Norway: A Relaxed Birthday

If yesterday's weather was a gift, today's weather wreaked its vengeance upon us.  We woke up to cold, driving rain against our window.  We had sort of planned on maybe going out for another drive today, or perhaps walking around the ruins of the old fortress that used to sit watch over this harbor and the entrance to the fjords.  But we just couldn't summon the gumption, especially with same pretty important items on the to do list.

Number one on the list was to celebrate little D's second birthday!  We had brought along a few small toys and a bit of wrapping paper for him to open.

After he did that, and C wanted to go down for a nap, D and I bundled up and ventured out on a walk on a mission to 7-11 for ice cream to have with our afternoon/lunchtime pannekaken.  The ice cream turned out to be the single most expensive item we've bought on this trip - 69 NOK ($12) for a pint of Haagen Dazs.  No, the Ben & Jerry's wasn't any cheaper.  In fact, the sum total of all the little toys we brought was about $5 (from the Walmart bargain bin, plus a free flashlight from Harbor Freight), and the ice cream more than doubled that.

 In order to let C sleep longer, we tacked on a brave turn through the fortress grounds.  We returned soaked and cold, but very happy.

We headed out for pancakes with our Haagen Dazs, which was pretty much awesome.  The ice cream made D so hyper that he had to walk up and down the stairs (7 floors) before he would settle down.  The whole way he was saying, "Adventure, Mama.  Adventure, Mama."  That's my boy!

We had a pretty chill afternoon, getting packed up and watching a movie.  Daddy and D headed out again in the rain to let C have a little more sleep, before we headed down to dinner.  We had one last trip up to the hotel's tower to seek out a rainbow when the sun peeked out (found!), and D told us all about the clock mechanism ("Tick tock tick tock, clock says.")