The Petersburg club

Last weekend was the much heard about, much anticipated little Norway festival! This festival is held on or nearest to the closest weekend of May 17th, which is Norway's national constitution day when they became independent from Sweden in the year 1814. The constitution declared Norway to become an independent nation, a time for much celebration, dancing and plenty of traditional food!!

This was my first trip ever to the little town of Petersburg, and the name of the post comes mostly from things I had heard about the town before visiting, for example "the town can be a little clickesh," "the town can be very snobby," "the town gets tons of RAIN!"

All of the above we experienced on our 3 day visit, all except the rain that is.....the weather was more than wonderful, I even got a slight sunburn on the first day.

And really it reminded me of home, a fishing village filled with some extremely nice people, some partiers, and some people who like to dress up (This weekend just so happened to be the time to dress up as vikings!!!) and the only catch; you can only dress up as a Viking If you happen to live there. If you are outside of this little exclusion be prepared to get threats to get your ass kicked!!
Sadly, we were considered tourists, even though our genealogy (and the fact that we also reside in this great state of Alaska) IS Norwegian...... But alas we were not inducted into the Petersburg club on this particular trip.

We did however consume our fair share of fish and chips, pasta salad, crab cakes, meatballs, coleslaw, beets, lefse(flat bread), grog(beer), and finally at an all you can eat feed: SHRIMP!!!! (this trip I did not encounter lutefisk, but I assure you that adventure is on its way.....) A few of us experienced the fengsel (jail) and some broke out sooner than others (who happened to be waiting for her husband to finish his beer down the street and realize his damsel was definitely in distress ;)

All and all I have been giving some mixed reviews on how the festival went, on one hand there were some stubborn Vikings, but on the other with our own family dynamic, fun in the sun and many great activities happening all weekend on, it was a very fun trip! Don't forget to click on the photo link below- happy Syttende Mai!!!!

Photo album link: (click ON the vikings, I promise they wont hurt you!)

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Assassination attempt by sugar:

Yes, you read correctly, this weekend there was an attempt on my life via a flying flaming marshmallow. Strange, you think? Yes, but only if you have never been to an Alaskan bonfire where s'mores are part of our 7 course Alaskan style BBQ menu (eat your heart out stereotypical etiquette buffs) well, I was not eating the s'mores as they don't go so well with the whole- "I don't eat sugar thing....."

So there I sit soaking of up the rays of our proverbial sea of flame when another of the party goer decides he is going to reenact a play from, I dunno like somewhere in Babe Ruth's history, heck I don't know anything about baseball, what am I trying to get at is that he then decides he is going to pretend to hit a home run, only he happens to have a ember-like marshmallow on the end of his "bat" This hot marshmallow somehow grows some wings and hones in on me, about 10 feet away, and splats onto the side of my purple zip up. Where it then proceeds to combust into sugary luminosity. Yes, it then caught on fire. On me. I was not too happy a camper, especially as my purple zip up IS one of my absolute favorites!

It just so happens I recently purchased a Norse amulet on eBay. I'm not so sure this pendant is supposed to bring "luck," but, luckily someone else jumped up at the same time I did......and swatted it out.

This "amulet" is supposed to protect me from evil; but I suppose if my evil comes through the form of a flying sugary ball of fire, I can find a way to deal with it. I know there could be worse. Be safe and please think twice before throwing a flaming marshmallow at a diabetic ;)



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Problemer med passord

Does anyone else have an issue with their passwords for online sites?

It just irks me when I attempt to log into a site and it says the password does not match the login name....... Then you ask for password help, enter in your secret question and it will then "allow" you to create a "new" password. Only, the usual password you enter in is not allowed because it must be between 6 and 12 characters with at least 1 letter and 1 number. And they also tell you when it's not "strong" enough. UM, HELLO!? Why is it so difficult for a site to realize that because they have these rules in place is specifically why I cannot remember my last password???! Then they lock you out of your own account for too many attempts trying to access your username/password. Sigh.

Then I have numerous sites I log onto on a semi regular basis that all have separate rules for what is appropriate for each and every password. Can I not just pick one password and make it easy? Nope. Not a chance, and they want you to change said password every 6 months so there is less chance for hackers to access your stuff.

I think I will start to use Norwegian words as my passwords, then only Norwegian hackers can access my stuff. Language learning is going okay, need some conversation to practice what I'm learning and I've memorized a few sentences to which I have no clue to what they mean (hope they are not offensive) the really exciting thing I learned this week is how to say "jeg er diabetiker" which of course means I am diabetic in Norsk! (tho this is pronounced a bit differently than it is spelled....) so in my opinion I seem to be making some kind of progress!

Ha det bra!!
(goodbye or have a good time)

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