First Days in Namsos....

Well let's see....Tuesday I had made it to Namsos and had spent some time relaxing and remembering times gone by.....but the first full morning, we took a quick trip to town. We spent some time walking through the new Shopping mall. I had a chance to meet some old friends...Eric Sandnes, Stein Solum, and Janne Lillemoen.

We then went home and got ready to celebrate Yvonne's 39th birthday....
We had a big group coming to celebrate with us that evening..(17-19)..I heard some saying it had been a long time since they had up many friends and family there for a party. The weather had been
unusually hot...even for Florida standards. The year I spent in Norway I remember it being full of either rain or snow. Since I had arrived there were days of 80 to almost 88 which is almost unheard
of. It had been decided earlier to purchase evening meal of Lobscose ( a thick vegetable and meat


stew) instead of spending a few hours in a hot kitchen. Knut went to town about 4:00pm as guests would be arriving at 5pm. Luckily they check on the store made stew before the guests arrived because it's consistency was more of a thin soup than the thick stew it was supposed to be and this would never do....well after a quick phone call to the store and a quick drive back into town...the stew got there just in time for the guests as they arrived. It was a great turn out, everyone from Knut's mom, Mortens parents, to Elise. A good time was had by all. There was even a knock at the door as the local newspaper show up that night to take some pictures and interview our family. The story ran on the back of the newspaper two days later and included two pictures. The first showed us back in 1983 and big color one from that evening. Knut asked the reporter if he would take a big family and friends picture. As he did this I remember just looking around and being a bit overwhelmed by it all. Another very memorable evening.

Elise had left the celebration earlier to spend some time friends at her Aunt Wenche and Uncle Kjell
at their camp ground with some friends. We later that evening went to pick her up. The campground
was full of tourists from Norway and Germany. Many people were sitting out enjoying the long evening sun. You must know at this time of year..so far north....it never gets dark. The sun goes down just below the horizon at about midnight and then starts it way back up around 1:30 am. This lets everyone here extend their days long past the regular day you would expect. It's a great time to visit because you can get so much done in just one day.