Iceland Flowers

When we were home in April, I bought Sister Bremner a camera and she has been enjoying taking pictures of flowers - often when the rest of us have moved further along the trail. I will admit that I too have enjoyed the flowers and taken a few pictures myself. When we arrived in Iceland there wasn´t a leaf on a tree let alone a flower to be seen in the wild, but with Spring we have enjoyed so many wonderful flowers and varieties of colors. It all started with the Alaskan Lupine that was brought to Iceland to stop erosion and now they feel that was a mistake as it is taking over native plants. When the flowers died back others began to bloom and it has been a marvelous experience to witness all the changes in flower shapes, sizes and colors. Click on the picture to enlarge and truely enjoy the flowers.

Guess Who is Having a Birthday!

I am trying to organize our pictures of Iceland as we have over 1200 now. A little organization will help decide what is worth keeping. So for a change of pace just thought I would throw in some very old pictures of some great memories.

Seeing Iceland Thru Amanda's Eyes

It has been fun to have Amanda back to show her more of Iceland. We started with the Blue Lagoon as it is right by the airport and then spent the rest of the day seeing all the sites in that area including straddling the American Continent and the Eurasian Continent. The weather has not been very cooperative as you can tell by the pictures. But that all changed for my birthday which started out with a great breakfast and as you can tell by the picture of Amanda and the beautiful blue sky it was one fabulous day - of course all in recognition of my big birthday. I am not sure Amanda will see everything that Lisa's family saw but she has already seen several things they did not get to see. No one was allowed to go out where the Puffins are when they were here, but it is open now. Amanda has much better pictures on her Facebook. My 6 year old camera does not take very good pictures in the poor light available at 10 PM on a cloudy day.

Wow Another Year Older!

We have been very busy with Amanda here trying to show her all the great sites we showed Lisa, David, Gunnar and Qatar. We are on the go constantly but Saturday we slowed down just enough to have my traditional birthday breakfast. I think since Amanda learned to make waffles she has been making them for my birthday breakfast smothered with fresh strawberries and whipped cream - OH so delicious. I did add more whipped cream after the picture.

Outstanding Elder Completes His Mission

Yesterday after our Zone Conference, the YSA's gathered to say good bye to one of the finest Elders to serve in Iceland. Elder Soelberg flew to Denmark this morning at 1 AM after serving 24 months and 3 weeks. Our mission president asked him to extend 3 weeks. He was most grateful he did as he was able to baptize a fine young man two weeks ago. We first got to know Elder Soelberg shortly after we arrived and he was called as the Assistant to the President. You could tell the Spirit was guiding him and the work he accomplished. What a blessing it is too work with these fine young men we have the opportunity to know.

Since I haven't been blogging for awhile I thought I would just add a few more pictures to this post. Eileen put a garbage bag outside the door which the birds quickly found. The beautiful Alaskan Lupine are dying but being replaced by beautiful magenta color flowers that seen to just pop out of the rocks. And finally a beautiful shot of Gullfoss.

4th of July

Friday was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the 80's, so we decided we were not going to let the 4th of July go by without a picnic - a good old 4th of July picnic! The only problem - we were missing a few major items like American flags and fireworks but we made up for it with the food. We had hot dogs and potato chips, deviled eggs, potato salad, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Oh and we had to move inside as today changed to rain and wind but we still enjoyed the good American food. We also will miss out on the fireworks since it doesn't get dark here.

Glymur - Icelands Tallest Waterfall

Click on the title to take you to more pictures and information on this hike. The 6 Elders in Iceland decided they wanted to see Glymur and take the two new members with them. That meant only Elder Koyle could go as the van only holds 9. I took our two Elders into Reykjavík and was going to spend the day looking for more sites to visit. When I dropped them at their first meeting place, Elder Koyle asked if I wanted to drive instead. At first I said no and then why not. Even though I did not expect to go I had packed P-day clothes so we stopped at a store and I changed clothes and exchanged cars. It looked like it was going to rain all day but not once and we actually got quite warm climbing to the top - over 200 vertical meters from the parking lot to the top. There were no trails identified only a closed road, but we saw some yellow painted rocks on the road and followed them. We then came to Y were the road went up the mountain (after later walking down that road I am not sure what could possibly go up it) and a trail led off in the direction of the falls - no yellow markers on either. We chose the trail and I am sure we were on the Leggjabrjótur (literally: Leg Breaker) trail mentioned in the link. I kept up with the 2 Elders leading us even when we got to the straight up loose rock part which scared our only true Icelander that was with us. The views were spectacular even though we were on the wrong side of the canyon to see the entire height of the falls. We then walked further past the falls in hopes of finding a way across the river so we could walk down the opposite side and see the waterfalls completely. There was no place to cross. Our Icelandic member did not want to go back down the trail so I went with him along with the others except for the two Elders who left their sweaters on the trail. The road did not look promising as it led away from the canyon and up another hill but our Icelandic member was not going to go down the trail and my knees were starting to both me so I thought it was worth the try. Eventually we saw the road off in the distance start down the mountain and eventually towards where we were parked. We even made it back first. There were sections of the road that were practically straight up and our Icelandic member said the only vehicles that could make it up this road had huge water filled tires - I would like to see one of those. Needless to say I am feeling the hike but it was fun and very beautiful. Now I would like to go again if someone can tell me where to find the trail on the other side. There were probably at least 20 people climbing on the same side as we did (only not on the Leg breaker trail - they used the road) but we only saw 4 on the other side. They were too far away to find out how they got there though.

The first picture is at the top of the falls. The parking lot is way beyond the end of the canyon like out near the water you see in the bottom picture. The main waterfall that is the tallest in Iceland is on the other side of the one in the middle picture. Next time we are going to find the other trail.

Alright, I'll Play Along Too - Why Not!

Micah and Heather posted this idea on their blogs and I’ve decided it would be interesting to give it a try. After all what fun to see what people come up with and then to also see what to do for someone else.

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice – For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It’ll be done within a year. {might be a little while especially if I wait untill we get home from Iceland}
4. You will have no clue what it’s going to be. It probably won't a story or poetry or something I sew so what does that leave - you'll have to wait. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on YOUR blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog.

So, if you’re up for it, leave a comment. or you could get really crazy and come up with some way to do it in person. So, who’s interested? You will note I did not copy and paste exactly the challenge on Micah and Heathers blogs so you might go to theirs to see the difference.