Zelia's 2nd Birthday

Although the day before we left Boston we had a large brunch with friends and family to say goodbye and celebrate Zelia's birthday early, we had a perfectly lovely birthday on her birthday here in Skagastrond.

Zelia and I made cookies from Emita's cookbook, very similar to Odi cookies and I made a skyr cake. Johanna and her children, Gulli and Birta came and they all just played and played in the kitchen, with her balloons, it was perfect. Gulli and Birta are 9 year old twins and like so many Icelandic children just love to play with younger kids which is SO nice. Perfect 2 kids for the second birthday was just right.

The rest of the pictures are just from playing around the house and outside, making cookies, hallah, playing in water, getting ready for Shabbat and other daily chores.

Week and a half long blizzard

I mentioned that it looked like summer when we arrived, well it did not take long for winter to follow us:) The wind began to blow and the snow to fall and it was nothing short of wild. The wind was probably blowing between 45 and 60 miles an hour and there were a few days that were totaly crazy. Zelia and I were going a bit crazy inside just the two of us.

I forgot to mention earlier that right away we went to visit leikskoli, the daycare, and were told that there will probably be space for her in March or April but that we were welcome to come and visit once or twice a week until then. It is often the only time she gets to be with someone other than me and we both need it!!!! The teachers are great and this place really feels like a kibbutz which makes me smile, sort of rough, and perfectly Icelandic, kids are kids, playing hard and outside in all kinds of weather, even in this blizzardy stuff!

We have tried keeping busy making cookies for her birthday, hallah on Fridays and play dough just for fun. Since we didn't have the internet yet it was quite isolating for me and every once in a while we would head to Jacob's work and run around in the room upstairs. Thankfully it is big and open!

Believe it or not the blizzard got even worse than this!!!! We have snow drifts 12 feet high in areas around the house and then fields of grass - turns out that not that much snow fell but it was being blown off the mountains.

In the meantime I began teaching yoga, what a relief both for my head, body and socializing. the first free class was a HUGE success and 37 people came! Then on Wednesday when the storm was at its worse 17 people came and signed up for class cards - how cool! There is nothing like it here so it feels good to fill a niche. In a few weeks I will offer pilates as well.

Our Neighbors

One Sunday we went for a little walk up the road towards the sea. Jacob was hoping to find a piece of drift wood that we would make into a coat rack....but not 200 yards form our house we came upon some beautiful Icelandic ponies, our neighbors. We hung out with them for a while and the more Zelia sees horses the more interested she is in them.

Once we left them it was time to grab the stroller for Zelia and we kept on walking past a farm with both cows and horses and then back home. Zelia took her nap in the stroller for the first time since we returned, ahhhh, so lovely to sleep outside in the snow.

the house you see is ours!

Shopping

The next weekend we drove back to Reykjavik and to see our friends Aude, Siggi and Herdis, stay with them and hit the shops...ugh, by the time we were done we would have been happy to not see any stores for a long time - we live in the right place, one super market and that's all.

We were successful at Ikea and other places and even got Zelia a play kitchen by the time we left, plus we did a BIG grocery shopping.

When we returned a delivery of toys from Sigga and Haldor was made...it's hard to show enough gratitude.

Oh, and from time to time we have heard how Jack is doing and even got a picture of him, can you believe it???? They even went out and found him food for his allergies.

Skagastrond

The drive was about 3-3.5 hours and we slept for most of it so I cannot report much about the view, but what I did see was quite different from the Westfjords. The land is much flatter, there our mountains off in the distance but not rising out of the water like the fjords. This is horse country and it became abundantly clear, the horses were everywhere and some cows here and there. We were shocked by the lack of snow...it looked like July and the winter at that point had truly been odd.

Haldor brought us right to our new place where we dropped everything off, whew! The place was great, so BIG compared to how we had lived in Isafjordur...so many bedrooms, a living room and Zelia's own room, with my little pony on the walls:) But it was completley empty, well except for an over, no furniture, no fridge....it was time to get to work.

We stayed with Haldor and his family, Sigga (his wife and the local nurse) his 3 children, Oli, Pali and Gudrun Anna - all fabulous - who are as welcoming and kind as you can possibly imagine. That night after dinner we walked to his parents' house where we saw a bed we would buy, that his dad made for himself when he went off to school! We slept quite well and late. When we landed it was still dark until about 10am so that helped. We had places to go and sign papers and do all sorts of things, but before we knew it Haldor had found us a houseful of furniture!!!! Unbelievable, right?

There is an artists' residency in town, currently there are 10 artists from around the world here. When it was started about 3 years ago the town all gave their extra furniture and there was so much that we now have a fridge, tables, bed for Zelia, living room furniture all from them! While back in the Us we had already bought a few items from someone moving out of the country and we had to drive to Saudakrokur (45km away) to pick them uo. By some stroke of a luck a friend, Johana, we had known in Isafjordur had moved there with her children in August and she was helping us a LOT. We headed there, bought a dryer and a freezer and then picked things up from her including many things to help us begin in the kitchen - that was it we were staying in our new place on night #2.

By Friday we had headed to Bloundos (20 km away) to see the midwife and hear the heartbeat for the first time and to learn that I was at 16 weeks already.

The days continued a lot in this fashion, Halldor would make all sorts of things happen and we would have a used washing machine for cheap, appointments would be made, it was amazing.

Velkomin bak!

On the plane to Reykjavik I was struck, when we flew out of Isafjordur I was immensely and deeply sad, feeling like we were not only leaving Iceland before we were ready but leaving a truly special place that we may not be able to recapture. In Iceland, in Isafjordur, we found a place that we felt truly at home. Except for the lack of Jewish community it was perfect for us, communal, small, nature everywhere, Zelia was SO happy and was outside all the time, the politics meshed with ours and we felt we were living truly honestly with our ideals. I was feeling the bottom drop out as we took off. I felt acutely aware of how difficult it would be to recreate such a world in another place...but such is life and we would figure it out.

Now taking off from Boston, I was not filled with any of the same feelings, no deep sadness or feeling of huge loss. We love our families very much and we wish we could see them,e specially our siblings a lot more, but we felt like we were flying home. When we walked out of the airport both of us just sighed, so tired and so happy to be back!

Before I get there, however, we had a very nice flight, Zelia slept a lot and we had 3 seats. When we landed a flight attendant said she has heard Jack bark as he was unloaded and we knew he was going to picked up by the Quarantine folks in less than 2 hours. Zelia, then became the super traveler she is. In moments of waking up she was walking off the plane on her own. You would not believe all the things we carried on the plane and we had no hands to give her. She walked all the way to passport control, baggage claim, customs, all the way out to arrivals. I don't know how she did it on 3 hours of sleep, but she was amazing. When we walked out to arrivals we were greeted by Haldor, Jacob's boss at Biopol....a private company in Skagastrond that Jacob is to work in conjunction with as an MRI employee.

Thankfully he arrived with a large truck and we were able to get all of our things in with the skis hanging out the back and we were off. On our way into Reykjavik, we got a coffee and then met a woman from MRI at immigration where we were whisked through with no problems, what a treat. The off to the national registry to change our address, to MRI to get Jacob's computer, to Chinese food for lunch and some other office and then we were off for real to Skagastrond.

The interim

We left Isafjordur in the end of November and had a nice, sometimes too long, at the beginning stressful trip back in the US. While Jacob was looking for work and waiting to hear back from Hafro, the Marine Research Institute in Iceland about a job he had interviewed for the day before we left we stayed with my parents in an odd sort of limbo. Where would we be going next, what job, what health insurance, would we have to separate while I worked in one place and he in another - nothing was feeling particularly good. But before Christmas rolled around a job offer from MRI was in and we could breath again.

We spent the next 2 months not doing a lot, but thankfully we got to MN to see Mama Zee, to FL for a little sun, to NJ for lots of snow and Uncle Baki, Aunt Angie and family, to ME twice, once for Thanksgiving with Aunt Lauren and Uncle Ian and once for New Years, several visits into town to see Grandma Terri, Aunt Jocelyn, Uncle Noah, meet new baby Ari and Theo, Max, Sammie, Aunt Hallie, Uncle Adam, Grandpa Dennis and Riri. We are thankful for the time we got to spend with everyone.

We were especially excited to learn, on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, that I was pregnant!!!!! A baby born in Iceland, really could it get any better????

So, after a long while living half in and out of suitcases, packing and unpacking, clearing out the Salem house, we packed again, this time with Jack in tow and were back on a plane to Iceland. A new adventure...