super speed 1. that was the ferry boat's name. 2 jet engines. nearly 28 knots! what a passage. and the dragon sat aft on the rails. well, not all at the same time and only on daddy's arm, but for hours on end. well, nearly. after all, on the blitz boat the passage took a mere 3 1/4 hours! and big and little sea bears alike have to get something in their bellies at one point or another. but they all braved wind and salt and had loads of fun. and daddy was the only one on board appropriately dressed! THIS is what a true sea bear looks like! :)
and then: welcome to norway! what a country! expensive, cold, rainy and far far away. but it is so sobbingly beautiful, that all disadvantages are reduced to mere fractions of themselves - and the entire country is solidly booked literally minutes after the tourist catalogues are released each year! words cannot describe it - who has never seen this, will never understand and die an unfortunate person one day. the entire drive from the ferry port in kristiansand to the cabin by the lyse fjord - although being by far not the most spectacular route of norway - i could hardly concentrate on driving, so beautiful was the scenery... somehow it looks like somebody left the water tap open in my beloved alps, the alps after melt down of the pole caps, so to speak... rough rock rising nearly vertically and majestically out of the sea, lakes like flown out of bob ross' most skilled paintbrush, white water rivers, sheep meadows sprinkled with little rock, horses with babies... and the bestest ever: even with clouds and rain, all this has just a different color, it never is less beautiful, just different... very peculiar. if there isn't any magic in the game... well, the dragon loves it, apparently! :)
and the cabin literally is our very own personal tube of crazy! i had no idea when booking this! directly at the fjord front! a bedroom with what feels like 600 square feet of window, the _VERY FIRST_ view after waking is paradise itself! tonight i'll go to sleep wearing my contacts! and even clean the windows again! :) everybody joins in agreement: this cabin has found us, we should buy it! ;)

wow, the last day kinda did restore the danish image a little bit: there is an annual sand sculpture festival, and over the weekend there are chain saw carvers joining in. no, they dont carve chain saws, they carve USING chain saws. from sheerly unimaginably large "blanks", maybe one meter in diameter, oak. so, maybe 300 years old. we have played philosopher a little: 300 years ago, when the oak was "born", the chain saw was still awaiting its invention, so the oak - in her childhood - hasn't even had a clue of what methods would be available to kill her one day. which casts a little different light on the whole affair, naturally...
logically the sculptures are somewhat bigger. but really impressive! one even carved his 1 1/2 year old daughter (gabriella!) in wood with his chain saw... and collin fell in love on first sight. how sweet! :)

we have found it, we have found the day it does not rain in northern denmark: gramma & grampa did bring the good weather. well, it will never be the caribbean, the sea is always loud and always foaming, but then again, we never really aimed for the caribbean, did we? but the dragon has seen their second sea already, the baltic sea. well, it really isn't THAT far away, and we just HAD to go look if iit iis as stormy and rough there as it is here on the westcoast. and lo and behold, it iis not! the balticum lies like a mirror! although - like on the west coast - one has to bend the grass apart to see the sea, the land really _IS_ this flat... denmarks highest peak changes each year: it is the annual winner in the sand castle construction competition at some beach...
tomorrow we will visit something beautiful in that direction, and then we finally leave this place and go on to norway, our actual vacation. and we're looking forward already.

if we believe poets and music men, there is a significant difference between southern california and northern denmark: it never rains in southern california - whereas in northern denmark there is not a single day WITHOUT rain, obviously... and for the rain not to feel too lonely, a good half dozen windforces joined the party - the question therefor is never _IF_ it rains or blows, but only what direction... so, dragon-like activities need to be planned wisely and executed swiftly, only then they can have fun on beach, slide and swing, just never very long at a time. on the bright side: if you don't like the weather in denmark, wait 5 seconds and look again... :)
but on another note, driving a car right on the beach is legal, here. even cities are connected by this kind of "next generation loose gravel road", which conjures up that discoverer feeling of adventure. after all, who can say they drove into the breakers with a race van? just sad we do not have water ski with us! in the process vicky learned - what a match! - the most important sentence of the universe: "no fear!"... and mama covers her eyes with her hands! :)

the night before leaving i stand at 9PM, still looking through the tailgate into the yawningly empty interior of the race van: shirts, pants, shoes and each and every other vacation necessity are still waiting to be loaded. and being this extremely responsible highway captain i wanted to long since be horizontal, quiet and comfy and more importantly: out like a light... *sigh* the good news is that even 4 hours later, when finally _ALMOST_ the entire household has found its way through said tailgate, we will not need a roof box. we did manage to find a way to make those ridiculously few 300 cubic feet of race van inside suffice. well, WHO managed? and who exactly? :)
leaving day. planned departure was 9AM, highest probability estimate was 10AM, reality was 11:30. and that excluded the drop-off of hera at the doggie vacation center. because norway has inacceptable vaccination requirements, our eldest and 4-legged daughter has to stay in the olde land, unfortunately. and my heart is bleeding. but the "farm" she will stay at this year we have in fondest memories, after all the lady who owns the doggie motel has taken the mousy all the way into her bedroom, so she wouldn't have to stay so alone all the time! :)
finally we hit the highway, german autobahn, where everyone can jam traffic as fast as they want to... heading north. actually relatively light as far as jams go, but the sunday driver density must have been sufficiently high, as vicky can _PRETTY_ well say "meine guete" (in english something like "my goodness!") by now! peculiar! :)
then, finally hamburg. koebrand bridge, elb tunnel, the docks, my beloved northern germany... spent the night at true natives - friends of old times, which was really nice: we sat talking until well after midnight and got going far too late the next morning - it simply was too nice after all those years. so, a huge warm snuggly appreciation at this point!
now just quickly to the local electrics store for a new navigator and back onto the autobahn, further on north. but then it started: african velocity: hamburg - flensburg in 4 hours! for not even 80 miles! because even in the 21st century merging 2 lanes into one simply does not work in germany. not in frankfurt, not in berlin, not in munich and neither at the bridge over the canal connecting north and baltic seas... on the bright side the dragon was really quiet. no nagging "are we there, yet?", not even close. very briefly, approaching meal times, but on a trip like this, a very permissable thing.
pushing 8PM, we reach the cabin we rent for the the next week, north rim of continental denmark, if there is such a thing. except fat black rain clouds (why is tap water invisible, but water in the skies pitch black?) and a pretty stiff breeze we haven't seen much, but this must be sure to come! for now i say goo'night, the dragon has to get something between the jaws, before they go between the sheets themselves, and slowly i am getting a little tired, too... *yaaaaaaawwwwwwwn* see you tomorrow, or so...

well, finally, it's that time again! every five years we go on vacation. last time we went to yellowstone & co. in the well-known, admired and sometimes a-little-smiled-at united states. back then still without any dragons, regardless of the number of heads, and without a clue even, how life would turn out for us. this time - because lufthansa according to their own representative do let kids of the dragon's age fly for free, but only on the parents' lap; and in lieu of a third lap and because we didn't want to literally "last minute" stride down the aisle charming strangers into providing their lap (although i KNOW it would have worked at the very latest in row 4, first class!) - we took the race van, which limits the operating radius _A LITTLE_... so, wildly decisive we picked norway for our destination - after all, it is ages ago that i was there, while mama and the dragon have never gone, even. but because it is a little challenge after all to travel with a little three headed dragon nearly a thousand miles we also decided to lay over at friends in hamburg and spend one week in denmark...
and of the adventures of this journey tells the little "blog inside the blog", which i called scandipedia... unfortunately you will not be able to read it until we get home, the lot of it all together, as we won't have internet while traveling... so, before you sit down now and dive into it, make sure you got enough time at hand... have fun...

finally summer! finally warm. finally into the water. finally our blow up pool does not just hopelessly sit around on the shelf! what a july! not that we didn't pay for it dearly - with march, april, may and june, but who are we to complain?! so we happily hop into the fun, splash the dragon wet like we should... a dream come true. only daddy got wet in a whole different manner last night: in a summer thunder storm! but if one forgets to close the windows of the race van, one gets what one deserves, kind of... :)

another memorizable date, today: precisely 2 years ago the dragon moved in with us, rode a car for the very first time, left the clinic premises for the first time: today, two years ago, we were (also. again.) the hapiest parents in the world... :)

i just didnt want to let it go unnoticed.

in these 2 years, nearly 40 trillion gallons of water flowed down the rhine, in 731 nights the dragon slept nearly accurately almost 21000 hours - alltogether, of course... approximately 120 gallons of special food went down the boys' throats, and vicky has screeched a good 4000 times her (and my!) favourite answer to the question, who her darling is: "DADDYYYYYYYY"

if these are no reasons to celebrate, i dont know what would be... :)

well, from the birth weights we actually imagined it the other way around: collin taking his sister by the hand one day, leading her to her first steps. but - as you know - everything came slightly different, as it often does in life. but which ever way, they do play the trumps of being triplets, now. how sweet! ok, ok, it is not yet good for longer walks: collin is not yet secure enough on his own feet, while vicky is too easily distracted out in this new outdoor environment, but hey, all good things will come in time. for now, this is a cute picture of sibling care. and it ups our hopes for whenever it is that benG will follow in their foot steps: their big brother will have a helping hand on either side! :) did anyone say kindergarten?

well, despite the fact that i dont even have any bees this year, as no hive did survive last winter, our by several minutes oldest triplet discovers honey as a new combination of food and fun... which should look peculiar, in fact. not because of taste and sweetness, but because of the stickiness. it is hard to believe that this "glue" doesnt bother or challenge him when in fact not much else is working properly in his mouth. but ok, who am i to complain. lets instead just be happy. and say yourself, this smile really _IS_ contageous, is it not?

by the way, he is sitting in his new orthopedic chair, made to measure by the experts. well, the while it took has been long enough. but first our firstborn has to put it to the test for another while, then some possible adaptinng changes, which is why there is no cover, yet. but since the fabric benG chose is not only very pretty, but also quite necessary for a good photo, we will publish that a little later... so, bear with us.

it can not be denied, though, that the seat has a bunch of positive effects on the development progress. for the first time, for instance, he has his hands in plain view, and subsequently logically he is using them far more and more versatile. and even if for now he is buckled up in the seat, he has a whole new way to keep his body up and straight, and this super-seat is adjustable in all kinds of mind boggling ways. sounds good, no? :)