Finally....

allright. finally. the espevoll familiy is back in business. knowing that this blog has been lying to you for about eigth months now have been hard. we are ashamed and vonbråten. but now we're here again, and we hope you can forgive us.. so much things have happened since march..at least it feels like it. so instead of waiting for hours to deside what to share, we found out that we will give you just a short update and show you some pictures from the very beginning of our little familiy in oslo.


it's 28th of march. we, peter and rebecca espevoll, arrive oslo and the norwegian spring.. and meet..SNOW. after spending almost eight weeks on the most fantastic trip ever, (yes..it was our honeymon!!) visiting nina in japan, the HOT fiji islands and the HOT beaches in sydney, it was a bit strange to say hello to mr.snowman again. but we survived. we were in love, had food to eat and clothes to wear, but no place to live! but..God is great, and our beloved friens hanne and thomas are also great. they invited us to stay in their extra room/office/babybedroom..hallelu. thank you jørgensen family! so 1st of april we entered their door with our luggage. we had a great time in schweigaardsgate..we played uno and participated in pregnant-yoga..hanne and thomas had just become pregnant with their first little kiddo, so that was a interesting time..(by the way.. just a few weeks ago sweet sweet elvira said hello to the world..=) ) on the first picture you can see hanne and thomas sitting on the blanket next to peter.. in front; therese (one of rebecca's bestwoman) and her boyfriend kristian


12th of may we got THE KEYS. the new housekeys to our own appartement. and the adult world. that was really strange but even more fantastic. olala. the tiny espevoll family had started their journey. for real. we started to fix and stæsje allready the same evening. ond so we did EVERY DAY the following weeks. seriously. every day! except 17th of may. 1st of june was our first night in our new, almost finished, appartement in vallefaret 18. we just had our new sweet bed, but after a few days we got some furnitures, and after three weeks we got a fridge! finally. so here you can see some pics from our very first real breakfast in kjærlighetsredet.



the summer moved on and we worked. at statsjobb, cafe le rustique and the elders home. we also went to some weddings and to freakstock - a festival in germany..where peter fractioned his foot..pitty. we ate schrimps on the balcony and looked out on the water(see the pic below), we went for a ride on peters new bike, went to the beach, visited the mountains in hallingdal, and our parents in porsgrunn and krokstadelva. and we stayed home. a lot. and it was lovely! we have played settlers for hours and been smiling for even more. peter and david released their first worship ep with their new project 'aperture' on their own label 'lystad familiy recordings'. rebecca started to dance. no, not started, but continued. she started 'two dancers society' together with crazy gunhild. it is dance..and feelings.. it is contemporary/performance/modern/dansebænd! and it's fun. probably did we do a lot more this summer, but we don't rember that now.


so....the autumn came to oslo city..(no, not the mall.. the city..) yellow leaves, candellights, stockings made of wool and blankets. peter is still working a statsjobb, but now as THE BOSS! rebecca has started on a bachelor in social work. aperture have been playing, extol have been practising and two dancers society have been dancing..at maria solheim consert and nordic fest. that was actually really funny. the espevolls at the same stage at the same festival! funny bunny.
peter has started to get his driver licence and rebecca have been driving too fast and have to pay 3000,- . even more car news.. peter opened the door at majorstua..and bang! there was a bike! so now we have to pay even more dough to fix the big "bulk" in the door. jippi aiai. (almost) all of our friends have been (or will soon become) parents and we have been to our first "married-couple-weekend" with sub church. strange. it seems like we are starting to be grown ups. but that's not true. to be continued..

honeymoon - sixth, seventh and eight week

monday 6. - monday 28.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA!
we arrived in this warm and beautiful country on a monday, almost three weeks ago. australia is extremely far away from norway!! but since OUR BELOVED CATHRIN lives here it feels like home.. a norwegian couple, anne grete and olav and their three cute cute cute children, were so kindhearted that they offered us a room in their house since cathrin was "på flyttern". cathrin studies theology at hillsong church college, so we have spent a lot of time seeing her life down here, and taking part of some of the classes and many of the meetings at hillsong church. it`s a great church with many great people, living their lives whole-heartedly for god..inspiering...
rolf, one of cahtrins norwegian friends, and roman - a guy from hillsong kiev, took us out an eraly morning for breakfast, cliff walking and baching on manley beach. lovely day! håkon and irene, some other norwegian people here, took us to the blue mountains, and we did some serious tourist sightseeing with them. afterwards we had ice cream at cold rock. the best ice cream place in the world!!! after two weeks here, anne and ingrid from trondheim, also came to visit cahtrin. rolf was once again eager to show sydneys best tourist spots, so he took us to sydney tower for dinner with a great viewof this

beautiful city by night. here we tasted both camel and kangaroo.. actually a bit dissapointing. we`ve also been to the royal botanical garden, aeten pancakes at pancakes on the rocks (rolf; YOU ARE THE MAN!!), walked around in sydney, been to a couple of shopping malls (as usual...), seen a couple of movies, been drinking booster (fantastic smoothies), bought and seen 24 season 4... ;-) , beeing on a norwegian-japaneese night, baked bread and had picnic, chilling and swimming in the pool, sleep over party for the girls and last but not least; we have been CANYONING....!!!

this must surley be one of, if not THE most wild thing we`ve ever done! it was the two of us, cathrin, rolf, roman, andrew the guide, and 4 others. we thought we were going on a nice sunday trip through one of the canyons in the blue mountains but ended up beeing worried about our lives...to give you a short summary of the day you can start imagine how hot we looked in wetsuits, shorts, shoes and jellow helmets. lovely! the most important words is; COLD water, slide into the cold water, JUMPING from cliffs (into the cold water..) , swimming with shoes (strange experience) gekkoes, wet lunch, spiders, have to climb up again the same way we came down.., loose the grip of the root and fall many meters into the cold water (rebecca), WE SAW SEVERAL KANAGROOS (!), co-working, sand, beautiful, soar hands, FUUUUN, swetting, freezing, scars, wildlife, CRAZY! it was great fun and a fantastic day, but rebecca also thought it was a bit scary..

today was the last whole day here in australia. wich means that tomorrow we are heading backwards to norway with the snow and the minus degrees again.. cathrin held a goodbye-party at her house with some of our new and old friends here in sydney. CATHRIN; YOU ARE SOOOOO SWEET!!! it's really strange that in just a few hours this honeymoon will be history. the most sad part of the story is that we won't see cathrin on nine months.. *sNuFs* but even though it is a bit sad..we're really looking forward to see all of you, our beloved family and friends, again!! and we're also looking forward to start the married life back home in good old oslo. it has been a fabulous tour, but; HOME SWEET HOME.

honeymoon – fifth week

tuesday - monday

FIJI ISLANDS!!
here are just a few key words.. we`ll let the pictures speak for themselves...

humidity, heat, sun, spa, pool, beach, pacific ocean, sun block, sun burn, fruit, champagne, uninhabited island, fiji smile, guitars, singing, daycruise, snorkeling, fishing, fresh coconut, malamala island, pizza, rugby, myggstikk!!, gekkos, crazy stomachs.., frogs, hengekøye, reading good books, beautiful nature, green!, flowers, swimming, guava juice, fiji beer, scrabble, hva-heter-hovedstaden-i-dette-landet-leken, nice people, drunk italian man, sad italian woman, sun set, sun rise!, coral reeves, SWEET!!!

honeymoon – fourth week

wednesday - monday

tokyo!! shopping, shopping, SHOPPING!!! what else is there to say…!?
we stayed at sun city hotel in ikebukuro, right next to the trainstation. perfect. besides shopping a digital camera, jeans, shoes and more shoes, pottery, belt, beltespenne, pulsvarmere, cds and a singlet, we went to the meiji temple, we met rebeccas friend; kyoko and her husbond and kids (as a present we got a (heavy) bottle of real japanese sake from her parents sake production), went to oriental basar, went to aquarium, had a great night view of tokyo in the 60th floor in the sun city building (beautiful), art exhibition, plenty of used stores and walked around a whole lot more.

here are the names of the parts of tokyo we got to see: ikebukuro, harajuku, shibuja, shinjuku and shimo kitasawa. we also wanted to go to asakusa (old tokyo) but the day we had planned to go there, it was raining cats and dogs, so we skipped it...shimo kitrasawa must be one of the coolest places in tokyo if you are looking for a chill place with many second hand stores and nice people! we hereby recommend this place to everyone who goes to tokyo! you can get the train from either ikebukuro or shibuja..


we also had some really good japanese food again, and tried okonomiaki for the first time...hmm..interesting dish...but not our favourite..
we bought the digital camera one of the last days in tokyo, so unfotunately there we dont have so many cool pics from there.. w
e came to tokyo on wednesday, and left japan on monday... now we are looking forward to sun, sea and warm winds... =)

honeymoon - third week

thursday
we went to visit the girls at the used shop (DPM) together with nina, hoping that we would find some sunglasses. oh yes..we're prepearing for fiji islands... :) we tried many different, and a lot of different styles, and ended up with some really nice ones..

rebecca bought those on the picture with hitomi. sugoy. wonderful hitomi wanted to share her precious lunch-break with us, and we ended up at a lovely place - mister donut! yummy..

we communicate in english and japaneese, with our hands and our faces, and the most important; the "damme dictionary!"

after a while we went to ESC to meet debbie. she was just finished with her english class, so we went to her apartement and ate some pasta and stuff. then we went back to ESC again, and just hang out there until 10 pm.
nina and we walked out in the cold to meet hitomi, ken and his boyfriend at our favourite restaurant. there we tried some slimy stuff..really creepy.. and finally it was CARAOKE TIME!!! this was rebeccas first time, and peters second, but definiatelly not our last!!

we had so much fun, and stayed there for many hours! this was maybe the most funny thing we have done ..since last time we did something really funny..eh..yes. hitomi amazed us with "cant hurry love", and the espevolls sang bjorks "i've seen it all" from rebeccas favourite movie; " dancer in the dark".. a precious memory...even thoug we made a few mistakes..

IT WAS JUST A GREAT GREAT DAY!!!!

friday

we overslept and woke up when debbie knocked at the door 2 pm. we went to nina to visit the shower fee, and the lady of the house (that also had overslept) made some really good soup for breakfast. this evening was the big consertnight at ESC. the espevolls was going to have their first performance so before we went to ESC we had to practise for a while...the conserts began with eyvinds band "face to face", and after a great blues guy the espevolls entered the stage. we sung "be the center" and "du er vakker".

nina also sang a few songs, and so did eiichi - a really cool guy and an amazing musician!! this was our first meeting with eiichi but we found out we were a great team, so he stayed at ESC with us and nina until 4am. then he drove one hour back home, stopped the car and slept for seven hours..japaneese style.

saturday

this was the day peter finally got his new tattoo. and the day rebecca felt really pitty for him. the tattoo it is a backgrown for his carpe, and in the same japaneese style. sugoy desu ne!

we were supposed to hang out with debbie and tanaka san that evening, but as last saturday debbie became ill..so we and nina ended up at ESC and watched a movie. cozy.

sunday

eivind picked us up at 10 am, and we drove to their church. the espevolls sang there too. a lot of nice and friendly people! we drove to iwaki beach and ate great great great great indian food. finally something spicy! instead of eating desert we walked around in the desert. nice beach! and karina (5) and frida (8) found some really nice shells.
at 6 pm hitomi, mei (her son), syougo (her boyfriend) and mirai shared their precious freetime with us and took us out on a sushirestaurant where the food came roling on a band (rullebaand). it was nice to finally meet syougo. and mei most be one of the coolest three year old kids we know :) AWSOME! but this wasn't the end...mirai, chicka and her boyfriend takashi showed us iwaki's bowlinghall.. quit fun!! mirais boyfriend schou came after he finished work. as a gift for schou, mirai became the bowling sensei. and rebecca the looser...buhu..

ANOTHER LOVELY DAY!!!

monday

a long day. we went with nina to hide san and drank some more coffee. hide must been hiding a secret, because rebecca actually likes his coffee! (!) at least almost.. og da er det haap. peter bought a gitalelebag in naokis shop, and we went to the girls to say hello - and rebecca got a wonderful gift!!! a fantastic wool jacket...THANK YOU MIRAI, CHIKA AND HITOMI!! one thing we've learned about japaneese people is that they are really polite, helpful and give gifts all the time!!! what an idol...! we like it!!

then we went to eat some tasty fish and tempura togheter with nina, mirai, schou and chicka. hitomi came after finishing work, and then we were so lucky that we cpuld join the girls rehersal, and actually we got a special designed consert. rebecca was soo glad that she finally could hear the girls live!! ragtimes rocks!

as time went by we started to prepeare for some more rocking...eiichi came and all of us went to sing our favourite songs at the caraoke place!! FUNFUNFUUUUN! another late night.......

tuesday

this is actually our lastday in iwaki. tomorrow we're heading forward to tokyo. in way it is a bit sad..we'we had soo much fun here hanging out with nina, the ESC people, hide san, eiichi and the ragtimes with heir boyfriends. we will miss you... it is true.

this was the big fixing day. for rebecca it started a bit early. she is practising for the new wifelife, and woke up after only 5 hours sleeping because she wanted to bake fresh bread for her lovely husbond...(actually she joined hildes backingclass). nice ladies. and tasty bread. after a really norwegian breakfast with good bread, browncheese and kaviar we went out to do some laundry. boring but nesseserely. we did some small shopping and said goodbye to our beloved friend here in iwaki. we went out with naoki (ninas guitarist), "lucky luke" and another girl to eat tempura on our favuite restaurant in iwaki. DIGG!!! om vi skal si det sjael. debbie, tanaka san and hilde came to ESC to say goodbye, and we ate some wonderful hagendas iscream with nina. now we have used too much time on writing this blog, and we have to go and pack our stuff....

pictures by nina - san

honeymoon - second week

thursday
rebecca started that day off by learning japanese flower decorations at ESC. interesting, but too strickt! you have to follow the rules, and cant let the creativity flow.. we washed clothes at ninas place and went together to hide san. he has great coffee.. even rebecca had a cup! not far away from hides place, there`s a music instrument store where ninas friend and band member naoki works. we said hello to him and peter tried a traditional 3strings folk instrument. it sounded very cool! a mix between a banjo and a haringfele.. sweet! rebecca enjoyed the pottery store next door much more. (saapass! rimepakka!) for dinner we made flied lies (fried rice) at ninas place.


in the evening we went out with nina, chica (left picture; in the front), mirai (next to peter) and hitomi. we ate some really good tepmura. the best food soo far in japan! a fantastic evening with a lot of food, fun and friendship! the three F`s!

the guy in the santa claus costume served us some food..a very strange and funny guy, and he had a habit of loosing his pants every now and then...apperantly hi is a local comedian..

sweet sweet honeymoon...

friday

a lazy day. instead of taking a shower at ninas place we desided to go to an onsen again. we took the train to yumoto and ended up at the same onsen as last time. but this time it ended a bit different.. rebecca almost passed out in the shower, but managed to walk in to the wardrobe. everything became black and she had to sit down on the floor..2 really old and 1 young japaneese lady came running to help her with cold towels and a big fan. after almost throwing up and resting for about 10 minutes, and eating some peanuts and drinking some coke, she started to feel normal again. we spent the evening at ESC, and just talked with people.

saturday

we visited nina and hang out at her place for a while. peter became "kaffetorst" so the three of us went to hide san. he is the answer.. he had really good brazilian coffe this time also. peter made some food at ESC. nina wanted us to see sonic, a club in iwaki where she often hangs out, so we joined her at a dj and vj night there. at first we had the same feeling as you have at the disco on primary school, but after a while it started to be pretty crowded. it was fun to observe the different dancing styles between the japaneese youth and the english teachers..

sunday

slept long. oeyvind picked us up at 5 and drove us to their home. hilde had made really good dinner - sukiaki. namnam! we had a really nice evening, just hanging out with the haraldseids.

monday

the big pottery day! hilde drove us around in iwaki and showed us many good pottery shops. a lot of nice stuff.. we bougth some cups and some small plates. at the end of our little pottery tour,we went to a used store where they had some very old and awsome stuff. among other things a real samurai armour. we tried the helmet, and were amazed by the weight! cant believe they walked around in the heavy stuff! peter wished he was a samurai..they also had one of the coolest pictures we`ve seen.. it was a very old sign for a drug store..maybe a drugstore sign doesnt sound very cool, but we loved it! we actually thought about spending 80 000 YEN ( 4800 kroner) but found out that we couldnt afford it..

the evening was spent at tanaka sans place, reading the bible and eating chocholate and fruit fondue. yumyum gimme sum! nina came with us back to ESC and we watched a movie. 21 grams..

tuesday

valentines day!! a nice man from the taira church took us to hawaiians!! one of japans largest spa resorts. ahh..lovely..we all agree that the outside onsen was the best..peter and nina also liked the water slides. most of all peter liked the "hawaiian" chicks in their bikinies at the dancing show..

hide san took us out on a japaneese restaurant in the evening. good food. good talks. good waltz on the pavement. hide rocks!

wednesday

peter was going to take a new tatoo, but when we came there the tatoo master was ill. peter was a bit dissapointed, but they arranged a new day. instead of inflicting pain we went to see zorro. it was quit fun to have the hole cinema by ourselves...especially did rebecca like it, because then she could do like she like to do when she watches a movie; comment. and we could also place our feet on the chairs in front of us, fart and burp loud, and off course; kiss as much as we wanted to. after eating a luxery dinner at macadonardo we went to ESC. akira morei sensei (pastor in the taira church) came to say hello. great guy.. at the night we spelt a cople of hours just singing togheter. lovely.digg.

pictures by nina san

honeymoon - first week

thursday and friday
travel days. looong days.. the journey started at 3 am in krokstadelva, norway, and ended in iwaki, japan 29 hours later. a car trip, two flights, many hours on a bus, and finally a warm train.
peter lied in vienna to get better seats on the long flight to tokyo...and it worked..hehe.."christians" hum...
when we got to iwaki we met nina, hilde , mette (ninas sister) and elin (mettes friend), ate some food, slept for a while and spent the evening as zombies at ESC (the coffe house that hilde, oyvind and nina is running). this is also our home while we are here, wich is really sweet. there`s no shower here, but nina has made us a spare key, so that we can use her shower as often as we want..nice girl! thanx..


saturday
the big jet-lag day. slept til 3 pm..didnt do much really. hung around in iwaki, said hi to chika, hitomi and mirai at their store. we where caught off guard by the cold and windy wheather, and rebecca had to buy a hat. we ate some bad tempura (japanese traditional dish) and rebecca got diarea..yummy..
they showed "charlie and the chocholate factory" at ESC that night, and we watched some of it, and hung out with some of the people after the film. met a nice guy called maki.

sunday
overslept, so we where too late for church. did some shopping at the grocery store.
tried to find a good place to eat. we actually just followed our noses, and finally came to a fantastic place! before we entered, we were not sure if it was a restaurant or a big private party. it was so much noise and yelling from the inside! but then we found out that it was just the people that worked there that yelled: "arrigato go saimaaaas" (thank you very much) and other things to each other. even though they stood right next to each other, they were yelling.. quite funny..
anyways, it was amazing food there! the table had a fireplace in it, and we grilled our own food. very nice!

monday
the sightseeing day.
oyvind, nina, mette and elin picked us up at 10 and we drove to the fish market. we tasted a lot of different dried seafood, and strange enough, it was only the espevolls that liked most of it..we`re soo meant to be... ;)
next stop was a huge park with a great view of the ocean. really beautiful!

after some cold and windy moments, we drove down to some caves on the beach. creepy.. it`s some sort of a temple or somthing where they have small statues, old toys, dirty dolls etc, in memory of dead children. very spooky atmosphere..

from one temple to another..we drove up to the mountains to see one of the biggest temples in iwaki. took some nice pics of a huge beautiful old tree. it`s said that there are about 8 million gods in the shinto religion. the gods are everywhere and anywhere. in things and nature..
after dinner we went to ONSEN! onsen is japanese public baths with extremely hot water directly from the ground. very nice! very warm..soothing for mind, body and soul...
bible reading at tanaka sans place was cool. first the people that spoke english read a psalm in english, and the japanese repeated. then the fun part came.. the japanese read the same psalm in japanese and we repeated...debbie and nina did a great job.. the espevolls...well...i dont know...we did our best! :)



we fell asleep while it was snowing outside..

tuesday
breakfast at ninas place. nina made "arme riddere"..namnam.. prayed some..went to iwakis best coffeplace. "coffee roast". nina introduced us to hide san. the guy that owns the place. hide san is very cool. very funny. very nice. and speaks english very well. sugoy!! we wanted to eat tempura, but ended up, after walking around for way too long, at saty. (shopping mall) shopping mall food is never good, and neither was this meal. rebecca got a bad stomach for the sconde time..yummey again..

wednesday
we went to do some shopping/window shopping and peter bought some used adidas shoes! the temperature was actually nice for a change, and it was sunny and no wind.
peter managed to cough while drinking chocholate milk at a bakery...it was quite a sight...chocholate milk all over the place, and rebecca fell off her chair from laughing. we hung out with some cool people at ESC in the evening. chicka, hitomi and her 3 years old son mei came to say hello. sweet kid! rebecca learned how to say the different colors in japanese..good girl! it was cool to hang out with them, and we also got to know maki a little better. we went to d.m.s tattoo, and talked with horishin (japanese tattoo master) and planned the next work of art on peters arm..

pictures by nina-san

welcome to herr og fru espevolls blog!

we have now been married for 22 days, and we are at this moment in japan, enjoying our honeymoon! SWEET!
this blog is our diary. we want to share our thoughts and our fantastic experiences with you - our beloved friends and family!
like most diaries, there will be some/many boring details so that the we can remeber the whole picture..so, just skip the boring parts if you feel for it..!
anyways, we hope you will enjoy the reading. please feel free to post many many comments.

welcome to our new life...