My second birthday 'day' started quite early in the morning, because we were finally going to Ikea!!!

When we arrived there, the parking lot was already full. We didn't have to drive around for too long, though, before finding a space.

We started upstairs in the big furniture department, because we were looking for a couch for our living room.  We were looking for something simple, not too big, and with a built-in chaise-lounge. We had looked in a few other furniture stores before coming to Ikea, but we could end our search here, because we found something we both liked. What we ended up with, was this couch, but with gray washable covers.

We also wanted to buy a "singing" water boiler compatible with our induction stove. We already had an electrical water boiler, but the socket where we plug it in is attached to a fuse which also provides current to the living room, where we plug in our two 2000W oil heaters. Basically, when we want to boil something and use the oil heaters at the same time, the fuse blows. (Fortunately, we have the modern system, so we don't spend a fortune on fuses!)

We got 55cl (1pt 3fl.oz) beer glasses because I wanted huge glasses to drink from. I think this obsession with huge glasses comes from my brother always taking ours at home, leaving none for me. But now, I finally have my own, and they fit exactly in the kitchen shelves!

We got curtains for the bedroom and for the bathroom, a bedside table lamp for Sylvain, oven mittens, sheets for our newly acquired cots, and hangers for the bathroom door. We also stopped by the food section to get double chocolate crisp cookies for Sylvain.

My parents were coming up again with the black leather armchairs they had been storing for us, a bottle of champagne and a birthday cake.  We met at Ikea, and because Sylvain was getting tired of shopping, he went with my dad in my parents' car and drove towards the house. I finished up the shopping with my mom, and we drove Sylvain's and my car home.

We had a very nice dinner consisting of duck meat with a side of potatoes, apples and sauce, accompanied by red wine (white wine for me, but I'd already finished my half bottle before the meal started). For dessert, we had the cake my parents brought, a cream cake with chocolate sprinkles around the sides and a marzipan top. Yum!

My mom and I spent the rest of the night watching the newest BBC version of Sense and sensibility, adapted by Andrew Davis, who also wrote the screenplay for Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth and the "wet shirt" sequence).

I turned a quarter of a century yesterday.

I will have had two celebrations this year, one with "only" Sylvain, which was yesterday, and one with Sylvain and my parents Saturday (see Happy 25th birthday to me, part two).

It all started at midnight yesterday, when Sylvain gave me my present, a pair of white gold, sapphire and diamond earrings :

You'll have to excuse poor quality, I took the picture myself with my cellphone.

I spent the day at home, waiting for our new washing machine to arrive. To make a long story short, when it hadn't arrived at 3pm, I phoned Elkjøp's call center to figure out what was going on. After about 30 minutes, they call me back to tell me that the people who were supposed to deliver the washing machine hadn't been told, but that it could be delivered now asap, if I had someone in the house who could help to carry. The machine is now installed underneath the dryer :D, but I've learned my lesson to not go back to that store again...

But before this happened, I got an unexpected visit from two firemen who were inspecting the pipe and the presents of fire alarms and extinguisher(s).  We had to search for a while to find the pipe hatch, which was hidden behind some shelves in the kitchen, and clearly broken. We have to get a mason fix that, and some cracks in the pipes.

I checked the papers for the house, and I reconfirm the poor work of the guy deciding the state and value of the property. It clearly states that the guy hadn't bothered to move furniture to check for damages on the non-visible sides (including the pipe hatch, apparently!!!). I hope this is sufficient grounds for a "hidden faults" insurance claim!

I'd told Sylvain I wished to eat pancakes and muffins for my (first) birthday dinner, and that is what I got! In addition, he had found, and chilled, a bottle of Coteaux du Layon wine, a sweet wine from the Loire valley, to go with the meal. YUM! 

The move had a couple of casualties: the washing machine and one of the base elements on Sylvain’s home made loud speakers. The latter can, fortunately, be repaired quite easily with spare parts bought from a Norwegian website. The former, which had already been capricious before, couldn’t take the second big move, and stopped spinning the day before yesterday.

So, yesterday, we returned to Elkjøp at Jessheim to order a new one. It’s an energy class AAB. The B refers to its spin cycle, because it  "only" spins 1200 times per minute. The more expensive model is 1500NOK/187EUR/294USD more expensive for an additional 200 spins per minute. To be honest, we would have gone for the more expensive one, but it doesn’t come into the store until the end of April, at which time we would have run out of clean clothes.

The washing machine, which will fit better into our wash room than the old :D, will be delivered on Thursday, which happens to be my 25th birthday.

As I’ve said before, Sylvain’s trial period at EIDEL is over, and this is why we’ve started house hunting. He had a meeting with his bosses (his immediate boss and the CEO of the company) on Monday, mainly just as a formality because they had no expressed desire to let him go (on the contrary :-D, they won’t let him go without a fight), and he had no expressed desire to leave.

Sylvain is now hired on a permanent basis, pending his being given a NATO security clearance. To apply for that, he had to fill out a form where he, amongst other things, had to include addresses for the past seven years for himself, me, his parents and the names of mine. The waiting period will be quite long, so we aren’t going to get impatient.

The other good news is that he got a considerable raise, because they had "miscalculated" his first salary. They thought he’d gotten his Engineer’s diploma in 2003, but he actually got it three years earlier. He finished his doctorate in 2003. As a result, as of March, he has gotten a considerably better income, and he’s a bit more able to afford me :P he he...

My first reaction to the news was that we’d be able to get a slightly better place to live, and his was that we’d be better able to pay off the loan... We’ll see how things turn out...

From me:

• Silver cuff links I’d seen in London at Christmas, and just had to get him
• A travel organizer (TravelOrganizer Elegance at the bottom of the web page) in black leather. I was going to get him a black leather belt, too, but that’ll have to wait.
  

• skis, including
• boots (of course)
• poles/stocks (of course)
• Swedemount windbreaker trousers
• waxes for different temperatures
• gaiters, to avoid getting snow in our shoes and on the bottom of our pants
  

From his family:

A Lego building set for the Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer. We’ve started building it, and you can follow our progress on Sylvain’s blog, the picture on the left updates whenever a new one is added.

Last Wednesday (November 14th), I celebrated the two year anniversary of my relationship with Sylvain.

The day started just passed midnight with an exchange of gifts. We do it this early partly because I’m too impatient to wait for the morning (when I’m usually very sleepy) or the evening to open it/them.

I got a purple Swatch watch from him, and he got a belt and a pair of warm PJ’s from me.

That evening, we dressed up a bit, and went out to dinner in an Asian restaurant in Eidsvoll. I had duck, as I always do in Asian restaurants, and Sylvain had beef. Yum yum!

Overall, it was a nice two-year anniversary.