their own day.  When the youngest two were three and four they got some help from others, but they could sort and put the items I the washing machine.  Whe we got here it was not as easy because the machine is different and it hold only about 2/3 the amount of a machine in the states.  Since things were different and no one except me knew what settings to use I was doing all the laundry.  Well I came up with a plan so that laundry could again be your own responsibility and the add to your schedule.  Here is what I did.

So now there is no reason that people do not know what to do.

So this is our new way of doing things and it seems to be working good for us.  I will say that the children know that during the time they are doing chores they can get them done quickly and then use that time for playing or something else.  They also know you don't do anything and you don't get any money.

Would like to hear any comments you have about our schedule and chore list.

Giveaway

  Please visit my friend's blog family, faith and Fridays.  She has a great post about menu planning and a giveaway.

She is a great wife and mom.  Look at her other post for great ideas.

New Skills

 

                                                              

               Gymnastics

Well this word and these images have been a part of my life since I was a girl.  Now they are part of my everyday life due to the fact that my two youngest daughters are competitive gymnasts.  So since I go to the gym often and always go to all their meets, I decided to take the plunge.  I decided to become a judge.  This may seem like no bug deal, but we live in Norway.  I asked their coach if they needed judges and what you had to do and guess what there was a class starting in a few weeks.  Little did I know it was all in Norweigian.  The girls and I have been taking Norwegian since October, but no way was I prepared for a class that required 12 hours of class time in Norwegian.  

I decided to give it a try.  The class was taught in Norwegian and I could follow some of what wa said.  Maybe it was because it had to do with gymnastics and that made it easier.  I would go home and spend hours translating the Norwegian gymnastics terms into English with the help of google translate and my daughters (who go to 12 hours of gymnastics practice in Norwegian).  The final class was to judge 3 girls in each discipline.  No problem I thought, then realized that some of the stuff had not been translated.  I made it through it with not many mistakes, but then the real hard part a written test, you guessed it in Norwegian.  With the help of the instructor translating some things I got through the test.  I had to wait a week to see if I passed and I did.  I was so excited and come to find out I was fourth in the class of 10 people.  That may not seem good to you, but with Norwegian not being my first language I was thrilled.  So now I am a gymnastics judge in Norway.  I have to judge my first competition on the 25th of May.  

Next on my list you guessed it to get my american judges certificate.  

I will let you know how things go at my first competition.  

T and I go to Uganda

The girls and kids in the village that we stayed in Uganda.
  

It was a very interesting trip.  Uganda was not what I expected.  You can have a house with everything modern and next door a house that is just walls.  The house we stayed in had only gotten running water and electricity recently.  They have very little, but have a great love of the LORD.  We did a revival in the village and also worked with the church of the family whose house we were styaing in.  During the day we visited schools and orphanages.  We would sing and do skits.  The children were great.  Many of them had never been close to or seen a muzunga (white prson).  They had many questions and sometimes just wanted to touch us.  T was asked what is the blue things under your skin.  It is our blood vessels, but they cannot see theirs.  It was a very rewarding trip and very exhausting.  At the end of the trip we went on a safari.  What a wonderful way to see God's creation.  It was amazing to see the sun coming up over the savannah.  We saw hippos, crocodiles, elephants, all kinds of antelopes, jackals, leopard, water buffalo, wart hogs, giraffe, baboons, big lizards, all kinds of birds, and the elusive lions.  We had a great guide and went off roading to see the lions.  He spotted the animals looking at something and we left the road to see the lions.  They were wonderful.  The giraffe got close and so did the elephants.  One water buffalo started to charge the van.  It was an amazing experience.  We also did a boat trip down the nile.  It is a trip that between  working with the kids, schools and church in Kampala and the safari, I will never forget.  The big plus was to get to experiance all of that with my daughter.  She showed much maturity and love for The Lord and for the people in Uganda.

I have not written in a while because things in Norway get dark in the winter and it is hard to be positive about being here far from family and friends.  Things are better and I am making it my goal to have a better attitude about being here.  The mission trip helped me to see that I am here and getting to do and experience things that I probably never would have if we lived somewhere else.  Please keep us and the people of Uganda in your prayers.  We have so much and we take it forgranted.  

View of the village all the way to Lake Victoria