I am a terrible blogger.....

I really feel terrible for the LACK of posts I have done! So quick summary from what happened last and then on to the most recent events that I can cover in more detail. Since the last Big Long Post I did was in January about why I haven't blogged. Since then I have taken my exams in May and waited until my results came in July. And now you wait for the results as well. I had the wonderful chance to attend EFY with Tyler. The main speaker was Brad Wilcox, Tyler and I absolutely loved it. I got my results in July, a few days after EFY. I was one mark short of getting an IB diploma, I still passed Norwegian High School. Just not getting the fancy IB papers. And BYU-I still accepted me! Woo! So that was a great load off my back. :D I had been trying to get a job, which is really hard actually to find one of those. But at the end of September I finally got one! It is cafe work. I am the waitress and cashier. I take the orders back to my boss who fills them and then I take them out to the costumers. Hectic work, low stress then high stress; as no one comes in for hours at a time and then there are suddenly ten people who want big orders. So that is what I've been doing for the majority of my time. Six days a week, eight hours a day. ugh. Lots to do, but it is something that means money, so it's great! I have a few things coming up....I am getting 2-4 of my wisdom teeth out on November 6th. woo? It may only be 2 but I'm going to try to get the dentist to take the other 2 out as well. There is a Halloween party for the ward coming up, which should be fun. So yeah. That is my life right now. :D :) Hope everyone is doing well! Tata for now!!

Why I haven't been blogging..

COUNTDOWN CLOCK WIDGETS

This is how many days until I start exams! After that it is another Three weeks until I am finished! Here I come!

11 days to school and Counting....

So I haven't blogged since we had the big Year anniversary. Yeah I am a terrible person. BUT I will update you now! (I know it is not the same but give me credit for trying.)

 March: Tyler and Andrew had birthday's and got the Priesthood.

 April: General Conference! Whooo. Tyler and I also had the opportunity to go to Balliaden, which is basically the Norwegian version of Youth Conference. We went down to Oslo and spent three nights sleeping in a school. There were a few dances and activities during the day, Tyler and I took an electronic and scrap booking class together. We also moved across town, which meant we had a lot of help from the great missionaries here! (they help us/others move a lot)

 May: I TURNED 17!!

Which means I have had two birthday's here in Norway. I can now,  uh... nothing fancy comes with 17 like it does with other birthdays, like dating or anything.(Dang it) My brothers did make me and my dad a cake. It had a balloon in the center, which I suspected, so I had my dad cut it. Thankfully it didn't explode (it was sad for my brothers) instead the layer of frosting just collapsed into the hole. I took my Math test. The first part was way easy, everyone finished early (including me). The second part was RIDICULOUSLY hard NO-ONE finished including the geniuses in my class. Then I had to sit back and wait until July to find out if I passed. And just because I can you will have to wait too. (Don't worry it is only a few lines down) Also in May was the 17. Mai, or Norwegian National day. That was a lot of fun. We spent it with friends, possibly missionaries, it is all a blur.  OH also in May we had about 80 youth from the stake, come up to see Trondheim. (It was the first time for several) We took them all on a tour by giving them a scavenger hunt. Then they spent the night, went to church with us the next day and then left! So it was a good, 20 hours with the youth.

June: This was the most pointless month of school EVER I spent a full month doing science experiments and talking about a huge report. About the second week of June all classes except Chemistry and Physics were pretty much cancled. Then the last week we just had one meeting about the report, then we were supposed to come to school the other days and work on it by ourselves. Yeah that didn't happen. We came to school but one day someone brought an X-box and I learned how to play that. Another day we walked around town, by the river, and up by the University. So yeah pointless weeks of school.  We also had a long weekend so we went to the Atlantic Coast Highway, as a family.

This is a bridge we have to cross before we get to the Atlantic highway.

BEAUTIFUL Views of the ocean.

Look at this!! 

These are called God's rays, we saw them the whole time because it had rained while we were there. 

We found jelly fish but were afraid to touch them with our hands.

Here is the actual bridge that is so famous. We crossed over this twice.

This is Trollstigen, it translates to Troll's Ladder

July: On July 2nd my Grandpa McKenzie came!! Yay! We took tours of the city with him! We went to Hell, because no tour of Norway is complete without a trip to Hell.

So because this is the ocean, it will eventually get to the US!  

So I wrote messages to everyone. 

These are the 7 sisters of Geiranger. They are all unwed, but have been asked several times. They just refuse the suitor from across the fjord.

This is the suitor. After being rejected 7 times he has turned to the bottle for solace.

Geiranger fjord!!!! From the top of the hill. It was a big fjord and big hill!

We had picnics, in the rain.

a closer view of Trollstigen

 So Just enjoy a quick over view. We went to the armory, the Nideros Cathedral, Geiranger Fjord, Trollstigen - That was a lot of fun, and an aquarium. It was a lot of fun to go out and explore Norway.
July 4th was a holiday in the US, but I celebrated here too. I found out that I passed my Math exam!!! I PASSED!! I was so am happy.

Watch out for trolls. 

What else in July. Ummm, I started working on the report. I chose to do it in English, I am writing about how Fantasy heroes are poor role models in real life. It has to be 4000 words. I am currently at 2, 6-something-something.

August: Worked a lot on the essay. I am also coming up on to school, I start again on the 19th!! AAAARRRGGGGHHHGG!! I don't know if I want it to come yet or not! The week before school starts I get to go to a meeting where I learn how to welcome the new kids. I get to show them around the school and make them play get to know you games with each other.

Things coming up: Skylee turns 8 in September and will get baptized. And Nothing else exciting!

Thanks for reading! And I will try to keep this more updated, but I can't promise anything with all my homework that I expect to come.

Love to everyone!!!! 

Alysha

1 year (et År)

Oh my goodness. I have been in Norway for one year. ONE YEAR. I cannot believe what has happened! Where has the time gone?!?!?!
To celebrate I am going to do a list of what has happened (main things mind you) to me and the fam in the past year:
March
I went to the Declo "I haven't got a clue" play and the next day or so drove down to Salt Lake to get on an airplane.
Flew to Washington D.C.
Landed in GERMANY!! (yeah I got to see Germany!! Of course it was just the Frankfurt airport, but still German soil.)
Got my passport stamped in Hell!
Started Norwegian Public school, it actually wasn't that bad and I learned basic Norwegian really quickly.
April
Went to Oslo and was able to attend the confrence in which the second stake of Norway was organized.
Snowed on April 1, I thought it was a very cruel joke.
May
I turned 16!! I had the Sister missionaries over for cake.
We celebrated our first 17 Mai, or Norwegian national day.
June
I was accepted into the International Baccalaureate program.
I gave my first talk (and so far only) in Norwgian.
Wittnessed the "Midnight Sun" actually it was only about 11:30 but close enough
July
Summer break began!!!
I went to EFY all by my self (I sound like a little kid there "I'm a big kid now!") It was in Sweden and was a ton of fun!!
Honestly I don't remember much about July I assume we did a lot of hiking and lazing around.
August
I started the IB program. Which I am now determined to get through no matter how hard it gets. :/
And I am pretty sure that during July and August we mostly just hung around Trondheim and went exploring. I honestly can't remember what else.
September
Skylee turned 7
This was also our 200 day anniversary!
October
Halloween here isn't much but I dressed up as the Queen of Hearts!!
November
I went down to a Super Saturday with the youth in Oslo, there was a dance. It was a bit of a let down, because I was new everyone avoided me.
We had a ward Thanksgiving party which was pretty fun!
December
Secret Santa began!
Shortest day of the year, it was also one of the coldest. My mom insisted we got pictures out in the freezing windy weather.
We had a typical Norwegian dinner of Ribbe (ribs)
Christmas of course was a big part of this month (how could it not have been?) I got a camera!! We also had the threesome of Elders over to Skype/google/call their families.
New Years Eve party that was TOTALLY WICKED!! We had all the missionaries (about 10) over, along with a friend who lives here and is married to a Norwegian but is origionally from Texas, and another friend. So our house was full to bursting.
January
Exhastion  from New Years Eve Party didn't last long! My insane family all joined the Polar Bear Club (and in my opinon the crazy club) by jumping in the fjord!!!!!
I can't remember what else happened in January isn't that terrible?
February
I went to the Stockholm temple! It is really little on the inside only 6 youth can be back at a time.
Started to watch and get hooked on Doctor Who, the television series, I am not that far yet so don't say anything if you watch it a lot.
ummm...nothing really happens now, things are slowing down with the winter.
March
Ok. this is more recent I should do better. :D
We found ourselves a house! We are moving across town, our landlord decided to rebuild his current house and needs some where to live; namely our house.
Tyler turned 14!! A.J. is almost (on the 16th) 12! Which means those two will advance (recieve) in the Priesthood on the 17th together!

Ok that last one was a bit ahead of the time but it is exciting and upcoming times now!
I will be going to Balliaden which is kinda like Youth Conference.
I will be taking my Math Exam in May and (cross your fingers) passing it. Because I really don't want to take it next year.
I will be turning 17 in May!
The youth in Trondheim are responsible for a dance in May. All the youth in Oslo will come visit us.
Some of our friends here in Norway are getting married in June!
School ends for the summer in June! (about time too)
Grandparents will be coming for visits during the summer.
August will be the start of my SENIOR year!!!
Skylee will be baptized in September!!
And of course Christmas in December is always looked forward too. :D

All in All it has been a pretty good year this past year and I am looking forward to more to come!


P.S. A few things that didn't have an excat date to them from our past year.
We got to meet our 3rd (? yeah his grandma and my grandma are cousins) cousin Elder Argyle! I honestly don't know what his first name is.
I am now doing Seminary in Norwegian (that is a weird thought, only Norwegian.)
Tyler and Skylee can speak more Norwegian than me. :( But I am practicing!!
I got a few babysitting jobs so I can buy candy and presents for birthdays. (the candy is mine not for birthdays)
I started helping out at the local English elementary school. I help with the Preschoolers afterschool program, the kids are all really cute! They call me Miss Mack because they can't say "Miss McKenzie" I think it is too many m's and "s, z, c" sounds.
I became friends with a Canadian! Imagine that I travel half way around the world and the person I get along best with is from Canada. It's kinda ironic.

But yeah that is my year in review, and a bit of a look on my future year. I hope everyone has the best of times in their future and can remember more about their past year than me. :D Wishing everyone a fantabulous Spring break (coming up I know) and A great day!
Alysha

To Hundre dager fest!! (two hundred day party)

This is a bit late, but it is one of the first times I've been free!
Two hundred days! That is a long time, So to celebrate here are some intresting facts about the number. 200 hundred miles is the average amount that the pony express would cover in a day. Each dandelions can produce 200 seeds. In Greek mythology Typhon the Titan had 200 red eyes, two for each of his 100 heads.

Two hundred is also the number of days that we have been living in Norway. The time has seemed to both fly and go incredibly slowly. It was September 28, and I planned a party

In order to celebrate I thought it would be fun to do a themed party. 200 days deserves something right? So I set up a movie with dad and mom, I created a shopping list (of course we had food), I assigned out jobs to the kids, and we were set.
Movie: Monster's Inc.
Shopping list: Candy (of course!), Hot dogs (our first meal in Norway), pop (there is always pop on airplanes), and I would have liked peanuts and pretzels but that got vetoed in light of all the candy available. ;)
Jobs: I was head attendant and Miss Boss, Tyler was our Captain, A.J. was a chef, and Skylee helped me out as flight attendant.
I even made Boarding passes for the flight! We loaded up about 5 o'clock, dinner was served (by A.J. and Sky) Skylee served everyone drinks, and then the inflight movie showed! It was a lot of fun.
Oh, almost forgot Skylee told everyone what to do in case of emergancies. It was a good list that she came up with herself:
"In case of fire, go out the window, and flap your arms and fly away like a bird"
"If we land in water, hold your breath and swim away like a fish."
"When your done eating load your own dishes"
All in all it was a lot of fun, but I don't know how I am going to top this when we have been here for a year, it wasn't to hard to come up with this one, but what else can I do for the next one?
(P.S. I welcome any suggestions for the year party, in the comments below)

Tyler "crash landed" the airplane

Skolen/School!!!

My stack of textbooks!

     So it is official school has started. To be even more correct though it started a few weeks ago on the 21st of August. I have just been trying to settle down and begin the school year.
      As most of you know I have been accepted into the IB program. It is an all English program based in a Norwegian High School, which means I still have Norwegian surroundings most of the day. There are some really nice kids in my class, only 7 of us are only English speaking the others speak Norwegian.

This is Sky with my books, showing how tall the stack is. It is huge!

     I have two or three classes a day, but that is enough! My books are HUGE, with just my textbooks in my bag it weighs in close to 30 lbs (14 Kg).
I am up and about by 6:15 because I have early morning seminary on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and some Fridays. (Wednesday is after dinner at the church, which is nice.)
School starts at 8:15, each class lasts for 90 minutes. I typically have two classes before the hour lunch and then one more afterwards. I have English, Norwegian, Physics, Math, Chemistry, and a wonderful class that called "Theory of  Knowledge" which questions everything I have ever learned.
     The school has supplied me with all of the textbooks, and a computer that at the end of the two years, will be mine. Everyday I get more homework, each assignment is due within the week. It is a lot of fun.
     Since I am part of the regular school system I have the opertunity to join in the clubs offered here. One such club is the school Newspaper- Kattastrofe (means catastrophe). I went to the first meeting just to hear about it. I ended up being voted the Secretary! The Editor-in-chief is an only English speaking boy in my IB, and the treasurer is also an IB member. So the IB is taking over all of the programs. We also have sent an only English speaking student to the Student Council.
     So there you have a look at my school schedual, and a good idea of what I do each day. If there are any questions about my school LET ME KNOW, I will answer you!!!

Summer

I know I haven't blogged since right after of EFY so I am going to do a really quick thing. Let's see how this all works.

One day we took a trip through town acting the Tourists. This is an old bridge we saw.

They have a fort here with real guns "just in case." We checked it out one day.

This doesn't look like much but this is an old church that they built the library on top of. That is my dream to be forever in the library, except I would like to be alive!

We visited a castle from the 1800's this is where a cannon used to be. The walls were really thick.

This is the castle that we went to. Sadly, it is one story smaller then it used to be. They recycled a lot of the brick on another building.

These are wild blueberries and wild strawberries, they are TEENY, but really sweet.

We went on a hike and found this river and rock dam, all four kids are here somewhere.

This is Monkholmen. It was built from the castle rock. At one point it was a prison at another a monastery.

I played in the water at Monkholmen, this is the closest thing to an actual beach in Norway.

I had a lot of fun, reading on the beach.

Another day in the woods. Berry picking for some of those mini wild blue berries.

We had a great day at the Science museum. A.J. is trying to get the ball through the loops using a fan.

This is the same day we went picking berries, while the girls collected berries the boys collected frogs.

They have a festival here to celebrate some king. They dress up as nights and have jousting tournaments.

Here we are at the festival. If you click on the picture you can make it bigger and see the swords and daggers they are selling, A.J. is holding some chain mail.

 

This is at the fort with the guns, A.J. and I had a Umbrella Fight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, now that you are at the bottom, comment on which one you want to know more about! I will post a full blog post about the one that gets the most comments on!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Especially For Youth

     WOW was EFY amazing!!! It was my first EFY, but I was looking forward to it after all of the Best of EFY talks we went to as youth in Idaho. My trip started the day before EFY. I got on the train before church was over. It took 6 hours to travel to Oslo. There I met with a really nice family that would let me stay with them for the night, as well as at the end of the week before I came back home.
      The next day, I was up at about five to catch the bus with the rest of the EFY youth, traveling from Norway to Sweden! That took another few hours. Then I got to EFY and the counselors were dancing. I got signed in and went to meet my leaders. I had three youth counselors. It was a lot of fun to get to know them two of our youth counselors, we found out later, were married! We got to meet the rest of the group later too. We had nine girls with two leaders and nine boys with one leader. We were the most international group; there were kids from Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Chile, America, Germany, and Africa. The ones from Africa and Chile were living in Sweden. The boys from Germany were actually Americans but their dad works with the family history program in the church and they are living in Germany for a year and a half. (I was the other American!) We did not however, have anyone from Iceland which would have been pretty cool. That would be cool because we then would have had someone from each of the four invited countries; Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark.

From left to right: Jeremiah, Dina, Straw Hat/Henrik, Maria, Mark, ME, Mikael, Beatriz, David, Jehoshua, Simin, Nicklas, Rebekka, and Ryan. (Nicolai, Gabriella, Tracy, and Paoline aren't in the photo.)

      We left as a group for the youth Family Home Evening. Where we played some games that would help us get to know each other. Thanks to the games we found out about everyone being from so many countries. We also set some goals as a group, for example we said our group, the Pillar of LIGHT, would be the Happiest Company!! (And I think we did that.) One of the goals that we set was to eat dinner together everyday, and we did along with breakfast and lunch. I think it really brought us closer as a group.
      The next day was Tuesday. We had a lot of classes on how to better feel the Spirit or how to feel more confident, a little different topics because I would miss the other one in the series. You could choose which ones you wanted to go to. I had to go to the ones that they would translate into English and they would only translate at certain times. You see, the speakers could be from Denmark and so for the non-danish speakers to understand they would translate it to English at 10:30 or whatever. I had some wackier classes because I would miss the one before that explained or the translation didn't quite make sense. :) Even though the classes were fun. I joined the Music Program/Choir on Tuesday and so that is what I did during lunch and free time in the afternoons.
      Tuesday was also the day of the first dance. The dance was casual dress and a lot of fun. One of the American boys, named Ryan, said he would dance with every girl in our group twice by the end of the week. (And he did he even danced with some three times.) It was a ton of fun. They taught us the EFY Line dance- which we got pretty sick of by the end of the week. Sadly the entire dance was over much to soon, it was quite a bit of fun.

This was the First dance. Ximena and Lee our Married leaders. :) They danced together, and I got a picture.

      All too soon it was Wednesday and we couldn't believe the week was going by so fast. The activities were a bit more focused on the Gospel. All morning was about Preach My Gospel and how to teach quickly and effectively to catch someones attention. After dinner we made banners and cheers. Our cheer was fun. We had a few 'bad guys' that would "steal our light" and we would all crumple, then Ryan (who had the deepest voice) would say "LIGHT" and we would jump up one at a time and say "Pillar!" meaning we had become a pillar of light! I helped to make the banner and a really amazing girl in our group drew the mountain and temple on it.

    Later we had a game night our group would go against another group. That was a blast. We played games like Noah's Ark, Tunnel, Arise- Shine- ZAP!!!, and Pioneer Trail. We did really well as a group but another group was always a little bit better. They gave us pizza for a second dinner. One of the girls had a great idea. We took the pizza boxes back to our rooms and then COVERED them in notes to the guys. They did the same for us. It was a lot of fun to just let them know what we thought about them with out them knowing exactly who said it, because we didn't sign our names.
     Thursday was Sunday dress...which was good. We did Young Women/ Young Men's activities. It was also the day of the music program so I was really, really busy the whole time. Everyone in the program gave up most of their dinner and lunch and free time to practice. It was a really great performance. Afterwards we had a testimony meeting.They split all of the youth into separate groups that were smaller that would help make everything go faster and allow more youth to have the chance.
      Day 5 Friday came way, way to fast. We had a Strength Of Youth activity and that was fun. They only offered four classes in English and you had to take four classes, so I had a really hard time deciding. ;) We just spent a lot of time with our groups saying good bye and getting ready for the next day when we leave.
       For a good finale we had our final dance that night too. It was elegant dress so we all got dressed up. It was really hard to say good night and go to bed, so we didn't, at least not until about 10:30 or later. We didn't even go to bed then! Our leaders had a meeting at about 10:40 and didn't get back until one in the morning. They brought Ice Cream for everyone! It was fantastic!
     We got up at about 5:45 the next morning to pack everything up and put the classroom that we stayed in back into order. The leaders took a picture of our class room before the furniture was moved around. Our class room matched the picture perfectly, every chair that was tipped in the photo, was tipped in real life. By eight o'clock I was on the bus and heading back to Oslo. It was a great week, and I really felt close to the kids I met there. I can't wait for the next one in TWO years. That's right two. Here in Scandinavia they do them every other year, which makes it a bit tougher but you will feel closer, at least that is what I think.

This is Jennifer, she was from Sweden and was my Counseler.

This is one of the Americans, Mark, during the dance compitition on Tuesday night.

Here you go it was a great week. I am really grateful for the chance that I had to go and I learned a lot. I am so grateful for the friends I gained there, and the fun I had.  Thanks to all my friends!!

We played Ninja! This is Beatriz and Straw Hat. (We nicknamed him that because he always had the hat on) On this picture it looked like they were dancing! We had a lot of fun just watching!

Tomorrow!!

EFY tomorrow! I leave after church and take a train down to Oslo then a bus to EFY! So excited!! I will fill you in next week!

11:30 Sun

 We had a picnic the other day. We started it about 7 o'clock and stayed until about MIDNIGHT!! It was all part of the plan to see the "Midnight sun", it wasn't up at midnight though :( It went down about 11:30, but we got some really cool pictures from it. I will post more once I can get this dumb program to listen to me! But enjoy for now.