Our stuff shipped off

The movers came this week and took all of the stuff that goes to Norway. They actually packed everything on Monday and loaded it into a cargo container. It's now on it's way to Norway and should arrive (fingers crossed) in 45-60 days. That puts it there right about the time Jeff can move into our apartment. We've still got quite a bit of furniture, a TV, couch, loveseat and a bed. Oh and our Playstation 3 which I'm going to carry on the plane. Even though a lot of our stuff is gone it's still pretty comfortable in our house. This weekend, while Jeff studies for his finals, I plan on packing the rest of our stuff up and cleaning and when I get sick of that I might take Avery to the new Disney movie. Then Friday it's back to Great Falls and Sat we'll go to Mandy's wedding. I'm pretty excited for next Friday to come. Here are a couple pics of our stuff all packed up.
Every box was labeled, tag with our customer number, written on with our name and given a number. I particularity like that our Wee Board was going not our Wii board and I liked that they called the carboy we use to brew beer a change jar.

Here's the house all packed up! See you soon in Norway stuff!

Moving and Faith

The movers are coming… on Monday that is. Jeff and I have moved together five times in the last ten years. Lets see that’s three times in Missoula, once to get to Butte and once when we bought a house in Butte. Each time we’ve packed our own stuff and either moved our own crap or entailed the help of family. I have never had someone else come in, pack my crap and take it away. It’s a little unnerving. Really it’s all I’ve thought about for the last two weeks. Weird things keep going through my mind like, “Do I really want the movers packing and touching my underwear, what about my lingerie? Are they going to steel our stuff… and on and on.” This is what’s keeping me up at night right now. Stupid but that’s my mind for you, always over thinking.

I like being in control and having someone else pack up your stuff and take it away is an ultimate lack of control. Some of you are probably thinking I’m a freak and that you would have given your eye teeth to have movers take your stuff away, so yes I am thankful for that, however, I know I’ll be a nervous wreck until I hear that our stuff has touched down safe and sound in Norway. I will be praying the entire time that a giant tsunami doesn’t swallow it up!

I’m learning many things throughout this move but one of the hardest is giving up control and leaving stuff to fate. Yes I believe in fate and really that’s what’s keeping me going right now. The thought that a chain of events some very unpredictable led my family to where we are today and where we will be in the future. It might be because I’m not a believer in God in the typical sense of the word, that there’s this big man in the sky controlling my life, however, I do believe that God, whomever or whatever he or she may be to each person, guides us along and has a plan for how our life will turn out. So this is what I’m holding on to right now. That it will all be ok because, well I’m leaving it up to fate and that’s never steered me wrong in the past. Oh at the time maybe I thought it had steered me wrong but looking back the things that were trials in my life, they have all led to greater things in the future. Ok not sure where this entry is going and when I started writing it I really didn’t think it would turn into an entry about faith but guess what, I’m a nervous wreck right now and typing my thoughts helps me sort things out. Maybe I should have been a writer. So send good vibes the Kline way or if you’re the praying type send us good vibes that way. The next few months are going to be filled with things that are out of my control and it will be a challenge for me. But they say what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger – right!

T-day

We had a nice Thanksgiving back in Great Falls. We started the day by hanging out with Jeff's Dad and Stepmom for a few hours and then headed over to my parents house for dinner. It was awesome as usual. Avery had a minor meltdown since she didn't take a nap so we didn't get over to Jeff's Mom's until the next day but it was great to see her and Dave then. After we got the kid to sleep Jeff and I headed over to the Heidleburg with Brady and Kristi. Our friend Ryan and his brother Roy also showed up. What was supposed to be a quick couple of drinks turned into a 1 am bedtime but it was a blast to hang out. I was up again at 3:45 for Black Friday shopping and I got some GREAT deals! What a fun couple of days.

Change

Change is such a weird thing. On one hand it’s a great way to move forward in ones life but on the other it is a provider of uncertainty. A person never knows if they are making the right decision when making a change and that’s the hardest thing to come to terms with. As you all know the Kline’s are going through many changes right now and the entire time there has been this little voice in the back on my mind saying, “what if we aren’t doing the right thing.”
I am comfortable in my life right now. I wouldn’t say extremely happy but content and I like content. We have a home I have a good job and we have wonderful friends in this crazy little town, however, any of these things can change in a heartbeat so I try to remind myself of that. Just because I’m content right now doesn’t mean I’ll be content a year from now. In a year many of our tech friends will be graduating and moving on, Teresa and Jeff will most likely be out of the state at new jobs, my job in this ever shaky economy is not a for sure thing, so I know that the cocoon of comfort I’ve been living in is a fragile thing and even if we choose to not make this move, there is still a great chance that something else will burst open the cocoon. It’s just hard to move on into the unknown, however, this isn’t my first rodeo.
We’ve moved so many times in the last ten years it’s almost hard to count. The one thing I’ve learned is that each move has somehow bettered my life. This is what I am holding onto, the knowledge that I have never steered myself in the wrong direction. Leaving for college was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. Being extremely close to my family I spent my first semester utterly depressed. Once I got over it, however, I fell in love with Missoula, received a wonderful education and started my life with Jeff. That move was one of the best decisions I have made thus far even though it was very painful in the beginning. It would have been very easy to say nope I’m staying in Great Falls where I’m comfortable, thank god that was not the chose I made. Then there was our move to Butte. Man that was a hard one. Leaving so many good friends, a city I loved and a job I was comfortable in where I got to work with one of my all time favorite people broke my heart. Yet that move landed us in Butte where we met so many wonderful people and where Jeff discovered that he could get his Masters degree. So I am very optimistic that this next chapter in our lives will run along the same course. Bittersweet to move away from all that is comfortable yet exiting to start a new chapter where the sky is the limit.
One thing I keep reminding myself is that Montana is always waiting for me. A day will come when we will return more worldly, more educated and hopefully with a better understanding of this world we live in. I promise that once I get to the land of the midnight sun I will update regularity. Thanks to everyone for your encouragement and support while we prepare for our grand adventure, I look forward to sharing it with you all regularly on this blog.

Holy Short Hair

So it happened to us. I've heard stories, read other blogs heck I even did something similar myself but I honestly didn't think it'd happen to us. What happened you might ask! My lovely daughter got a hold of a pair of scissors and mutilated her hair. I think mutilated is the right word because cut doesn't really cover it. The poor thing got a hold of a pair of scissors when I thought she was going potty. I was helping her Dad clean up some glass from a window he was replacing in the next room. I swear I was only away from her for one to two minutes but it was long enough for her to climb up on the toilet and reach a pair of scissors I have stashed in a basket on a shelf that's about four feet high. The little monkey put them up to her head and hacked away. She managed about a three inch radius of chopping. There's one spot she cut it to the scalp. When I walked in on her I about died. My first reaction was anger more at myself than at her. Once Ave realized what she did, however, she freaked out and was pretty upset. Her Dad and I had to calm her down and explain that it would grow back and that she'll just have to wear headbands for awhile. The next morning when she woke up her hair was the first thing she talked about. That night she told us her hair was gross and she keeps telling us it will grow back. Poor kid. I'm trying really hard to get through to her that she's beautiful no matter what but I think this has shaken her. I am guessing in her mind she just thought it'd turn out the way it did when Mommy cut it and I'm sure she never in a million years thought it'd look the way it did when she was done. I still want to just kick myself for not putting the scissors up higher! I won't be posting pics anytime soon becuase we're trying to not make a big deal out of this. I'll take pics of her dressed up for Halloween so you can get a sense of the damage then. For now we're using lots of headbands and figured out that if it's put into pig tails it looks almost normal. Lesson learned by Mommy on this one and I assure you the scissors will be locked up from this point on!

Averyisms - Ten for Tuesday

1. When putting her to bed she says to me “sweetie, I love you sweetie”

2. On Monday when we were driving home from day care Ave asks “where’s Daddy?” I say, “he’s at home” she says, “ I wanna watch The Gyver with Daddy.” (the Gyver is MacGyver which she loves watching with her Dad).

3. Yesterday I caught her disciplining the cat. Earlier Jeff had been playing with Miles and Miles had been nipping at Daddy. She said to him, “ Miles not bite Daddy, I told you not bite Daddy.” This went on for like four minutes before the cat got bored and walked away.

4. When I took her to get her flu shot she told me while we were in the parking lot, “I scared Mommy.” Broke my heart.

5. The other day while Jeff and I sat on the couch watching TV, Avery was talking very seriously to her Elmo doll. The entire conversation consisted of telling Elmo he was a big girl and that he has to go on the potty. The conversation about potty went on for a few minutes until Jeff said, “isn’t it funny how it’s all consuming.” At which point I started laughing so hard had I had tears rolling down my face. She also likes to make the Elmo doll sit so she can push him in the stroller. For those of you who don’t know Elmo dolls are not made to sit you have to force it. Most times before she can get the doll to actually sit she ends up throwing the doll and crying until one of us goes and gets the stupid doll to sit.

6. Her new thing is privacy in the bathroom. This morning while getting ready she walked in got on the potty and said, “Mommy get out.”

7. She loves the new kid sized tools we got her. The other day my Mom called while she was using them and I asked her if she wanted to talk to Nana. She said, “no, I fixin.” Apparently she’s helping us “fix” things.

8. Her new favorite song goes something like this (she yells it), “ keep trying, keep trying, don’t stop, never give up” she sings it over and over again and makes Mommy and Daddy sing it with her.

9. When she wants you to be quiet she whispers, “shush the birds are sleeping.” I’m wondering if this is something they say at daycare?

10. Her new thing is grunting or sighing when I ask her to do something she doesn’t want to do. If I say, “Avery pick up those toys.” She groans just like a teenager would and sometimes even rolls her eyes. It’s too funny.

Don't Overthink it!

We’re working hard in the Kline household to make sure we meet all of our goals for the big move. Right now the goals are to pack up as much of the stuff that is staying in America so it can go back to Great Falls any time a family member comes over and to get our kitchen remodel done. So far we’ve made progress in both areas, but like everything it is taking longer than I had hoped. The kitchen is almost entirely sheet rocked and the counters are prepped so we can lay down the marble. This weekend’s goal is to get started on perphataping and by the grace of god finish it so that we can get the counters in so that I can get my sink back!

Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining, actually having the home remodeling projects has helped keep my mind busy and right now I’m finding that idle time means time to think about the hugeness of what we are doing over the next few months. My good friend Jill asked me today if I’m freaking out and actually I’m not. There is so much going on that I am just taking it a week or a day at a time. Setting small goals is an attainable feat. Figuring out what happens once we get to Norway is just too much for my brain right now. So I am focusing on “right now” and if my mind wanders to the future I am trying to only focus on the good. For instance being a stay at home Mom or seeing Europe. I can figure out how to take my kid to the Dr and where I’m going to buy a new TV once I get there. Those are really the things that stress me out so I am choosing or trying to not think about them until reality hits me in the face.

Now finding an international moving company is another topic and instead of stressing out too much about that one, I’ve turned it over to Jeff for now. For some reasons these companies don’t like to call you back, I’m guessing they are busy, but come on I’ve got a move to plan. Ok no stress, Jeff will figure it out!

Our Norwegian Pad

Here are a couple of pics of our place in Trondheim. Just to let you all know it's costing us 6500 Kr a month with is about $1100 with the current exchange rate. That includes roughly 900 square feet of space, cable and internet. And this is "cheap" faculty housing. To get a similar place on the open market we'd be paying closer to $2000 a month - yikes! We have a one year contract which means in a year we'll have to move but at least we have a year to figure that out. We're hoping to get into married student housing next year but we'll see. Our place is about 2.5 miles from the University and from Downtown shopping and from Trondheim Fjord. Not a bad location. It's going to take some getting used to, us living in an apartment again, but it's a challenge I'm ready for.

The McGrath's Wedding

I'm still trying to figure out how to load pictures on blogger from my new camera. For some reason blogger hates my camera. So after many failed attempts to get these pics on here I resorted to re-saving all my pictures off of FB and then putting them on blogger. Don't ask me why but that works? So here are pictures of our dear friends Jeff and Teresa's big day. Jsut a little background. Jeff and Teresa have been together for something like five years. They have a four year old son, Lucas, who is such a cute and funny little kid. We've all been waiting for these guys to make it official but like everything life kept getting in the way. Yet they finally decided it was time and had a beautiful wedding in August. Jeff, Ave and I along with my parents attending and we had a great time. The bride was beautiful, the groom oh so handsome and Lucas was Wolverine or thought he was. He danced all night with crayons in between his fingers which we were told were his wolverine claws! Such a fun night and it was so great to share in the big day with our bestest Buttian friends! I even got to do a reading. Mostly I told Teresa I wanted to be a part of the ceremony and forced my way in ;) My parents took Ave home and put her to sleep while Jeff and I partied on. We even stayed the night at the Finland which was pretty sweet!


check out Wolverine in the back ground (brown shirted cute kid).

Painting

What I learned last weekend, never paint your own house unless it’s one story and very small and even then think twice about it because painting sucks!

After months of prep work and roughly 15 hours of painting the house is done, ha ha, I wish but at least we’ve got a good start. Here’s a sneak peak at the progress. The back and other side are still white but this picture makes me feel better about the whole project. There is a dim light at the end of the tunnel.

Jeff’s Dad, Larry, came over Sat and helped the whole weekend. On Sunday Grandma Lori came to watch Ave and help. Thanks you guys, we couldn’t have done it without you.

On Sat since we didn’t have anyone to watch Ave she spent some of her day watching movies in Grandpa Bubba’s rig. She actually did really well but kept yelling out the window, “You alright guys.”

Before Grandpa showed up that morning we had Ave inside watching movies and playing. We set up a step stool at one of the windows so she could look out and talk to us. At one point she was saying, “Mommy Daddy I need help.” So Jeff went inside and discovered she had stuck both her legs through one side of her underwear and couldn’t figure out how to fix it. Those undies can be complicated. Then once she figured out saying I need help got us inside she started coming up with all sorts of reasons for needing help.

Jeff is home right now painting more and I plan on working on the trim for a couple hours each night until it’s done. Jeff leaves for a Norway trip on Friday and is gone until the following Friday so we are in a little bit of a time crunch but I think if we both keep at it we can get it all done. Wish us luck.

FINALLY!

The small one is growing up and turning into a little girl right before my eyes. Sometimes I just stare at her when she doesn’t know I’m looking and marvel at this perfect little creation. I’ll have to say hubby and I do good work. It kills me what a little personality she has. She is so sure of herself and I love that, I love her spice and I love the fact that she’s growing up.

Over the past six months we have been actively potty training the little runt. There were many times I thought about saying screw it and putting her back in diapers but I never did, I persisted determined that we would achieve success. Really I had no idea it would take so long. I remember thinking, my child is a genius; surely she’ll be the kid that gets it in a few weeks. Yeah right. Over the last six months, I made it through accidents on my floor, our bed, our couch, our carpet, you name it and it was probably peed on at some point. Luckily she only pooped on the floor a couple of times. It was rough and we were all tired of it and then just like that out of the blue, she got it.

All the cheering for poop and pee and waving good bye to the potty and cleaning up the messes has finally paid off! I’m almost afraid to admit it, my luck she’ll revert. Yet for now I will relish the past week of no accidents and no diaper changes. I feel so free. I never thought having a child use the potty would make me feel this way, like I’ve accomplished something great. Maybe this is the way parents feel when their kids graduate from high school or college.

There is nothing better than the smile Ave gets on her face when she runs to tell me that she went potty. My favorite is, “Mom I pooped.” You probably have to be there but it is FANTASTIC! I’m so proud of her and she’s so proud of herself. Life is good.

Home Remodeling Rant

Things are crazy around the Kline household these days. We’ve got a goal to paint the house this weekend. This means we have to scrape every night for 1 -2 hours. That might not seem like much but when you combine it with working full time, wrangling a toddler and trying to maintain some semblance of cleanliness in our house, it makes for pretty crazy nights. We’ve been doing this schedule for almost two weeks now. Before we hit end of summer crunch time we’d take an occasional night off or stop scraping after a half hour, however, not the last two weeks. We have stuck to it. Last Saturday my parents and Jeff’s Dad came over to help. I scraped with my Mom and Dad for about four hours while Jeff and Larry worked on the kitchen. Needless to say, I’m sick of it! I’m sure you’re all filled with pity for me since many of you have experienced your own home remodeling horror, but I need to vent. I think the thing that’s bothering me the most is that we have to dedicate so many weekends to fixing everything up and we’re missing out on spending this time with family and friends. What’s more important? Having the house fixed up so we can make a good profit or hanging out with people that for the next three years we won’t get to see very often. I’d love to say the people but we all know money talks and if we can’t sell our house for a nice profit we’ll be stressed while in Norway because we won’t have extra money to say, buy plane tickets to come home and visit these people. YUCK! So I apologize to all the family and friends that we’ve neglected recently or put off to hang out on a weekend “this Fall”. I’m really hoping that everything will be done by the mid October so we can spend Nov and Dec just hanging out with the people we’re going to miss so much when we’re gone. There are times in our lives when life, well sucks and this is one of them. I have to keep reminding myself that once I’m in Norway I won’t have a house to remodel and I’ll probably miss it. And remind myself that I’ll get to come home for large chunks of time where I’ll get to spend every minute hanging out with friends and family. So I guess it’s short term suckiness for long term gain, or something like that. Here's to hoping the house gets painted this weekend. I'll post pics as soon as it's done!

First hair cut

Here are a couple pics of the first haircut. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. her hair is actually curlier now! You have to start at the bottom and work up to get the full effect.

The end result from the back. The little stinker wouldn't hold still to get the front.
She was so good about holding still.
Here's the before.

Visit from Marc, Karyn and Shayden

Jeff's brother Marc had his ten year reunion in Great Falls a couple of weeks ago so he came back with Karyn and Shayden. We ended up in Great Falls for the weekend and got to hang out with everyone. We especially enjoyed our time with Shayden. He is growing into such a neat little man. Ave and Shayden had a lot of fun playing together. I wish we all lived closer or could get together more often. Here are a few pics from the weekend.

Wearing the kids out before bed. They raced across Grandma Lori's yard. It was pretty funny.



Coloring with chalk with Grandma Lori.
Playing at Grandpa Bubba's house.
Love the expression!
I'd love to know what Shayden was thinking here.
Bath time!
The three cousins, Avery, Ryley and Shayden. Shayden is about six months older than Ry and Ave and about a foot taller!

We enjoyed seeing you guys so much and can't wait to see you again! We didn't get to see enough of Marc and Karyn with all the reunion stuff so I didn't even get a great picture of them. Oh wellm next time.

The next chapter!

So it's official, Jeff finally has his Masters degree in Metallurgy Engineering. All I can say is it's about flippin time! For the past nine months I've felt like his masters thesis has dominated our lives. Put ahead of everything else. It's weird but once I heard he was done and had been accepted a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. We have so much to do to get ready for Norway and now we can really focus on that. It's so nice to have one major hurdle down. Not that we don't have sixteen thousand more hurdles to cross over the next four months but hey one down is better than nothing!

What's next you might wonder... the house and the cars. We need to get the Fusion sold ASAP and the house painted - hopefully that'll happen in the next two weeks. Then it's on to the kitchen and all the other little shit we need to do to get our house ready for market. The goal is to get it up for sale by the end of Oct. Jeff just found out that NTNU wants to fly him out in November for another PHD's dissertation. This will be the perfect opportunity for him to check out rental properties. Rentals are crazy expensive in Trondheim and very little compared to what Americans are used to. It's going to be a challenge going from an almost 3000 square foot home to a 8-900 square foot apartment, so my goal over the next month is to start weeding out the crap. By the crap I mean all of the "stuff" we have accumulated to fit in every nook and cranny of our house. Who'd of thougth we could accumulate so much crap over 3.5 years! This is going to be quit the task in itself. I have a feeling as other things get checked off the list the weight will keep lifting until our goal of making it to Norway is attainable. So if I've been a little lax on blogging and continue this trend these are my excuses. I think they're pretty damn good excuses too!

So as this next chapter in our lives moves forward, I will try to keep everyone updated on where we're at and what's new.

Behind

Things have been a little crazy lately at our house. We have about a zillion home projects going on and we're still trying to enjoy the summer which makes for hectic and crazy nights. I guess this is basically my way of saying, I haven't had time to download pictures and really keep up with my blog. So today I am attaching a phone picture. Here's the little munchin this morning. We finally cut her hair but of course I haven't gotten the pictures down loaded yet so here's a little glimpse. I'm hoping to get that post and a post from our great weekend with my bro/sis in law and nephew up soon. For now I've got a story....

Last Monday while picking up Ave's room she grabbed onto one of her new sandles and took off with it. At the time I remember thinking, "I should go get that from her," but I continued picking stuff up and forgot about it. That is until I cleaned upstairs last night and did not find the sandle. It's not showing up on any of the other floors either. So this morning I asked my preciouse girl what she did with the sandle. You know what she told me. "In the garbage Mommy." I asked her a few more times and each time got the same answer. She even went up to the garbage, opened the lid and pointed into it. So tonight I get to go through two trash bags to see if she really did throw the shoe away. On the bright side, at least she fessed up!

Huckleberry picking

Last weekend we went camping up in the Seeley area. Our goal... to find and pick as many huckleberries as humanly possible in one weekend. We met our friends, Robin, Trev and their little boy Jake and our friend George and his son Reece. It was a great relaxing weekend and we ended up picking seven pounds of the little purple treasures! For some reason my new camera's pictures turn out grainy on the blog. If you click to enlarge the image it looks much clearer. I'll have to figure that out.

The campsite.
The boys playing with the b b gun.
Jake
Jake and Robin
Avery wearing a bowl as a hat.

Ave could pick for about 15 minutes at a time before she got bored. At one point she was just squishing the berries between her hands, messy um yes. That's about the time that we stuck her in the car with a movie!

The bushes were like this everywhere!

Yard Sale

Last weekend we had a yardsale with the McGraths (Teresa, Jeff and Lucas). Each year their neighborhood puts on a yardsale which is awesome since it attracts a lot of people. We ended up making a couple hundred dollars so I think it was worth the hours of collecting, pricing and setting up our junk. None the less it was a fun day, here are a few highlights.

Batman, aka Lucas. He kept running down to other garage sales and buying stuff. He came up with this entire batman costume. He even offered to sword anyone who tried to steel anything.


Avery and batman.
Avery really took to Lucas's harmonica. I think we need to buy her one. Here she is blowing into it. Check out all of our crap!
This was just funny. Look closely at the car driving away. you may want to blow the picture up. Teresa's father in law sold them a exercise bike. They tried for like twenty minutes to fit it into the car. They never tried to get it into the trunk. The solution they came up with was for one of the ladies to sit in the back seat and hold the bike while they drove away with it hanging out the door. We're hoping they didn't have to go very far!

The State Fair

We cruised to Great Falls the other weekend to take Avery to the State Fair and see Jeff's cousin Chris and his family.  Ave liked the fair but it was pretty hot so she only lasted a couple of hours.  

On the way to Great Falls.  She threw up in the car which meant a roadside clean up.  I hate those.  Luckily it was a one time thing and we made it the rest of the drive without another incident.  Here she is looking cute pre-throw up.  
Tonya, Ronnie, Jeff and Avery rocking the fair rides.
Me and Ave on the train.  It was like 100 degrees in there.  She didn't want to get off, I had to drag her out because there was no way I was riding that thing again. 

This is later on the ride with Daddy, Ave decided it was a little scary.  We had all the grandparents with us.  She's a lucky little girl to have so many fans.  

On Sunday we hung out at Grandma Lori's.  Ave said she was fishing with the fun doodle.  I think Ryley was playing swords.