Happy Birthday

Our beloved Serina was 25 a week ago. We usually celebrate a birthday for 24 hours. Opening presents at midnight. No wonder Serina was a bit tired for breakfast. The menu was red gel, strawberry dipped in chocolate and Californian Rose wine.

 

With her birthday crown she looked exactly ten years old.

 

Red lipstick after breakfast nap. Isn't she lovely? She's also painted the scenery of the narrow roads to Sauda standing to the left.

 Birthday child posing with a glimpse in her eye. "I'm finally old enough to wear my glasses in a string", she mocked.

 A penny for your thoughts. Maybe the bitter sweet poem by Irish  William Butler Yeats?

When You Are Old
William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
  
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

Photo  © 2012 by Magical Mystical Teacher

FOR THE GOOD TIMES

Happy Birthday to daughter Serina and brother Kel.
I'm giving you the good memories from birthday celebrations 16 years ago.
This particular year we celebrated three days in a row.
First with the small, close family, then with the school class and last with children from the neighborhood.
Most pictures were captured by Gunnar. I had the opportunity to take a few too.
Serina always was this smiling blue eyed girl, with lots of love and laughter.
Not a thing she would not do to please her mama.

Yeah. Over the sofa and down in the splits early birthday morning.

My mother used to help me out with baking cakes, but I think this one was ordered special for Serina from the confectioner.

Cousin Kristine Maria, bro Kel, whose birthday we celebrated the day before and my Mom, still wearing an apron.

Mia was a part of the extended family, her grandson, Alexander is born Feb. 26th,will be 18 tomorrow.

Somehow I cannot find aunt Lilly. She used to be the most faithful of all celebrators. Kel, Mom, Gunnar's brother Harald and sister Sigrid, and the happiest of them all; my dad.
Yesterday Kel celebrated with going to work, Serina shall be with her roomies in Ireland and we shall have cake with my mother. Great fun Skyping by midnight though.

Birthday wish
On your birthday
You are a king
No other day
Will ever bring
A chance to fly
Without wings
Feel as if
You are on a swing
Higher so much that
No one can think
Give your life
A new tinge
Of laughter, joy
Beam and bing
So what are
You waiting for
Come on sing
Happy Birthday to You

Muppet Show - Mahna Mahna Original

For Brother Kel and blog friend Nathan.

CRASH COURSE IN PC WRECKING

My brother Knut Erik/ aka Kel and I have been a wonderful eight days celebration of his 60th birthday in London.
There's only the two of us siblings, so we are pretty close, even though we only see each other in vacations.

First time we went abroad, back in 1969, we traveled together with a tramp-boat over the North Sea, and came to London via Flixburgh and Scarborough.
We went to the Norwegian Seaman's Church to get help finding accommodation and a adventurous time back then as well.

The picture on this blog is eight years old taken on our last visit to London. Later on we took Christmas cruises over to New Castle as "salary" for writing in a bridge magazine together.

Anyway, I was so eager to copy my photos from London over to my computer, that I managed to shipwreck the whole machine.
Now Gunnar is letting me use his old PC, but I will not be posting more, if not my new machine with all its "valuable " content cannot be repaired.
I give it a month. It's just too sad and annoying.

Oh, yes, I am the queen of self pity just now. So be it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TERRY DEARESTEST

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SERINA

Serina is celebrating her twenty second birthday with cousin Kristine Maria in Oslo. They have been friends from the day Serina was born.
Kristine Maria was four then, and came to visit us at the hospital.
Aunt Sigrid, Serina, Kristine Maria and me dressed for "herring jazz" street parade.
Serina is chauffeured by dad Gunnar to a birthday party in the neighborhood.
They both enjoyed the ride.

Imogen Heap is the reason Serina and her cousin are celebrating together. They are attending a Heap concert tomorrow.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BROTHER KEL

My only sibling and baby brother, Kel,turns 59 today.
I sat up till midnight last night to call him on the phone, "happy birthday".
We usually start celebrating our days around midnight, that way the feast lasts longer.
Only 15 months younger than me, but I've always felt like big sister to him.
On the picture we are standing just outside our home. We are dressed in clothes our mother sewed of worn out clothes from her and my dad.
I never felt bad about wearing them, on the contrary.
After I was 20 I still would ask my mom to make me new dresses, even coats.(New fabric then, of course).
Here we are just home from Sunday school, waiting for our mother's homemade dinner, genuine 50th.
A bit of snow, just like now. Maybe it was around the time of little brother's birthday.
Take care, my very best brother, (and worst too, he'll add).
Thank you for the good times, for the games we played, for the late nights we shared, for the music, for travels, for the stories we wrote together, for always being so gentle to Serina.

MY FRIEND TOBIAS

Some days, when life feels not that great, I like to focus on the golden moments.
This is Tobias, grandchild of my old (61) years friend Mia.
He celebrated his grandmother's birthday, January 8th with 6 elderly women.

He indeed made our day.A born Charmer, that's what he is.

The angles are handed with greatest care!
Eyes of a child

(John Lodge) Listen, hear the sound The child awakes Wonder all around The child awakes Now in his life He never must be lost No thoughts must deceive him IN life he must trust CHORUS With the eyes of a child You must come out and see That your world's spinning 'round And through life you will be A small part of a hope, of a love that exists In the eyes of a child you will see Earth falls far away New life awaits Time, it has no day New life awaits Here is your dream And now, how does it feel No words will go with you And now, what is real?

SIXTY

I was born December 8th 1949. I was blessed to be the first and a wanted child. Since this autumn has been extremely exhausting, with our house turned upside down, due to renovating, I decided to celebrate with only my nearest and dearest; Gunnar and Serina. We sneaked off to the city of our liking; Bergen.
Somehow my bestest must have found us, I don't know how, because a couple of hours after we arrived, this parcel was delivered at the hotel. Champagne and glasses in a nice bouquet, exquisite confection and even a gift card for coaching lessons. Wow. If you take a close look, I had tear in my eyes.

No time for waiting; The celebration started at 08oo p.m. the seventh and didn't stop until 0800 p.m. Decmber the 10th.
With three loaded cameras we started out next morning.
The Church of St. Mary is a must.
I know, I know; I should have photoshopped. Maybe some other day.
Such a peaceful quarter of the town.
Serina taking a break with her Dad's newest love; Cannon Eos 7D.
At the Bryggen Museum we met one of Gunnar's forefathers. The picture talks for itself about genes and the likes.

Lots of items found in layer under layer at the Hansa Brygge sites.

Christmas in the old city.
The Gingerbread City. Made twice through a huge common effort from kindergartens to high tech companies. It was completely crashed by a poor boy last week. Creating headlines greater than those of Obama and his peace-price.The Bergeners didn't mourn for even a day, before they set out to make a new Gingerbread town. As you will see it's placed so low, to be at eye level for the preschool children.

Walking and watching made us hungry.
A room at the top floor with quite a view.
Serina didn't complain for a second during three days of walking through new and older art. An art dive for hungry souls.
Kitty Kielland painted my Mother's Jaeren more than hundred years ago. My mother and her family also had to do hard work in the turf moors to find fuel for the winter.
From Joelster at the end of the Sognefjord, longest fjord in Norway, the painter Astrup lived with his wife and children, also a hundred years ago. He was poor, had lots of children,- and a lovely wife, but managed to share love of nature and family in a magic way.

The apex of our celebration was December 9th in the Grieg Hall. Conductor and soloists famous from Metropolitan, Covent Garden performed Beetoven's 9th Symphony; To Joy.
I hope I never get so senile, that I'll forget those magic hours.I humbly thank blogfriends, local friends, family and the great God for making these days unforgettable .