Jorgensen 6

Isaac proudly shows off his Lego creation. "I built it!"

On Wednesday, I took Grace to school (the preschool is open during fall break) and Isaac spent the day at home with dad so that I could bring Katie and Sam to Pirbadet, the largest swimming facility in Norway. It has a wave pool, sauna, slides, rivers, and a fabulous view of the fjord.

Taking a break for ice cream

Mmmm, chocolate shake

The entire facility is lined in glass, and overlooks the fjord.

Katie in the outdoor hot tub, looking dubiously at her Norwegian compatriots.

It rained on us while we were in the hot tub. The temperature of the air was almost freezing, so once you got out, you didn't linger outside.

The waterslides have electronic timing systems in them. The fastest time is posted as well as the current descender's time. It's like a big bobsled run.

Sam's in the whirlpool

The diving platform. You can see the blur of a fellow doing flips on the way down from the tallest platform.

This was my favorite pool - it seemed to be one with the fjord.

Sam's specialty on this slide was to sit criss-cross-applesauce and spin all the way down.

On Tuesday, we got up early to catch the Hurtigbåt - the express ferry to Kristiansund. Kristiansund is on the west coast of Norway, on the Norwegian sea. It's an island city, actually four main islands and lots of smaller islands. To get there, we needed to travel through the length of the Trondheimsfjord on a catamaran 3.5 hours. It was awesome!

At the start of our journey

The ferry is set up kind of like an airplane. The main floor has two aisles with comfortable seats in rows. There's a little cafe that serves snacks and treats. We sat on the top floor, where we could go outside at the back of the ferry.

This trip brought us back to our time in Germany two years ago, when the point of most of our expeditions wasn't so much the destination as the journey to get there.

On the back of the ferry

Enjoying the fresh air - it was so brisk and refreshing

Isaac brought our old bread to feed the seagulls.

This part of Norway really has different weather every five minutes. In this one day, we had beautiful sun, rain, and hail, each multiple times.

Everyone in the family was thrilled to see the end of a this rainbow. You could see the rainbow go into the sea at both ends of the arc.

Dave was nervous about the young kids going overboard. Which was probably a pretty realistic worry given how choppy the seas got.

This is my favorite photo from the day. All the elements are there - mountains, sea, sunshine. We are so blessed to be able to experience this as a family.

This one is for my dad. Sure, the buildings are quaint, but look at the haybales!

This was when the ride got really wild. It was like a rollercoaster, only with sea spray. We were having a blast. You can tell from Katie's hair how bumpy it was. The ferry was heading straight into the wind and there were some mighty waves it had to cut through. Isaac kept saying the ferry is "wobbly."

To get the full effect of the bumpy ride, Dave went with Sam and Katie up to the bow of the ship. You couldn't even stand up. I had to crawl back to our seats with Grace and Isaac. Of course, we couldn't stop laughing.

At the ferry dock in Kristiansund

Kristiansund is a big fishing town. It's famous for klippfisk - salted, dried cod.

These are a couple of the cod fishing ships. They are gigantic (the ships - I don't know anything about the size of the cod.) Actually, I don't know if these ships catch cod. But I know they are fishing ships.

Walking along the main street next to the harbor. The boats pull up to the wall here and parallel park.

You can see how the city islands are connected by bridges. That big blue ship on the left was pulling into a parallel parking spot.

Feeding more seagulls

A war memorial, topped by a mine, for the soldiers from Kristiansund who died in the world wars. Our kids knew it was a mine right away from watching Gilligan's Island.

The klippfisk lady. She's holding a dried cod. So I guess I know something about the size of the cod.

My favorite dining companion. We enjoyed a pizza lunch at Peppe's Pizza.

Another big fishing boat parked along the harbor

With our time before the return ferry, we walked around town, visiting their city parks. Had a really hard time pulling Grace away from this bus. She is a bus connoisseur, after her experience riding the school bus every day. When she was in the driver seat, she was really in her element.