One month in the USA

Douglas and Claartje both went to the US. After Douglas took part in a field course in Utah, Claartje came to Denver for a seventeen days holiday in the USA. After renting a car and buying at tent in Denver we set out visiting several beautiful national and state parks along the way. Among these parks were Rocky mountains National park, NM Colorado national Monument (NM), Arches NM, Escalante Grand Stair Case, Capitol reef,  Zion and Bryce Canyon. We stayed two nights at the Circus Circus hotel and one night at the MGM grand in Las Vegas and spent the days and nights walking the strip and seeing Santana play his magic on a guitar and a great performance of Cirque du Soleil. Done with Vegas we then went on to Hoover Dam, Snow canyon, Grand canyon North Rim, we visited the cave dwellings at Mesa Verde and traveled through mining and Navajo country, up Black Canyon back to Denver. After 28 days in the US Douglas flew back to 'Home sweet Harstad' as Claartje continued for a 7-days geological field course. toped off with a night in New York.  America is amazing!

Weddingpictures in the snow

Two days after the Norwegian wedding party Claartje and Douglas got dressed up again for a majestic photo shoot in the snow in Harstad. The photographer was Rudie van der Meer and he made really great pictures! We are very very pleased with the results! Dank je wel Rudie!

Norwegian wedding party

Since we have a lot of friends and colleagues that were not able to come to our wedding in the Netherlands, we decided to have another weddingparty in Harstad. On the 27th of April, we put on our weddingoutfits again, made a cake, and had a great time with a lot of music and dancing! We even served selfmade 'krentewegge' at the end of the party. Another great day to remember!

Club Haka in Harstad



Douglas club mates came to Harstad for some winter fun. Fishing in the Vestralen, skiing in Harstad and riksgrënsen, snowscooter driving and ice fishing in Kiruna . The highlite of the week, a perfect wind still sunny day of helicopter skiing in the Swedish alps. The ultimate fresh snow experience! As grand finale a 7 course dinner with torsk, rekker, ørret, rein, hval, multibær and chocolate.

Fun with ice and snow

The snow came quite late this year but there was plenty of ice, so it was iceskating and iceclimbing we did. Unfortunately Claartje lost her camera, so those pictures are gone for ever. When the snow did finally stay it came down in loads. Which led us to snow kiting and top tour skiing. Douglas bought his first pair of randonee skies and went straight up the Rolla.

A Snowman and Northen Lights

  

More and more nights with northern lights in February. The northern lights were so bright that we could even see them just above our house. It can be seen in the pictures that they come in different waves and pulses. With all the fresh new snow we made a big snow man in the front garden.