Familie van der Horst: April 2012

Mercedes Bus

I thought it was odd that some of the taxis here and in Holland were Mercedes. But this one surprised me even more. A Mercedes Bus!

(at the bottom of the black window is a merc logo!)

We have stairs in our new house. Three stories. The kids are going up and down constantly. It's a baby gate nightmare (for upcoming baby van der Horst). But the girls have it down except for a slip here and there. Aunt Kelly heard about this and took action to help the girls become slip proof. She sent us some wonderful animal socks with rubber spots on the bottom to prevent slipping. The girls love them:

MJ's first School Play

MJ was in her first school play. It was a variety of Nursury Rhymes such as Little Bo Peep, Old King Cole, and Humpty Dumpty. At first they made her a sheep (little bo peep) and she refused. Not sure why. But she was very interested in being a knight (humpty dumpty). She looked adorable.

At home ready to head to school for her big debut...

Kingsman (knight) MJ and Humpty Dumpty and two other Kingsman. Needless to say the kid playing Humpty was not harmed in any way during this production ; )

Who knew beds were different here

So we hired some housekeepers here. Sisters from Poland. Very nice and they did a good job so far. Only they weren't exactly sure what to do with the 2 sheets and comforter to make the beds. This is MJ's bed. Bottom fitted sheet put on correctly. Top sheet they told me they have never seen before, and even though I told them it went between the comforter and bottom sheet they still didn't seem to know what to do with it. The green comforter is a standard twin comforter. The monkies are supposed to go at the bottom. But instead they tri-folded it and put it on sideways. And then that's the top sheet folded on top. Interesting.

Petroleum Playground

They have a petroleum museum here. Outside of that is a playground made of old oil and gas equipment. We went on Tuesday with a group of other kids/moms. Here are the girls enjoying their snack, and MJ on something that makes Mark Jan very excited that she could be a drilling engineer one day!

Overboard on the trash sorting/recycling

So there are places by shops that you can dispose of various items that aren't your usual paper, plastic, food waste, etc. Here is a picture of one of these places. I'll translate some of the words for you after the pic...

Medisiner = Medicine

Sigaretter = Cigarettes

Barberblad = razors

Nicotinell = no translation but best we can guess is something to do with nicotine (although they've covered cigarettes, snuff, and dip with other listings...hmmm?

Tobakk = Tobacco like dip

Snus = snuff (i thought snuff and dip were the same but oh well)
Kondomer = condoms...yes condoms....what?!?!?!?!

The condoms is what I call a bit overboard. weird! I makes me start thinking of people having separate bins in their house for these. and then they have to save them up to make it worth the trip to this place. weird weird weird. and....awkward maybe. haha

Mexican Food

First time having Mexican food in Norway. Needless to say I had to make it myself. Avacados are kind of expensive but they were worth it!

Funny Car

So here is something amusing that I saw while going to the grocery store. Don't see these much in the US. It seems to be electric too!

Benders Landing Friends Cookbook

So there are lots of yummy recipes in my awesome Benders Landing Friends Cookbook. This is a cookbook that my friends put together for me since they knew eating out here was so expensive. and it is. very.
So far I've made lots of recipes, some more than once. Here are a few that I've made:

Misty Odenweller's Chicken Noodle Casserole