Butterflies

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Pure excitement has now hit me. I'm of course staying very calm about everything as I feel very in control of all the current and upcoming events, but reality is now dawning on me and I now am able to relax a bit and start getting very excited about everything. Mostly just being able to see Arild again! We're down to 48 days, so I'm finally able to begin to feel butterflies! :-)

Little sister's dress! :-) 
Wedding plans are going great and we're exactly where we want to be at and that's way ahead. I have now tied all ribbons to little bottles of bubbles and I'm quite sure if I see another blue ribbon after all of this is over I just might scream. All the silverwear is in napkins and tied with a napkin ring. I'm currently working on guest favors. I've also picked up my dress from alterations and I love it! :-) The dress I ordered for my little sister also came in and is of course very cute! :-) I've also recently met up with our photographer so I'm of course extremely excited and anxious about pictures!!! All that's left is basically measuring reception tables so I can order table cloths and calling the courthouse on what documentation is needed to get a marriage license on Arild's part. Now that I'm nearly finished with wedding planning, the stress is now onto Arild who is working on paperwork and things that need to be done before my arrival. Poor guy.

Onto moving progress! I haven't shipped any boxes over lately, but I only have one HUGE box left to send and I think I may just wait until Arild gets here before we decide what else needs to be shipped. Arild has been getting very excited about this as well, so he has already set me up a new phone number and ordered my new SIM card. We got our first wedding present already! His parents bought us a really nice bed. It was much much needed as bachelor Arild only had a twin size bed. :-P Tusen takk, mother and father in-law!!!!!!!! So with that, Arild has been doing a lot of planning  on how to set up the bedroom and other rooms and we've decided a trip to IKEA is most definitely needed. We'll get around to that before he goes back to work in June.

Took a walk outside with grannie
in her flower garden. 
Family! Well, I actually surprised myself because I had 2 family visits in 2 days as well as meeting up with friends and I didn't come home crying. I think before it was more or less everything beginning to sink in, so I had to savor every moment with them and I really think it's more difficult for me anyways when I just see a person I know I'll be leaving rather than being without them to begin with. I can't promise this won't happen again later and if I weren't over leaving loved ones then something would be wrong. Of course in case of emergency I'll be on the first flight over, but we do plan on Kentucky being our future vacation spot and will spend a month here every year. On this last visit, I had to get some recipes from my grannie because well, she's only the best cook in the world. I've now realized when I was younger her cooking was taken for granted, but now I want every recipe. So now I have recipes for homemade cornbread, salmon patties, chocolate n' biscuits (which I think Arild will love) fried chicken, and coming from a person that avoids all green vegetables like the plague, that woman cooks the best green beans ever! I now have the recipe of course!!! =D I still need many many more recipes of course! Another thing, I do have to laugh at how she tells me to make these recipes. It was, "Oh you know, a little of this, a handful of that. I use a coffee mug to measure this. Then you just taste it and make sure it's OK before adding more of this."  I've also figured out how she can get boxed macaroni to taste so great! She adds more cheese and milk than what's needed. I also have to add, she keeps giving me advice on how to handle mother-in-laws. She sounds like she has experience with this as she says, "Sometimes mothers are VERY particular about their sons!" :-) I doubt Arild's mother is difficult in any way though!
Savoring some rural Kentucky scenery.

This is the German restaurant
where the meetings are held.
Louisville Speaks Scandinavian! I went to the march meeting, which went well other than it is of course March madness aka major basketball stuff going on that I have no remote idea about, so there were less members there. Appetizers were served and again, I'm a skeptical eater about some things (mostly in the area of meat) but I do like to try new foods!  Some home specialty sausages were served on top of cabbage (I thought I'd be adventurous enough to try cabbage, put it to my tongue and the adventure was over. Cabbage will forever be in my book of gross foods.) There was also another plate of corned ham, sliced bread, mustard (avoided), tiny pickles (avoided) and something purple (avoided). Corned ham I was very skeptical about. I've never had the guts to try corned beef, but the ham was actually really good on sliced bread. :-) Enough about food!

I love going to these meetings. The gentleman who hosts the meetings passed out papers on effective language learning tips. I think I do most anyways, but I don't really have a lot of time now to sit down and learn a lot. Arild does give me a "lesson of the day" and sometimes that's all I have as far as my daily language learning. I'm severely lacking in my spoken language skills, but reading and writing isn't so bad for someone on my level of knowing the language.

 Aside from language, some interesting topics were brought up. I was asked what Arild thought of WalMart (no WalMart in Norge) and it was interesting to me that what he thought was strangest about WalMart was the amount of elderly people working. I remember him asking why and I haven't thought too much about it. People retire and some work some more. His reaction to this was, "That isn't right. People that old shouldn't have to work." We also discussed various things and within us 3 Scandophiles who were present all said the same thing about our experiences in Scandinavia, we felt very safe, comfortable, peaceful, cozy and at ease there. I was also asked if Arild is going to wear a bunad to the wedding and NOPE. I'm lucky to get him in a suit! :-) I also explained how I had some difficulty with the public bathrooms in Norway as they have locks in the form of knobs that turn and we usually just have locks that slide. So I did of course have one embarrassing moment during my stay there when I couldn't figure out how to lock the bathroom door properly. I THOUGHT it was locked during this incident, but evidently it wasn't. Before the next meeting in April, I do think I need to learn Sweden's geography a bit better so I can get acquainted with some of the cities and locations there because Sweden is discussed quite a bit. Of course, it would help if I knew more about the other Scandinavian countries aside from Norway.


Corned ham, sliced bread, mustard, tiny pickles, purple something.




Sausage served on top of cooked cabbage.



A member made these cute
magnets for me. Maps of Oslo
and a map of Skien. 

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