Christmas letter 2007

At the end of each year we always write a little christmas letter to our friends and relatives and this year I will try to make a simple translation of this letter in english. The original letter in norwegian was written late november when Irene took our two boys to the Norwegian Championship in chess for juniors for the weekend, so I (read: Morthen) had a great chance to prepare the house for christmas even though my temperature was to high for to much activity. The house is filled up with angels and “painted” in red colours inside and white christmas on the outside.  Normally bringing the children to chess tournaments around the country is my job and hobby, but this time I had to stay in bed most of the time.

A short update on our family situation is probably necessary for those of you that live in USA. After our marriage in 1986 we were blessed with our first child, Anne Marie 29.th of mars in 1988. Then it took 7 years before we received our second child, Erik Johannes in 1995 and Paul Christian André in 1999. Anne Marie play violin, piano and a little guitar and  have throug the years been giving us a lot of wonderful experiences participating as a violin player in the city orchestra of Drammen. Erik Johannes play piano and our youngest son, Paul Christian plays both violin and piano.

In 1989 we bought our first house here at Konnerud outside the city of Drammen. At that time 144 sqm. and 3 bedrooms was enough for the 3 of us. But in 1999 after our third child was born we started looking for something larger. A part of the history is that we are not experts in throwing things away when they are outdated and I collect books that I normally buy cheap in second hand stores. 7000 of them according to my dear wife. We ended up in a house with plenty of rooms and 360 sqm. on 3 floors and an attic to put away things that we might need in our next life ;-). We love the house but when the children moves out we will find something smaller.

Last summer we spent one week playing in the Norwegian championship in chess. The tournament was played for a whole week and we were a little excited about how Paul Christian (8 years) would handle games lasting for 2-3 hours each day for one week. He did great and had a wonderful time both playing chess and getting friends when he didn’t play. Hamar have a lot of museums and other places to see; the Olympic games in skating tok place here in 1994 in the Vikingship. It’s a copy of a vikingship turned upside down. The emigrant museum is in the area with an old church from Oak Ridge from Houston in Minnesota, train museums etc. We also visited all the pizza and burger restaurants in the area.   I was surprisingly fighting about the title in class 5 to the last match (for those beyond a 1000 rating points) but lost my last match and ended as no. 6.

In 2005 we bougt a nice cottage a 10 minutes drive away from home close by a inland lake called "Hagatjern". We have our own boat there and the lake is filled with trout, perch and crayfish. It's a small paradise and contains 3 bedrooms with totally 7 beds. The children have been swimming even though it was a rainy summer this year. My mothers cottage not far away from Lillehammer (Olympic city in 1994) have not been used this year.  

In may Irene and Anne Marie travelled with 40 other sisters in our congregation in the Norwegian mountain. The spent a spectacular weekend together singing, praying, talking, eating and walking in the nature.

In late july Irene took the children with her on a summer meeting with the same congregation, but this time it was allowed for men to participate too.

The last two summers we have travelled to Denmark. We have spent both summers in two different places, but with the same concept. A beatiful swimming pools, a sport hall where we could enjoy badminton, squash and different sort of indoor activities. And it was not too far travelling to the famous Legoland and other amusing centers. (I think you have the Lego system for childen in USA too.) Until this summer I thought I were the champion in bowling, but Irene proved that I was wrong – so far.

Anne Marie is 19 years old and moved away from home last summer to continue her education. This year she is studying the topic using a digital camera and working with the pictures in Photoshop. But when she came home to christmas she almost went crazy when she found my old darkroom equipment in working order. The class will go for a photo vacation to Cuba late february and we pray that nothing will happen to her and the rest of the class.

Erik Johannes use a lot of time playing the piano . He is also a very good chess player and have been selected to train with the best players in Norway in his age – 12 year. He was very proud when he came home with a blue T-shirt with ”Norway” printed on.

Paul Christian is a very active young man and play both violin, piano, chess and soccer. He is very social and have no problems to get in touch with others. On the last day before summer vacation he played the violin in front of the rest of the school and all the parents.

Irene is working at the Faculty of Medicine at the Univerity of Oslo and have done so for the last 12  years. I have reached the point in life that I no longer can work 100 % because of my epileptic diagnosis that I have suffered from the last 26 years.

I have my own home page and use a lot of time searching for ancestors and collecting old pictures, papers and old films from the rest of the family to put on the Internett. It’s a never ending hobby that I find very interesting and that other people in the family appreciate too.

Irenes mother and father  celebrated their gold wedding anniversary in december. They are still very active and social people and travell from meeting to meeting in different congregations every day.

My mother is still in ouite good health and have always time for her 3 grandchildren. They have their own beds in her house and  often sleeps there for the weekend.

The first weekend in january 2008 Erik Johannes and I spent playing the Norwegian Championship in Rapid Chess. After 10 rounds Erik Johannes ended with 4 points and I picked up 5.5 points. The old man is still the best ;-)

We wish you Gods blessing and all the best for 2008.

Paul Christian André, Erik Johannes, Anne Marie, Irene og Morthen.