Richard Haynes

My dear advisor from Western Carolina University passed away last November. His name was Richard Haynes, Dr. Haynes as I always called him. I just found out yesterday.

He was so good to me and a great advisor. He is the one responsible for getting me into computers. When he met me he said: "Gudrun, or may I call you Goodie"? Then he continued:"I think you would be super in assisting people with computers." "Would you like to have an assistanceship here at the Grad school and work in the computer lab"? "Of course, I said". I liked computers a little but I didn´t know as much about computers as he thought. Then I started working in the computer lab in Killian Building, on campus, 20 hours a week. Got some money from that and LEARNED A LOT. Thank you so much for everything Dr. Haynes and leading me in the right direction. I love computers today. I have been working with computers ever since I graduated! Everyone who knows me, knows that. He also taught me one class, about World Class School. He asked to keep my final paper in that class. He liked it so much and wanted to keep it to show other students. I hope he got to use that. Here is a link to his Obituary. God bless him and his memory. He is hopefully in a better place now.

Going from one subject to another. We are going camping this weekend. This will be our first camping trip as a family. We once took Asdis camping overnight when she was two years old. It was fun but we have not gone since. We seem to always postpone it and not be the kind of outdorcy people... but I want to change that. We bought a trailer tent this spring and we plan to use that alot. It has nice mattresses and that is what I like the most about it. I do not like laying on the cold ground. It would kill my back. The weather is not so warm, at least compared to the heat overseas. I think it will be around 14°C during the day and 6°C during the night. So we have to make sure we won´t get cold :) We are Icelandic vikings and we are strong.

Have a good weekend everyone. Need to go home and start packing. Love, GSJ

Who is the cutest boy?

My son, Jóhannes Kristbjörn. This picture was taken by Ólafur Hannesson at my mom's wedding. I just had to put it on my blog and show the world my cutie pie. GSJ

Sex and the City 2nite!

I had a wonderful weekend, my mom got married and we were all busy planning that and enjoying that. It was so much fun and we got wonderful weather - THANK YOU GOD .

The kids were up until 11 pm Friday night and until 10.30 pm Saturday night. So this was a really busy weekend for them. Yesterday we took the kids riding on the bikes, all the way to Hafnir. It was 26 km total and it took us about 40 mintues to bike each way. It was really difficult for me and I felt how OUT OF SHAPE I am now. I am miss fatso now and I need to stop this. I do not want to grow old and become a sloppy old woman. I want to have lots of energy and be able to keep up with my energetic children. So today I say stop to myself - no more fatso!

But back to yesterday. We had a wonderful time in Hafnir. My mother in law and her fiance came along with us, only riding their 4-wheeled motorcycle. I am not sure what they call that in English! We went to Hvammur in Hafnir and that is where Joi's grandma used to live and my mother in law was raised. It was so beautiful. Then we went to the shore and enjoyed walking on the cliffs with the children, picking shells and cochlea (kuðungar). Asdis got mad when we went home, she wanted to stay longer. We got home around 8 pm and Johannes fell asleep on the bike. Sooo cute.

Tonight I will have a fun fun fun time. I am hanging out with my friend Rún, and we are going to eat at Nings (chinese) and then go to the movies to see "Sex and the City". Girls night out. I look forward to hanging out with her. She is so much fun and we love to chit chat and laugh together. Her family and mine are going to Spain in August and spend 2 weeks in a town close to Alicante. That will be so much fun.

Well, this is enough for now. Just trying to be a good blogger :) Bye bye. GSJAK

Bad stomach

I am never going to eat a hot dog again. Yesterday, on our Icelandic liberty day, I decided I didn't want to cook a fancy meal. I bought hot dogs and gave the kids and myself. I was ms. greedy and had two! I haven't had a hot dog for ages because I always get sick in my stomach after eating them. And what happened last night? Of course I got sick. I felt so bad and wanted to throw up. But I didn't. I forced myself to hold it in. Now there are two things I will never eat again. It is hangikjöt, which is a smoked lamb and hot dogs. I feel bloated and sick after eating this kind of food.

I feel strange being a blogger. I really don't know what to write about :) but I guess I will get used to writing here and putting down my thoughts.

As I said before, yesterday was Iceland's liberty day. Joi had to work and I took the kids down town. It was crazy. Having to stand in line to buy balloons and candy and then there was only one castle to jump in for the whole town! It had long lines and I told my daughter, Asdis, that she could not get in. It would have taken the whole day to wait in line. Then I took the kids to my mom's house, where she had her annual June 17th coffee and cake. It was nice. The kids started fighting and crying and screaming after one hour there so I took them home. We played outside for a while at home and Asdis did great. She was biking and I took one of the support wheels of the bike and she was able to bike with only one support wheel. Hurray for her. Had a quiet evening and enjoyed going back to work today after a few days off.

I was really grumpy yesterday and mom noticed that. There is a dark cloud over my head when I get grumpy. Mom called me last night to make sure I was ok. She is the same way as I am. People can always see if we are in a bad mood. I told her I was in a bad mood because Joi had to work and I was alone with the kids. She said I can expect that since he is working as a detective. I should not waste the energy being grumpy when I know that he needs to work. But... I just couldn't control it. I was just sooooo grumpy!

Today I am fine, a little left overs of grumpiness inside me. I am trying to control it here at work :) Hoping for a good afternoon with the family when I get home. Think we will try and go swimming.
Ciao, Gudrun

Gudrun´s first blog

This is for you Dom!

It was so much fun seeing you in London mr. Dombastic. I am so glad we got the chance to finally see each other and hang out. I also loved for you to meet Joi and I am soooo glad that you do approve of him :) So important ;)

We talked about blogging and that I should write in English the website I keep for our children. But after thinking about it for a few days I decided I don´t want to change that. It feels strange to write about my children in English. So now I am going to blog about my life and hopefully I will get Joi involved too. This can be our mutual blog site and I will let my friends overseas know about it and now you can all get news from us on this site. Dom, I will promise to update my blogsite more frequently than you ;) (not very hard hehehe).

Now... any news? London was wonderful, the musical "We will rock your" was awesome, and WE LOVED coming back home to our wonderful little children. Now life is back to normal and we await our next trip to Spain. Hugs to ya´ll. Gudrun