Christmas fun!!
Hans and Shinta

Christmas!!! My very first Christmas ever! Ok..well, not my very first of course..what I meant to say was this year is the very first year that I actually celebrate Christmas in a western culture: Christmas tree, Christmas dinner, exchanging gifts with the family…You know, the whole tradition. Back in Indonesia, we don’t do all those stuff. I have never even had a Christmas tree before! We celebrate Christmas by going to Church on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Oh, and of course, the Asian tradition: visit family & friends, which basically means you better have cakes and cookies ready in your house, and get ready to sit down and chat! I hate this part! I’m not a social person, and I hate small talks…but what can a girl do?

Anyways…enough of the random rant! About a week ago, I started thinking about making gingerbread house. Never made one, never even saw one. Time to get adventurous!

So I waited until my SIL arrived from Denmark with her kids, & we can have a little fun with the young ones. =) Started by baking the bread/cookie, which took 5 hours. Told you we’d never done this before! =P and last night, we built the house, and decorated it.

The icing was too thin, and the roof kept sliding off, the walls kept falling, but it finally stood strong and tall…NOT! It stood (hopefully still stands!) nonetheless.

The crew: 2 cute little munchkins, a highly logical & technical beautiful young lady, and a creative husband. Can’t ask for a better crew!

Roof is all done & Santa moved in. He looks pretty content living in a cookie house covered with sweets, don’t you think so?

The details. 1. The two cute munchkins made the pathway leading up to the front door, Hans made the stairs by the front door. 2. Frozen pond (does it look like a frozen pond), a pink flower on the ground, and a snowman made of round ginger cookies covered in icing. 3. A mailbox.

The final product! (Pardon the lighting. We have only 4 hours of sunlight at the most during winter, and this was taken at 5.30 - almost 2 hours after the sun has gone to sleep). See the chimney? Pretty cute eh? Hans’s idea. Missy made the wall. I love it! It makes the little house look like a cabin! Creativity runs in the family. Oh, by the way, the roof kept sliding off, and we were planning to just take the whole roof off, but my FIL came & put some beams under it..haha..Told you creativity runs in the family!

Abandoned in the woods by destitute parents, Hansel found a house made of bread, candies and cake. (How appropriate that Hans helped build this house! haha).

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Jógvan in Sydney, Australia!! =)
Hans and Shinta
Dear all, Jógvan is now on the way to Vieanna!! WOO HOO!!!! =) That means she will get him before Christmas. YAY!

Anyway, here's the last post about Jógvan. He was in Sydney, Australia =) Just click here.

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Just a little confession
Hans and Shinta
Here in the Faroe Islands, we don't normally have snow in December. I find that weird since our summer is a lot colder than the rest of Europe (we still walk around in jackets in the summer!). Anyways, when I was told not to be expecting white Christmas I was fairly dissapointed. I've never had a white Christmas, and here I am in Europe, and yet..no white Christmas??? That just doesn't sound right. So I told everyone I was going to pray for a white Christmas, and people said 'go ahead, but don't hold your breath'. I was very convinced that I would have it, since you know...God just seems to love to spoil me. So I prayed, and here we all are...covered in snow. Look who is being spoiled again! =P
Here are the proof:
Snowy car window. Hans hates this because it means....
he has to clean it before we can leave! =P
On the fun side, I made this ice lantern, and put it outside. Ain't it purrrrrty??? (Thanks, Amel, for the tips!!)


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Jólabarnakórið - Kids Christmas choir
Hans and Shinta
My sister in law has the cutest kids in the whole world, and this year they are in a Christmas choir. Look how cute this whole recital is! Ok..not all of these kids are my sister in law's..Hers are the two in front, the cute little munchkin in white sweater and the little man next to her. =)




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Christmas - Æðuvík style!
Hans and Shinta
I realize that most of you would ask how on earth Æðuvík is pronounced. I can't think of a way to write it, but I guess it's something like Eavuik. You just have to hear it, ok? =P

Anyways, Æðuvík is a small farm village not too far from where we live. The name itself means 'duck bay' (Æða = duck, vík = bay). Please don't ask me why (Although if I think about it, I do remember seeing lots and lots and lots of geese. You know, I need to ask someone about this). The population of the village is 100 (which is about the size of my extended family, & I'm being serious! My dad has 8 brothers & sisters, my mom has 5...plus their spouses, and kids, and grandkids. TADA!! That's more than 100!!). Anyways...moving on...
Æðuvík was founded in 1897, and is located at the southernmost tip of Eysturoy Island (which is the island next to ours - Borðoy). We have to go through the underocean tunnel to get to Æðuvík, and it takes about 30 minutes to get there.

Every Christmas season, the Æðuvík community gets together and decorate their village brightly & beautifully. You might know that in the winter we only have 4 hours of sunlight at the most..quite depressing, I must say..but it's just perfect for Christmas lights! So, when it gets dark, everything is turned off, and only all the decorations and fairylights are turned on. They even go as far as turning off the lights insided their homes, but oh..what a beauty to behold! =P Here are some pictures! =)

Vælkomin. You get it, it means 'welcome'. This one's right by the gate of the village.

Just a small part of the village from the gate. We couldn't take anything better than this (having a fisheye lense would be nice for something like this). You would notice the angels, shepherds and sheep, those are right in the middle of a small farm. The villagers use fairylights to play out scenes from the Christmas story (it made me cringe to type 'story' because it isn't a story, it's real. It happened. What is a good word for it?). Anyways, you'll see more of these 'scenes'...


"Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people. For to you is born this day in the town of David a Savior, Who is Christ the Lord"
Luke 2 : 10 - 11

and the sheep are just oblivious that a celestial being has just appeared before mere men



Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, asking "Where is He Who has been born King of the Jews?"
Matthew 2 : 1 - 2a
(What's Santa doing in the background? ok ok..when it happened some 2000 years ago, Santa Claus wasn't in the background flying across the sky...pardon the inaccuracy..)


"We have seen His star in the east at its rising and have come to worship Him"
Matthew 2 : 2b
(Hans took all of these pictures, by the way. I love this one with the stars in the background. The stars are actually part of a decoration from another house)

"When they saw the star, they were thrilled with ecstatic joy"
Matthew 2 : 10
(Love this one despite the fact that it looks like the star is the camel's eye..)

"And on going into the house, they saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him. Then opening their treasure bags, they presented to Him gifts--gold and frankincense and myrrh"
Matthew 2 : 11
(This one is on another farm, right across where the 3 wise men are)

"For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace"
Isaiah 9 : 6

This gothic plastic snowman gives me the creep

This is my favorite shot of the evening!

You can't see it from this picture, but this one is right next to a chimney. It's just so cute - it looks like Santa is about to crash into the chimney =P

He fell on his face


thus he is all tied down poor thing...

The back of a house. See how the lights are off inside the house? That bright light is from Christmas tree, and other decorations inside the house. Sorry you can't see it from this picture.


You better watch out,
You better not cry,
Better not pout,
I'm telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He's making a list,
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out
Who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town.

How I wish Santa's coming with a Macbook for me, and a fisheye lense for Hans.

See the santas climbing up the stairs? The Santas are actually moving. There's another one like this on another house, and that one is hanging from a chimney. I couldn't stop looking at it!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Shine your light for Jesus!



This one's just a teaser for my next post =P




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Jógvan in Gold Coast, Australia!!
Hans and Shinta
Jógvan has reached the land down under!!!! Please check out Life's lil notebook to check out more adventures from Jógvan, and of course, pictures!!! YAY!! =) Thanks for hosting him, Chompers!!

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Wedding!!!
Hans and Shinta
Hello hello....

Ok I sooo realized that I haven't been writing AT ALL lately. Forgive me my sin. Yes, it's a sin. Laziness is a sin...but I don't show up now to tell you that. (Phew!) I am here to tell you that I have been busy planning our wedding. Yes, that's right - OUR wedding! haha..(but but..aren't you married already??). Yes, ladies (and a few gentlemen), we are married, but we haven't had a proper reception, plus none of my family members were here on our wedding ceremony. So..YEAH!!!! Can't you so tell that I am beyond excited? Hans says I change into a totally different person when I'm plannig and/or talking about the wedding. Who cares? I have been planning this since I was 2!! haha!
So...are you ready to get excited with me? good!
First of all, we are going to have a ceremony again! Huh? Yep! It's more like a vow renewal though, and this time it's gonna be personal. Most of you should know by now that I had cancer 8 years ago, and was hospitalized in a mission hospital in Borneo, Indonesia. My doctor was a missionary doctor who now has been serving there for over 40 years. He, his wife, and their 2 baby boys moved to Indonesia from the US of A to serve the Lord in the middle of the jungle. I had never (and never since, and doubt that I ever will again) in my life met such faithful servants of God! Their entire family loves the Lord, and live to serve Him only. But if you think of them as these holier-than-thous, than you cannot be more wrong. They are loving, humble, down to earth, and just about as ordinary as you and I are (I guess that's what make them so special). Anyways, this doctor whom I call 'Opa' - Dutch for Grandfather (Indonesia was colonized by Holland for 350 years thus the random Dutch words) - was first my doctor, then he was my 'boss' (I worked in the hospital after I was healed miracolously) for 2 years, but above all he is my grandfather. They've somehow accepted me into their family and have loved me like their own grandaugther. Both Hans and I agree that there is nobody else in this world we would rather have to be our officiant but Opa. If we had had the money to fly them from Indonesia to the Faroes for our first ceremony, we would have. That's the ceremony, that I hope will take place in the church I attended back in high school, but chances are they won't let Opa conduct the ceremony, seeing how he is not a pastor. Oh well, not to worry. The hotel where the reception will be has agreed to provide a room for the ceremony. Yay! =) Anwyays, do you wanna see the reception venue? No? Who cares! I'm showing it to you!
Not bad, eh? It's quite a big hall, it can fit up to 36 tables, but we will only fit 25 tables in there...so 250 people. Yes, I do realize it sounds like a big wedding to most of you...but believe me if you know Indonesian weddings, you'd know that this is a mini wedding! =P
Colors! Our favorite color is blue. So that wasn't hard to decide =P but seeing how the hall has brown ceilings and stuff, we (i.e. I) feel that we need to accomodate that too. So the color theme is tiffany blue and chocolate brown. Yay!
There's a lot more I can write right now, but I won't bore you (for now...hehe). Will try to write about something else soon. =)
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