Since i did not write anything since april, I might as well start with May.
I took part in one of UNIS intensive courses and a part of it was field work in Billefjorden. At the same time I took the first samples for my own PhD (followed by more or less monthly sampling until january this year and now bi-weekly sampling until at least summer).
Rasmus was working hard on his thesis during that time which he delivered end of june. I had quite some work with my first teaching experience for the IPY-fiel school at UNIS in july, which was a really nice experience and I both learned a lot and had a lot of fun from working with so many people from different scientific disciplines. Since I was occupied, Rasmus, having "holidays" now, worked both on the house in Trondheim and started organizing our wedding on the 30th of july. I have to say I was quite impressed how much he worked and got done!
The wedding was a success! We were very lucky with the weather and caught the one sunny weekend on Hvasser this summer. We have to be grateful for a lot of help from family and friends which made everything running very smoothly. And it was wonderful to see so many of them! Something we usually never have enough time for in our quite busy life.
Back on Svalbard I finally got the chance to move out of Longyearbyen and into a cabin with my 4 dogs - and of course the result was: more dogs :0). We bought 6 wonderful dogs from Spitsbergen Experience and are very happy now both with renting the cabin from them and the new-commers to our little family.
Unfortunately they did not get all the training they should have during autumn, since I was a lot on field-work. But they were running often enough to be happy and that´s the most important thing. It´s quite often it feels like each day is far too short to manage everything with both job and dogs and most of the time social-life is sacrificed. But I would not want it differently if that would mean not having the dogs. It was sad that Rasmus wasn´t up on Svalbard more often, but just started in a new job, he needed to be at the office in Oslo. It´s important to have a work that is meaningful and being smarter than me in this respect, he decided not to have a brake from his field before he had worked at least one year in his profession.
Especially during dark season, sometimes it was tough with him so far away. usually I like the dark season, but there was quite some periods with bad weather were it really was dark this year and I needed to fight a bit with myself to convince me that it was good for me to be here on Svalbard. I friend of mine was living with me in the cabin so it was not so lonely all the time and we had a nice time.
This christmas was the first time we spent christmas just us two together - only our small little family of 2 2-legged and 10 4-legged beings. It was wonderfully calm and peaceful and we enjoyed not to have the travel-stress that usually accompanies this time. Even the weather was showing a nicer side with around 20 degree minus and clear sky - not dark at all anymore with moonlight, northern lights and stars! And it was quite social as well with all our wonderful neighbors in Bolterdalen. Thank you for a nice time!
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