Day 114-Alex goes to Keflavík

   April 27-Alex went over to Brynja's house last week to help her write up an invitation to Brynja's weekend-long sleepover birthday party this weekend.  Since the party was to take place at Brynja's mom's boyfriend's house in Keflavík, there was an issue from the beginning about finding rides for all of the invited girls.  Brynja's mom is a student at Bifröst and was busy this past week with final presentations of group projects, so she did not have much time to think about it.  The original plan to have her boyfriend drive up and take down part of the crew fell through and then the drama began.  Alex was worried that there would not be enough seats and that she would ultimately be left behind.  At one point, Alex was curious if we could drive her down and we were less than excited at that proposition.  By Thursday, it looked like they had gotten it worked out and Alex packed up her clothes and pillow and took it all to school today, since it was expected that they would get picked up there.
   When the bus returned this afternoon, a troupe of girls poured out of the bus with their bags and followed Brynja to her house.  Joslyn came home and told us that Brynja had not had enough time to pack the night before, so they all had to come back to Bifröst so she could finish packing before taking off!  We would be more worried, if we did not know this group of girls better.  In the end, it won't really matter where they are, so long as they have access to a TV and DVD player, because it sounds like the entire party will revolve around watching movies, which is Brynja's favorite pastime.
   Most of the staff and some of the faculty at Bifröst also left today for a trip up to Akureyri on the north coast of Iceland.  We had hoped that we could go along, but we do not have a babysitter here at Bifröst to watch the kids, so we had to forgo this trip.
   Speaking of departures, we also found out that Sally's brother, Matt, and his battalion were shipped out to Kuwait today.  Matt is a commander in the signal corps and his units will be strung out across Iraq and Afghanistan, so he will be commuting from Kuwait to those countries on a regular basis.  Needless to say, we wish him well and hope that his tour of duty is safe and that he comes back to the States soon. 

   We went out to eat at Hraunsnef this evening.  Since we knew almost half of the people in the restaurant, we are feeling like we are slowly becoming integrated into the fabric of the local community.  One of the waitresses works at Hraunborg, so she knew Shan and Spencer.  A two-year old student of Shan's from Hraunborg was there with his mom.  Three of Sally's students were celebrating the end of the presentations and the parents of one of the girls on the Keflavík trip were also eating out.  We enjoyed our meal, like we always do, and then hung out by the large fireplace in the outdoor gazebo before going home.  The kids hit the sack, Sally played Settlers of Catan on the iPad, and Shan put up the last of the four posts he got onto the blog today.  The end is near!