Land of Fire and Ice

We made it to Iceland!  Kelvin, my sister-in-law Katherine, her husband (my brother-in-law), Eddie, and I boarded a delayed flight from MSP (where Delta was engaged with a bidding war to get 12 passengers to take a 24-hours-later flight due to weight restrictions and thus had to wait an hour to get those passengers' bags off the plane); however, apparently two of our bags didn't make it on the plane to Keflavik, and Kelvin and I are without our luggage (save one change of clothes and some essential toiletries. Interestingly, a duffel that looked just like mine arrived but did not have my clothes as contents!). Nevertheless, we didn't let it stop our first day of touring (the bags may arrive later today... we'll see)!

Apparently Iver has been having a missing-us-witching-hour in the evenings where he's been asking to "go home, and get picked up now," but has been otherwise doing well with Kelvin's parents and cousin Kingston + family.  Thanks to Eddie for all of the great pictures (and to my in-laws for babysitting so we could have an adults-only vacation!)

We left Keflavik via Blue rental car and got on the Highway 1 "Ring Road" in the southern route towards Vik.

Our first stop was the 60m tall popular waterfall, Seljalandfoss, which is just off the main road.

 

You can walk behind the waterfall (getting wet) into a small cave

 

We passed by the Eyjafjallajökull Visitors Center, which showed a documentary about the 2010, 6-week-long volcanic eruption that disrupted flights all over Europe.

We took pictures with the cute Icelandic horses by the roadside.

Our next waterfall stop was Skógafoss, once of Iceland's largest.

 

Kelvin and I hiked to the top (can you spot the pink fleece?).

  

We ended our day of natural sightseeing with walking up to the Solheimajökull Glacier (so glad we've gotten a chance to see some of the world's glaciers before they all melt due to climate change and more rapidly due to the current leadership of climate change-deniers).

We ended our day with a tasty dinner at Sudur-Vik and stayed the night in a cozy apartment in the coastal town of Vik.

This big boy...

... moved into the preschool, where he gets to make (and wear) giant, tie-dye shirts!
 



He plays swords with the *big* kids.

He's going to be without mama and papa (and with grandparents) for 8 days on our first real adult-only vacation coming up! Such a big boy!

Rodeo & River time

I had to stay nearby the hospital on Saturday on call, but we saw checked out the Manila Dunes Sand Sculpture Festival.  We were there a bit too early to see the completed structures, but enjoyed the beach time.

Iver asked us of this adult in a shark costume "does that shark bite?"

Kelvin took Iver to the Fortuna Rodeo in the afternoon. (I mistakenly called it a "fair," and Iver corrected me "It's not a fair! Silly mama!")

He enjoyed riding in the car and bike.

Having had a continuing sunny streak, we decided to check out some "river" time at a stream by the pump station. The shallow water was pretty warm!

Searching for tadpoles

Sun in the Sky this July!

 On July 4th, we visited the Plaza for the bubbles parade, and then took a short Humboldt Bay cruise, where, remarkably, it was sunny in Eureka!

Iver enjoyed "camping" (tent-playing so as to not mess up our now-comfortable sleep routine) in our backyard.

This weekend, Kellie, Mark, and Lincoln joined us in our second annual family blueberry picking at Noble Farm, where, a year older, the boys were more discriminate in their selection of choice berries than they were last year.

(Lincoln got hot!)

 

  

Happy sunny July!

Like father, like son

It's been a rough, exhausting week of work.

Katherine brightened my day by sending these side-by-side pics of K and Iver as kids. Isn't the resemblance uncanny?