Fall craziness

So i know it has been a while- I have been settling into my new country, job and apartment. Wow- so what are the big things that have happened in the last few weeks? I have officially moved into my new apartment. None of my "stuff" has arrived from Norway so it definately does not feel or look like home but my bed is comfy and the showerhead is on the end of the shower- ask me about that one:)!!
As for Younglife/Wyldlife- things are going really well. There is SO much going on right now. Lots of early mornings and late nights! Wednesday mornings at 7 we have pancakes and Bible study at one of the schools. Thursday mornings at 7 we have another campaigners group at Liesl's apartment. In between that I am trying to get things organized for wyldlife which is going to kick off January 26! Craziness!
I have been able to accomplish a few things in order to feel more settled- I have a bank account, a cell phone, internet is supposed to be coming today(I am using someone else's right now- thank you unknowing neighbor!).
Thursday was thanksgiving- my FAVORITE holiday of the year. And once again I was able to celebrate in another country. We had a big meal and Janet and Paul's house- all the YL crew and some of their local friends who had never been a part of thanksgiving before. They had only seen it on TV so it was so much fun to see them experience it for the first time. Here are the adult sitting around the table. Janet and Paul made the turkey and stuffing and everyone else brought something else. I was in charge of the mashed potatoes but I had to go to Janet and Paul's to make them cuz I do not have any kitchen supplies, not do I have an oven to keep things warm in! It was fun hanging out and cooking with Janet and the final products were great!

This is me and Jessica- she is an intern working with french nationals here- she is so much fun!

After dinner we sat around for a bit and watched Green Bay play the Lions- not a great game but hey- it was live so we'll take it!

Friday after thanksgiving we took about 15 students to a refugee center downtown and we cooked and served the residents a thanksgiving feast. It was really a lot of fun we served them and then we sat and ate with them. The table I sat at had Armenians so we couldn't communicate very well but it was still a great time. Here is a pic of some students and leaders making pretty napkin art!

We also taught them how to make hand turkey's and Native American headbands. Here are some leaders and kids getting into the art. Even some of the adult table really got into it- it was great!

New apartment and halloween

Ok so as you know I found an apartment that I will be moving into on Nov. 15! It is in a super location. Right near this HUGE( and by huge i mean miles long) forest. and on this little cobblestone street, right near cute restaurants, a 7 minute walk to Liesl's(my friend and co-worker) and maybe 15 minute walk to the office. anyway- I am so excited and God is so good. so here are some pics of the new place. Keep in mind that the furniture is NOT mine- it is the current renters. I went over tonight to figure out some logistical things- like transferring electrical and stuff - so I got to take some pics.

Here is the bathroom and my terasse(beyond excited about that!)

The kitchen and 1/2 of the living/dining room

More views of the living room- the fireplace is not real but it looks awfully cute!

and the bedroom- sorry the pictures not better

So for this week I am staying at Liesl's apartment- which has been great-we had a little adventure on Monday. We were supposed to drive down to Paris just for an overnight. We got up really early to get a jump on it and were on the road by 6:30 AM. We made it about 5 km into France and Liesl's car just died. We were 2 women stranded on the side of the highway with these big semi's blowing past us. So we called everyone we knew but no one could really come get us so we called a towing company. It was POURING down rain and we were all kinds of wet(we were under the hood in the rain trying to figure out what was wrong with the car-like we know anything about cars!) So after we called the towing company we decided to try the car one more time- and it started right up!! so we turned around and headed back into Belgium. We stopped at a gas station and filled the oil(it was crazy low) and the car has been fine ever since. SO we never made it to Paris but I have now been to France for the first time since '99.

Yesterday we went for a walk in the forest near my house and here are a few pics - the leaves here are gorgeous!!

Last week in Overijse(where Janet and Paul live) they had their trick or treating night. We all dressed up and met a few students and had a blast. Here are me, Liesl and Janet- can you guess what we are?

Answer- I am a Black eyed pea, Liesl is mother nature and Janet is one cool mom.
Here is the group of girls

This past Friday night we got to Chaperone a school dance at one of the school's where we do YL. Here's the team being oh so cool!

Here's all of us- Paul, Tebo, Liesl, me and Cassandra- we are all on staff here except Cassandra is one of our awesome volunteers!

Well that's all for now! enjoy

The move to Brussels

So I am officially moved to Brussels as of Thursday, October 18! It was a whirlwind final week in Norway- getting everything packed up, picked up, saying goodbye, making sure all paperwork was in order, and not getting any sleep!! By my final day in Norway my apartment was completely empty except for some trash and my computer and phone. I spent Wednesday sitting on the floor making phone calls to apartments in Brussels- I have mastered the phrase "par le vu angles?" I have no idea if i spelled that correctly but it means "Do you speak english?" The joys of once again being at square one with a language:) But it was fun to set up some apointments to go look at apartments. Then for my final dinner Kate and Thor took me out for some Komler- a traditional norwegian potato ball meal. Afterwards we walked around town and I got a few pictures of things that would remind me of Norway. Here I am sitting on my floor making calls and me and Kate in front of the Narvesen- my favorite place to get "polse"

I arrived to Brussels Thursday night and Janet and the kids picked me up. The next day we went to a french cafe for lunch- here are the coolest people living in Brussels-Janet, Liesl, Me and Jessica-all Young Life staffers!

Sunday was my birthday-yes I am another year older-the big 31!- and the Phipps were so great- they made sure I felt special on my bday! Even with late notice they got me some great presents- Here is Braden with the blanket they gave me and Brooks with the candle and turbie towel! They even knew my favorite color was orange- check out the candle!!

MMMMMM cake!! imported from the USA- we love BETTY CROCKER!! They improvised a little on the candle- tealights are multi-purpose!

Today after we went apartment hunting- By the way I got a great one- I will move in on Nov 15!! so afterwards me and Liesl went to enjoy the gorgeous fall day and took some pictures in one of the many parks around my new apartment!!

Brussels is gorgeous this fall. And I am LOVING my new team. They are really awesome. I was sitting at the Phipps house last night and we were having a conversation and in the middle of it I was again struck with how blessed I am and how amazing God is to have brought me to this place to be on this team. I am SOOO excited about what is and will happen here. I hope you all will come visit soon!!

Last Hike in Norway

Of course Norway has many famous hikes and fjords and they love to combine the two. I have hiked Prekistolen 3 times already but there was one other hike/fjord tour I wanted to do and that was Kjerag. A couple of friends of mine called the other day and said that if the weather held out they wanted to hike it on Saturday. I had a lot of stuff to do(like finish packing) but I also really wanted to do this hike and see the famous Kjeragbolten(pictured later) so I said i would go. I have to admit to secretly wanting it to rain so I would get my other stuff done:) but this morning there was no rain so off we went(again secretly I took a book because if it was raining when we arrived-after the 2 hour drive- i was just gonna stay in the car and get some "homework" done) So we set off. Here is a picture of our group before we left. We have 3 Norwegians, an Indian, an Aussie and an American.

So I was told the hike would take approximately 6 hours total and it was 10 km. Well we set off and soon I realized that this was going to take some work- like some rock climbing skills as well as hiking ones- but at least they provided us with some chains to pull ourselves up with.

The hike was nice(a little rainy and foggy) but i think on the way there we went down as much as we went up- which I knew meant a yucky reverse trip! But finally we made it only to find out that it was too foggy to really see anything but here are Gunnar and I at the famous rock. It is basically a boulder that has gotten stuck between 2 of the cliffs.

Now many a crazy Norwegian or in our case Aussie has jumped out on that rock. You may think no big deal- but again the fog is literally couding your view. Let me give you a better picture of what kind of fate you would meet with one small mistep.

Yes- that give you a better picture of what lies beneath that Kjeragbolten-1000 meters of air and then some nice rocks! So needless to say I enjoy my life and have to much to look forward to so i did not jump out there but several in our party did- and I had to look the other way!
Below is a picture of me holding up the cliffs.

And here is the crew at the top- don't we look so refreshed from our supposed 3 hour hike up that took 5!!

Now I have no picture from when we got back to the bottom because it was literally pitch black. We took a little longer than expected and ended up fininshing the hike in the dark- good thing we had some Norwegians with us- they have like inbred GPS or something! Anyway- it was a great way to go out with a bang! Thanks guys!

Bought my plane ticket!

Ok so it is really official. I have bought my plane ticket to go to brussels. I leave one week from today- October 18th! I really wanted to be in my new country by my birthday and it looks like it is going to happen!! I just have a few things to get wrapped up here. The moving company is supposed to come and get my boxed early next week-God certainly worked that out cuz this morning I got an email from the company I thought was going to do it but they couldn't because as Kjell said, "it is out of season" now what "out of season" means I am not sure but only in Norway would there be a moving "season". Craziness!!! So anyway I called another company and as typical to Norwegian service they never got back to me but I had one more number-given to me by Kjell-the "out of season" guy. And that guy- Espen- is my new hero cuz he said they could do it and they could get my stuff there in the next few weeks! God is so good!! SO now it is just fininshing up the packing and cleaning of the apartment here, saying goodbyes, and filling out visa paperwork for Belgium and off I go!

SO just a refresher for those of you who forgot how cool brussels is- here are Paul, me, Liesl and Michelle(a HS friend) in the silver bullet! Get ready to rock the good times!!

I am moving to Brussels!

Sorry for the no pics but I am moving to brussels!! if you really need to see pics of brussels and the peeps there you can look at my brussels blog!:) I am beyond excited! I want to be gone like yesterday! hopefully I will be moved sometime next week but I am not holding my breath-this has been one LONG process so thanks for hanging with me!

YIPPEE!!

Moving???!!!!

Well I am in the midst of packing and selling all of my wordly goods:) So far my sofa has gone, my dresser has gone, my washing machine has gone, my table has gone and in a few hours my bed will be gone! God is so good that everything is going so quickly but it has left my apartment in a bit of a mess- as the following pictures obviously show.
Here is my living room- the white day bed will be my bed til i leave!

in the absence of a dresser this is the fill in

here are teh boxes I have packed so far- really I do not have much more to pack!

For those of you who have not packed up your house recently- I highly recommend it- as a matter of fact - i have packed my stuff 7 times in the last 7 years- and i still have too much junk- so just imagine those of you who haven't gotten the opportunity to go through your junk!!

munich

This week it was off to Germany for a little training, some Oktoberfest and some checking out of ministry opportunities. It was a blast! The week started out with sunshine!!! which was in and of itself enough to make it a great week! But beyond that it was just great to hang out with awesome people- you know who you are! and to be a part of community. We spent a lot of hours sitting on our butts-but we did learn a lot and they even let us work in groups some times- my group always chose to work outside- mmm gotta soak up the sun while you can! At night we pretty much had free- dinner out and then hanging out. We got to eat some great German food- schnitzel rocks! Here are some pics of the fun- the first is of me and Anna-who does YL in Madrid. She is a fellow Atlantan and we actually met in ATL this summer! The next is a group of us out to dinner one night-Adam, Me, Sara, Kevin and Luke

After training I also got to check out Oktoberfest. I actually helped out with a Wyldlife scavenger hunt on sat and got a few pics- They sell these heart shaped cookies that say things like-"kiss me" and i don't know what else but so many people were walking around with them hanging around their necks-

I ended up staying quite a while- because of an odd chain of events which i can tell you about in person if you really want to know. Anyway so Monday I got to go on a gorgeous walk down by the water- it reminded me very much of PA in the fall-lots of trees changing colors. And I met with Dave-the regional director and Chris-whose title I am not sure about- i know you told me-sorry Chris. Anyway I spent a few days getting to know the Munich staff and stayed with Chris, Donna, Mac and Madel roberts- who rocked my world with their kindess! Tuesday I went back into the city and went to a museum and then eventaully made my way back towards Oktoberfest and got my pic with some liderhosen clad gents!

All in all another great week! still don't know where in the world I am headed in the next month but am certain that God has it in his hands and can't wait to see where it is!

Brussels rocks!

The newest adventure in my life was a weekend trip to Brussels, Belgium. What a gorgeous place-true old time Europe! So there were lots of cool things about the weekend- like getting to go downtown to the gorgeous main square and hear a Belgian band play some Indiana Jones music- go figure!:) Here is a picture of the main church in the square. I think this square alone was bigger than the whole downtown area of Stavanger-pretty impressive.

While we were downtown we ate and ate and ate some more but the best thing was an authentic Belgian waffle!! MMMMM it was yummy- you can see I got mine with strawberries, bananas and chocolate! And to my family back home- I did NOT get any on me- I am growing up!! and you can take me out:)

Another cool thing about Belgium were these zapper things they had at the grocery store. This is Janet using the zapper. All you do is zap each item as you put it in your cart and then when you are done it prints up a receipt and you take that to the cashier and pay them- it makes it SOO much faster! Boy those Belgians are smart!

Of course the best thing in Brussels is the Young Life staff there! They are some of the funnest(if that's not a word-oh well) and amazing people I know! Here is Paul with his graveyard of dominoes. And to the right are Janet, Liesl and me.

SO needless to say- it was an awesome weekend with lots of laughter and cool people!

Fun at the beach

So every summer my whole family-which seems to keep growing- Heads to Ocean City, New Jersey for a week of fun. It is one of the best family traditions we have and even with living in Norway, I try my best to get there. This year there were 16 of us-we added 2 in the last year. We have stayed in the same house for about the last 10 years and as our family grows it seems to shrink but we still love it.

Here is the whole fam

One of the reasons I love ocean city so much is that once we get there we do not get in our cars for the rest of the week. We walk or bike everywhere which is great since we also eat like there's no 2moro! This year we also started a new tradition- bringing the "beach house" to the beach. We got this huge easy up thing that is as big as a carport and every day we pulled it down to the beach and set it up- along with 2 other huge umbrellas- so beware- when the Hunsberger clan arrives get out of our way

here is some of the clan under the "house"

This year we were there when they had a sand sculpting contest and one of the judges was Miss Ocean City so we had to get one of those!

This is me and my sisters watching the fireworks on the beach

frisbee golf rocks

Lunch out after church on Sunday is a tradition in the states. In Norway, however, most of us can not afford to do that so we try to come up with something else that is fun to do. The crappy weather that Stavanger has been having lately it has been difficult to get out and have fun but Sunday we braved the wind and sometimes rain and tried a new activity. We played FRISBEE GOLF! which is going to be my new favorite thing to do in norway cuz it's free and outdoors! The course was in Sola- about 10 minutes from home. Gunnar had printed out a map- which was great cuz we would never have found the holes otherwise. We set out, amidst some grumbling(it's ok Ellen) and lots of wind.

We didn't have enough frisbees so me and Ellen partnered which was great cuz my frisbee skills are seriously lacking! It ended up being a gorgeous afternoon- we did pick the optimal warmth time-2:30-to set out on our adventure!