Embassy Open House ++

Reading through the previous post, I realized that we didn't include any pictures of Karina riding her tricycle she got for her birthday. Here is one of the better ones we took (although I admit it isn't great). She loves "riding," even though her legs are still a little too short to reach the pedals. Yesterday, I was out front with her, and she managed to lose one of her rear wheels - guess I'm not as handy assembling children's toys as I thought (or she rides rougher than Fisher Price envisioned in testing). I managed to get the wheels back on and hope they stay that way.

One of the many cool things about living in this area is that there are frequently interesting events going on in DC or Baltimore. A couple weeks ago, many of the embassies in DC held their own open houses and we went down to learn what we could about some of the countries and get a sense of their culture. We liked playing dress up at the Turkish Embassy.

The Japanese Embassy focused a lot on their technological advances and exports. One of their rooms was dedicated to robotics. This robot humanoid is designed to be a companion for elderly people and children. It was being controlled remotely by someone else a few feet away (I assume that when it is deployed in a functional environment that it would be wireless or something) and it both talked and moved. I thought it was a little too weird - it seems Karina agreed although I will admit taking a strange interest in freaking her out.

The South Korean Embassy, on the other hand, seemed to mostly be celebrating their own latest export to the U.S. ... Psy. Karina and I got down Gangnam Style.

May 17 is Norway's Constitution Day, so we dressed Karina up for church on the 12th and the 19th in her traditional Norwegian dress again. The bunad was Tanja's when she was a toddler. It's remarkable how much Karina has grown and we both noted it fit her a lot better than it did last year.

We have been stressing lately as we are trying to buy a new home and sell our current one. We are under contract for the new house and had a dozen showings of our current home over the weekend during the first three days of it being listed. Real estate seems like it is moving very quickly if the home is reasonably priced and in good condition. Hopefully we will iron out the last details of these deals soon.  It looks like our current house will officially go under contract today, after receiving 3 offers over the weekend.