Hey guys. We went to Iceland. More on that later. This picture is from our last night there and it's pretty cute if I do say so myself. We only had to try like 4 times- I kept looking at my feet instead of the camera. What a rookie.
We went with Ava up to Cascade Springs on a Sunday afternoon. Umm, we had literally never been to the actual Cascade Springs. Huh? Super cute. The Alpine Loop was still pretty green but we wanted to go before we left for our trip.
Nils officiated a wedding and did an amazing job. I love him so.
Nils and I went to visit Addie at work at the library and she didn't love our picture taking. We're just so proud of her.
I put together a dot themed activity for our combined YW activity and it was pretty fun. We played a game where we got dot stickers stuck all over us, watched "You Are Special" on video, and made dot cakes. It turned out fun. We kept it a mystery so the other girls didn't know what it meant that we were having a dot activity.
Anders and I are were casting spells on our soda cans.
Anders' photo submissions:
p.s. we love Cameron
Anders, Cameron, Addie and Ava went to Color Me Mine while Nils and I were in Iceland.
Anders dropped us off at the airport, and that was just the beginning of Kevin's shenanigans.
Oh what can I say about Iceland? We were there for 10 days and barely scratched the surface. Literally every place we went was out of this world gorgeous. Non-stop beauty and wonder. You're always expecting a troll or elf or Gandalf to appear because the landscape is like an epic fairy tale.
3 nights in Reykjavik, 3 nights in Hvöllsvollur, 4 nights in Höfn. We went along the south coast up into a bit of the southeast coast. We drove a Toyota Hilux and it was just great for traversing whatever terrain we encountered, and housing our food supplies and backpacks in the bed.
We stayed in a capsule hotel in downtown Reykjavik, which was an interesting experience. Very squishy but just fine. A cute little cottage in Hvöllsvollr, and a 6 bedroom house in the actual middle of nowhere in Höfn. All were great. All were in beautiful places. All had super thick comforters with duvets and a singular pillow.
We did the Sky Lagoon in Reykjavik, and loved it so much that we decided to go to the Blue Lagoon the next day. The Blue Lagoon is much more visually stunning in pictures online, but much grosser IRL. Silica in the water irritated my skin so so much, but besides that it was just a much different vibe. Like a bandaid floated past us and we realized that someone could drown in the water and you would never know unless you bumped into them. You can't see nuffin' in that water. The Sky Lagoon was clear clear clear and no bandaids, no sir. Those two activities were really the only things we spent money on, other than little parking fees, groceries and food, gas, and of course our Icelandic sweaters.
We hiked, we drove and drove, we saw thousands of waterfalls, steaming mountains, volcanic landscapes, sheep everywhere, wild horses, black sand beaches, the angry ocean with mad crashing waves, insane rock formations, ate pylsa the Icelandic hot dog, yummy European chocolate, fake McDonald's (Metro), which has a GF burgers, hello! We cooked most of our dinners and breakfasts and packed sandwiches and snacks for the long days out.
We played cards nearly every night, sometimes to 2 am. It rained non-stop about 85% of the time we were there, with crazy 60 mph winds. You dress for warmth and being waterproof in Iceland, so looking cute is not really a thing.
We went to church in Reykjavik and it was tiny and about what you would expect from a branch in Iceland.
Spent an entire day driving around Landmannalaugar, one of the national parks. Lots of stunning (duh) landscapes, hiking around, oohing and ahhing.
Spent a day in Vik at the Black Sand Beach and Reynisfjara, battling the torrential downpour and the 60 mph winds, but it was so very epic and maybe my favorite thing.
Vestrahorn Mountain with another stunning black sand beach and amazing photo opps. On our last day, the sun came out, and we found a golf course in Höfn. We played 9 holes in our authentic Icelandic sweaters that we got in town, with 4 ginormous glaciers, the ocean and mountains in the background. HUH?? Is this real life? Also we all suck at golf but that's not even relevant.
It was exhausting and amazing and all of the superlatives. And we are SOOO happy to be home.
Pictures:
Our capsule. So cozy.
What the capsules look like from the outside.
Pictures:
Bra fence- we kept our on our bodies this time.
Oh just another waterfall
Nils eating horse. Tastes like beef but chewier. Yum.
Oh you know I'm gonna eat a GF cheeseburger at Metro (fake McDonald's)
Just me being an Instagram beach model
Pylsa
I love this cuz it looks like Nils is doing a jig, but he's skipping rocks in the angry ocean.
Dead sheep=less cute than alive sheep
This truck was such a trooper
Golf card came every night- this was my lucky zero score.
The trusty Hilux. What a sexy beast. Looking pretty photogenic 'eh?
The whole crazy crew
Vestrahorn Mountain, are you kidding me right now? Like really?
Hello, golden hour. Aren't you just so dang beautiful? Good golly.
I took off my sweater because I was getting hot- a first and only for the trip. Maybe the most scenic golf course anywhere ever? I don't know because this was my first and probably only time golfing.
Glacier Lagoon in a torrential downpour. Classic Iceland.
Now for our li'l Aanster in Kansas! She's been in Junction City for 6 months and will be transferred this next week most likely, but she still doesn't know where. She's ready. We miss the crap out of her, but she's doing great and we love talking with her every week. I can't believe she still has a year left. Ugh.
Couch got taken, sad day.
She broke the recliner so they could keep it.
Umm this might be my longest blog post ever, in 1,056 years of blogging. Insanity! Go to Iceland if you ever can. It's nuts.
