Austin Juice!

 Anyone want some?

I left McKay in charge for just a couple of minutes while I ran to the bank.  But Austin's quick.  A few gold fish crackers, baby carrots, and a dash of pepper shaker.  Yum!

Blue Lagoon

 A trip to Iceland is not complete until you have visited the Blue Lagoon.

It is a warm mineral pool that is open year round.  There is a shuttle from the airport and many travellers plan a couple of hour layover and head to the Blue Lagoon for some pampering.  We stopped her on our way to th airport since our flight wasn't until 5pm.  It's named for the blue appearance the water has from the minerals in the water here.
 

The also have pots around that have a silica mud that you can use for a facial or a body scrub.  Kadence and Austin are sitting on my lap as I write this looking at the pictures and saying, "swimming" and "kick, kick".

They have a swim up bar where you can get drinks or ice cream.  We splurged for some ridiculously over priced ice cream bars.

 

And then we are on our way home. 

It will be so nice to see the sun set and for it to actually get dark.  I didn't realize how much I missed it.

Typical Weekend in Iceland

 We had hit most of the tourist attractions we intended to, so Saturday was a more laid back day.  We got up early to help Kristine and Binni with a yard sale they were having in an attempt to reduce their physical belongings down to 6 suitcases because they're moving to the US for Binni to do graduate work in Austin, Texas in August.  After helping them carry everything down, Bryson decided he could make a sign and get the attention of passing motorists to advertise for the sale.  He found a pizza box from the night before in the garbage and drew an arrow on it.  Someone wrote "sale" in Icelandic for him and he stood out in the median and was very successful at attracting attention to the sale for more than an hour.

He also managed to get the attention of the Icelandic Police. 

We were standing outside at the sale when a policeman pulled up behind Bryson. Luckily, I had my camera. He called Bryson over and asked him something Bryson couldn't understand. Bryson told him he was American and only spoke English. The policeman asked him what he was doing (in English) and Bryson told him he was advertising for the sale. The Policeman thought it was too dangerous to be in the median, so he asked him to do it from the side of the road. Fair enough. This whole time, Binni's family, David, and I are on the other side of the road laughing at the whole event. By the end of the weekend, Bryson was known to Binni's family as "the criminal" especially to Binni's brother-in-law, who also happens to be the Branch President of the Iceland Branch of the LDS Church, coined the nickname and would call Bryson nothing but "the criminal".

We ran over to Reykjavik in the afternoon to go to the flea market downtown and do some shopping for souvenirs.

Putting Bryson's minutes of international crime behind him, we were able to enjoy a concert that evening.  An Icelandic band, Of Monsters and Men, was throwing a free concert at a park in Reykjavik.  It sounded like fun and as an extra bonus we knew it would make McKay jealous because we know he likes the band.  The band is having growing success and wanted to give something back to the people of Iceland.  They joked that at the concert they threw the year before there were about a dozen people there.

 

We had a great time!

On Sunday we went to church in the Iceland Branch and stayed after for a linger-longer lunch where they were hosting the new Copenhagen Mission President who covers Iceland as well.  After the linger-longer, we went to Binni's parents house with his family for dessert. 

 

We had a nice relaxing weekend before preparing to head back home.

Mossy Lava Fields

There are no shortage of lava fields in Iceland.  Honestly, they're everywhere.  One of the things on David's bucket list was to find a field of lava with thick moss growing on it that you could run and jump on. When he was a child they stopped in Iceland once on the way to or from Denmark and he remembers his Dad stopping by the side of the road and letting the kids out to play on the moss. They would walk and jump and their feet would sink into the moss. When we mentioned this to our Icelandic relatives in hope of getting directions to a lava field with thick moss growing on it, they just got a blank look in their face, so we were a little skeptical we would find any with thick moss. But as we were coming back from the Golden Circle, he spotted what he thought was it. Sure enough it was exactly what he remembered (only thinner; in his childhood memory the moss was a lot thicker, of course he was smaller, too). 

You could jump on it and just sink in. Bryson even dared a bum bounce. He didn't bounce, he just sank in.

It's soft enough to roll around in.

Kadence didn't like sinking into the moss as she walked, but Austin had a great time.  Since he normally walks around tripping and falling and bumping his head, this was great because everything is padded.  If only we could coat a room with this for him to play in maybe he wouldn't get so many bruises on his head.

We were careful to watch for the occasional jagged rock or possible crevices.

 

 

Mossy lava fields do exist.

The Golden Circle

 David had to stay up late for a conference call and was up until 1:30am.  He took this picture out the back window of Kristine's home.  You'll notice that there is no darkness, stars, or other typical night time indicators.  We found this in Denmark, also.  We would put the kids to bed and sit up talking with family, the sun wouldn't go down as normal to trigger winding up for the evening, then you'd look at your watch and it's already 11:00pm but it's still dusk outside.  Iceland was worse.  There was some darkness in Denmark.  We didn't see any in Iceland.  At 1:30am you can see it would be easy to play a game of baseball outside.

Kadence learned one Icelandic word.  Hoppa.  Icelandic for jump.  Kadence and Austin liked to invade Marcus's crib when he woke up and all three would jump around his crib.  It was hilarious.

Today we went to see the sights in the Golden Circle.  First stop Þingvellir (the funny p is pronounced like a th) where the first parliment in the world was held here in 930 AD.   It is also the location where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.  That is the reason for all the volcanic activity that has created Iceland.  Bryson climbed down into one of the cracks here at Þingvellir.  Good thing there was no continental drift right then.

Then the babies climbed down in a smaller crack.

 

A river that had filled one of the cracks was crystal clear and you could see the rift 15 feet down to the bottom of the crystal clear water.

 

Behind us you can see the edge of the division of the continents.

While we were walking around Þingvellir, a tour bus of people came walking up and one of the ladies stopped to admire the twins.  She had a heavy accent and she was telling the babies how to count in Hebrew.  She was more excited about the babies than about the sight seeing.  We finally pried the babies away from her and continued our tour.   We stopped by the river again as we were heading to our car to throw some coins in the water where apparently it's a very touristy thing to do. 

David gave each of us a coin to throw in the water.  Austin immediately threw his in (as he had been throwing rocks into every body of water this trip), turned around, held out his hand, and in a demanding tone said "money!"  He wanted to throw more money in.  No amount of coaxing could convince Kadence to throw her precious, shiny money in the water, though.  David said he know's Kadence gets her frugality from him, so Austin must have learned to throw money away from me.  In the midst of all of this, the Israli lady comes up again and offers the babies some flowers she picked along the path.  Austin looked at the flowers and said, "money!"  She tried to convince him to take a flower and he just kept saying "money".  You couldn't have scripted a funnier exchange.  Against my protest, she finally gave him a coin.  He flipped around, through it in the water, turned back, held out his hand to her and said, "money".  She was a little shocked at first but found it funny how persistent he was about getting more money to throw.  We rounded up all our small american coins and let him sit and throw them in, but in the end he still wanted more money.

Then we headed back to the car and drove to our second stop on the Golden Circle tour.  The original Geysir after which all geysirs in the world are named.  There are actually several geysirs all near each other.  Geysir (the one that is originally named Geysir) only errupts twice a day and is not consistent so there is little chance you will see that one go off.  But there is a smaller geysir near it that errupts about every 6 minutes so we got to see it a few times.  Wouldn't you know the baby-stalking Israli lady stopped here the same time we did.  We grabbed a picture of her this time.  She's the one closest to me.

This is a boiling hot pool with a beautiful blue mineral in it.

Here's the geysir going off.

The third and final stop on our Golden Circle tour was Gullfloss (Golden Falls) waterfall.  It is the largest waterfall in Europe.  It was a truly stunning and beautiful waterfall.

 

 

Everything was going well until Bryson almost fell in...

...just kidding.

In Iceland, they apparently still believe in survival of the fittest because they have very few safety rails and such.  It makes the sights much more beautiful and natural to see, if not a little more dangerous especially with two walking, running, jumping one-year-olds.  But I think it's better.

 

Iceland!

 Up early for a 3 hour flight to Iceland.  By the way, notice the seat belts that Iceland Air provides for lap infants.  It attaches to the parent's seat belt and provides more safety than in the US where they hope you can hang onto your little one if there are any problems during take off or landing.  The belts weren't required during the flight other than take off and landing, but it helped the kids sit still better when they had it on.

In Iceland, we rented a car and headed for David's Danish cousin Kristine's house.  Kristine is another one of Svend Aage's daughters.  We walked around Kristine's town and got a snack for the kids.

You know how some people use lava rocks for landscaping in their yard? It might be little rocks for a decorative gravel, or larger ones for decoration. Well one house we passed here had a lava rock FOR a front yard. Seriously, it was about 8 feet tall, 30 feet wide, and went from the sidewalk to the front of their house. One plus...no mowing.

Austin made himself at home with Marcus, another of his second cousin's who is a couple of months younger. 

For dinner Kristine served us whale burgers.  Did you know whale is red meat?  Ground up you could mistake it for hamburger if not for the slightly fishy smell.  Apparently you won't get this anywhere in the US because whale meat is illegal, but there is some whale fishing in Iceland.  Kristine claimed that it would taste just like a hamburger with a fishy after taste and it turned out to be a great description.  I thought it was good.

The next day we were headed to the car for some sight seeing.

We went to a living museum village, although this one was more of a village where old houses in Iceland go to retire.  It seems like any old building with any history tied to it is moved here when other construction is threatening to tear it down.  We walked through, then the babies wanted out of their strollers to play.  There were some baby carriages for the little kids to push around, but our babies were so small they could fit in them and wanted to be pushed around.  Here is Kristine and Marcus.

Kadence trying to push Marcus.

 

And Kadence pushing Austin around on a trike.

  With all the volcanic action and magma warming the underground water, hot water and heating is very cheap here.  Kristine mentioned that we can have as long a hot shower as we want.  I also noticed that people in Iceland have a habit of turning on the hot water in the sink using it and walking away to do other things and then coming back and using the water.  It's cheap and disposable - kind of funny to me.  I kept wanting to turn it off for them.  Also the hot water smells of sulfur.  You can take a nice long shower, but the bathroom really smells of sulfur by the time you're done.  Luckily the smell doesn't stay with you.  The hot water is not drinkable, either.  You have to let the cold water run for a minute after the hot has been used for it to be drinkable.

So we stopped by a beach in Reykjavik (capital of Iceland) where the Icelanders have piped in their cheap hot water to create a warm bay for swimming and playing at the beach. It is attached to the very cold ocean, but the water is nice and warm temperature by the beach.

We didn't want the babies getting their clothes wet, so we stripped them down to diapers, but it really was too cold for them to be playing on the beach, we didn't stay long.  If they had been out farther in the warm water it would have been better.

We met up with Kristine's husband Binni and went to Iceland's most famous restaurant - a hot dog stand.  The Icelandic toppings for a hot dog are different than Denmark, though.  They have a mayo/mustard based sauce, then a sweeter sauce and crunchy fried onions.  Delicious.

We walked up the main street of Reykjavik and I found it funny that all their "summer" window displays looked like this...

This is their summer wear!  Forget the summer dresses and bikinis.  Wool, fur, and fleece are the style year round in Iceland.  Since the temperature barely topped out at 70 during our visit, I can understand why.

At the top of the street, looking over the city is Hallgrimskirkja, a beautiful cathedral.

We took an elevator to the top and were able to get a beautiful view of Reykjavik.

 

This evening we had dinner at a restaurant in Reykjavik.  We got to sample puffin, whale again, another type of Icelandic bird.  It was really a delicious meal.  Then David and Binni were tired after a lond day and need a rest on these random lawn chairs in the road with their own fake lawn.