Mandal, Norway.

Alright, the real beauty of this trip to Norway wasn't seeing the sights (although that was beautiful and worth it all by itself).  The beauty was seeing Anne again, meeting her husband Geir (for the second time) and getting to know him a bit, and meeting her two kids, Mads and Mina.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  Anne and Geir, thank you so much for having us and showing us around.  It was FANTASTIC!

Here's what we saw:

The crew.

Mandal from above.

The old church in Mandal.

We went for a drive up to Bjaastad, which is where our (Anne and I) Great-Grandfather was raised.  He is buried at this church.  We also went to the site of the farm where he lived.  Pretty cool.

 My Great-Grandfather, Tobias Bjastad.

 The stairs to the house my ancestors lived in, and the house Grandpa Stanley Gammelgard visited in the summer of '39.  The pictures to follow are of the "front yard" of the home site.

We stopped in to see Olga (Anne's grandmother) on our way back from Bjaastad.  (To all you Kingsburg/Mission Springs folks, it might LOOK like Ryan Person was there with us, but that's my 3rd cousin Kristian, visiting his grandma (Olga).

 We delivered a (c. 1865) family heirloom back to Norway where it would be appreciated.  Thor Olav is holding here.

Anne, Geir, Katie and I went out on the North Sea and had a picnic on this island.  It was great fun. 

 I even took a short swim.  I was surprised to learn that, depending on the weather and water currents, the water here can be much warmer than Santa Cruz.  Lucky for me, it was one of those times, so I didn't turn all the way blue.

Pizza dinner with Geir, Anne and Mina.  Good times.

Somehow we needed a picture with the whole family.

I guess this worked pretty well too.

We took Gunhild and Thor Olav's bikes for a couple of good rides!

We went to the southernmost mainland to see the lighthouse there.  Lindesnes.  Beautiful.

We had lunch at the wool factory, then rode the bikes back to Mandal.

Finally, we flew out of Oslo, so we had an evening there to walk around.  Fun city, although the hotel was expensive ;o)

I think that's it for pictures from Norway on this blog.  Of course, there are many more and we'd love to share them with you if you're interested...  for $1,000,000.00.