It is the time of the year when I have to conduct a personal retrospective again. I get older and my kids grow bigger. But hey, old is gold, right? 🙂

Continuing from my last post, which was about a year ago, I attended Equinor Developer Conference (EDC) 2024 at a hotel during the first week of November 2024 for a couple of days. I presented a short talk on a topic that I thought was worth sharing to the developer community at work.

That weekend our family celebrated my 40th birthday at a restaurant in Stavanger sentrum. It was cozy and the food was good. I am sure my hair color represented my age quite accurately 🙂

We visited Vinterland i Sandnes during its opening day in the fourth week of November 2024 where I tried ice skating with my oldest daughter alongside one of her friends. I managed to not fall miserably 🙂

We had a nice lunch the day after to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary at a restaurant in Stavanger sentrum after attending a mass at a local church.

We visited Kongeparken on November 30th together with some of our friends using company sponsored tickets. It was raining almost the whole day, but we enjoyed our visit anyway 🙂

My oldest daughter performed in a year-end concert at Vitenfabrikken in mid December 2024, and continued with her birthday’s party at Highscore later that day. It was a joint birthday celebration with one of her classmates, who happened to be our neighbor. All girls in their classroom were invited.

Then came the Christmas holiday. We chose to visit Rome for a week, and took an early flight via Frankfurt on December 19th. We visited several famous tourist spots, among others are the Colloseum, the Roman Forum, the Vatican City (St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums), the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps and Castel Sant’Angelo. My wife coincidentally met her former classmate at the university back in Surabaya, and we had a lunch together at a restaurant somewhere in Piazza Navonna.

We planned to attend the Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter’s square, since we did not manage to get the tickets to enter the basilica, but our toddler cried a lot just outside the entrance. My wife decided to return to the hotel, while I and our oldest daughter attended the mass. It was a happy moment for me, although it rained a bit. Just me, my daughter, and the faithful crowd. We visited the square again the morning after to experience and witness the Pope’s Urbi et Orbi blessing, and this time the whole family joined. I am happy to have the opportunity to see Pope Francis at least once, although from afar, before his passing several months later. I think he is a great religious figure, and I share many of his views. I will miss him dearly.

December is Advent of Code month, and I participated in the 25-day coding/problem-solving event in 2024, where the last 7 days I conducted while on the trip to Rome. I continued my own tradition of using a different programming language each year, and this time I used Python (after using C#, JavaScript and Go in the previous years). I was lucky to make it to the top of my employer’s Stavanger developer community leaderboard, and received a nice tumbler as a present to be the official champion. I did not fare very well on the company’s global leaderboard, though, but managed to land somewhere in the top 10 list. I am happy to have completed all 50 problems (they were actually 49 problems plus 1 bonus). In this age of generative AI, where I use GitHub Copilot with Claude Sonnet agent on daily basis at work, I really appreciate this kind of raw, traditional, old school way of solving technical challenges, and am grateful that Advent of Code existed. Having to implement DFS, BFS, Dijkstra with priority queue etc. gave me this nostalgic feeling that goes back to my undergrad time. Waking up at 6 am was challenging, but I plan to repeat it again this year. Maybe in a bit more relaxed manner since I got my tumbler already last year 🙂

We flew back to Stavanger on December 26th, took some rest (I think I went to work for a couple of days), then celebrated the New Year at one of our friends’ house.

I had to travel to Bergen (and stayed overnight) in the first week of January 2025 for a medical checkup related to my snoring issue, since the health insurance company did not have any clinic partner in the Stavanger area. But it was fine, as the insurance company paid for both travel and hotel costs. Bergen was snowy (and slippery).

My family attended a Christmas celebration arranged by the Indonesian Christian community in Stavanger in the second week of January 2025, and I had to travel to Indonesia for two days a week later to carry out an important family business. I am sure I spent more time in the sky than on Indonesian soil.

My oldest daughter joined Kjempeseminaret in the second week of February 2025, and performed in a concert at the Stavanger Konserthus. Since toddlers were not allowed to enter the concert hall, only my wife watched the concert while I took care of my youngest daughter outside the hall. Life was not fair 🙂

The whole family ate out for a dinner on Valentine’s Day at a restaurant, and we drove to Hafjell for our winter vacation a week later. It was quite a long drive (about 12 hours one-way including stops), so I switched the driving seat with my wife several times. And we had to stop at Tesla Supercharging stations two times (luckily there were quite a few Tesla Superchargers on the way). My daughter did not fancy joining ski school this time, so I accompanied her most of the time on the slopes. I also took turn with my wife in taking care of our toddler so she could also enjoy skiing in the nice ski resort. We stayed there for six nights, where I spent roughly three days skiing and two days snowboarding. It was fun.

We concluded our vinterferie by visiting Hunderfossen the evening before we drove back to Stavanger area. We experienced drinking orange juice from glasses made of ice, watched a show at an open air theater in Norwegian folklore vibe and watched fireworks, among other things. It was a bit cold and the roads were slippery, but we enjoyed our time.

We celebrated our youngest daughter’s 2nd birthday in mid April 2025 at home, and drove to Denmark one day later for Easter break or Påskeferie in Norwegian.

We took a ferry to Hirtshals, and slept overnight in a small cabin in the ferry. Our initial destination was Legoland in Billund, but we found an interesting zoo, so we decided to stay at a nearby hostel. The zoo has a safari route, and it was an interesting experience to drive in a queue, waiting for giraffes to cross the road 🙂

We enjoyed Legoland the next day, and visited the Lego House the day after.

Our oldest daughter joined the children’s parade together with her classmates on May 17th to celebrate the Norwegian Constitution Day, and we followed her from not far behind. We then visited one of our friends later in the afternoon for a barbecue party. The weather was excellent.

I attended software craftmanship day at work during the last week of May 2025, where I joined a group of fellow software engineers trying to refactor and implement some features without any help from AI tools. It was fun, and the lunch at business center was good. About a week later, I watched my oldest daughter performed in a concert together with her orchestra group in Sandnes.

My wife landed a new job that requires her to commute to a gas plant through undersea tunnels several days a week. She found it challenging to drive her small car through the terrain due to lack of horse power, so we decided to sell her car and bought a certified pre-owned Model 3 with all-wheel drive (AWD) capability. We drove to Kristiansand in the second week of June 2025 to fetch the car from Tesla‘s used car garage, and my wife drove her new (second hand) sedan back to Stavanger area. The kids sat in her car while the winter tires lied at the back of our old Model Y with me as a lonely driver 🙂 I am not a Tesla fanboi, and am not proud that we own two Teslas in our household. But taking into account our current circumstances, I think it is a decision that makes sense for now.

I wanted to have a bit more physical activities during the summer, so I bought a relatively cheap electric bike and a used bike trailer for kids. I could bike longer distances with our youngest daughter with no fatigue issue, and I could easily deliver her to the kindergarten before cycling to work several times.

We drove to Geilo in the fourth week of June 2025 since our oldest daughter joined Suzuki summer school for several days. We managed to book one of my employer’s cabins, just a couple of minutes drive from the resort where the summer school took place. The schedule was quite packed, but I think my daughter enjoyed it. She made some new friends as well.

We checked out Gladmat in the last week of June 2025, and flew to Paris in mid July for our summer vacation for about a week. We were lucky to get a direct flight from Stavanger, so we avoided transit drama with our toddler. We visited several tourist attractions, among others are the Eiffel tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Pantheon, the Louvre museum, the Notre-Dame cathedral, the Sacre-Coeur basilica and the Place de la Concorde.

And of course we visited Disneyland Paris, one day for the Disneyland Park, and one day for the Walt Disney Studios Park. Since the waiting lines for the games/attractions were very long, we cheated a bit by using the Disney Premier Access whenever we could. It is like a cheat code to cut the queue by paying extra. Money talks! 🙂

We also visited the Paris Aquarium and one of PSG’s official stores in Champs-Élysées before flying back to Norway. We were a bit exhausted after the trip, but I hope our children will remember the good times.

We attended the celebration of Indonesia’s independence day in the fourth week of August 2025, and I flew to Bergen about a week later for a meeting/workshop, where some employees of one of my employer’s partners visited us from the US.

Our oldest daughter performed in an open air concert together with her friends from the music school at Eventyrstien in Sandvedparken on September 26th 2025. It was an interesting event, where many children showed off their talents, from singing to dancing, from playing various instruments to theater/drama.

We visited Kongeparken again in mid October 2025 for a Halloween-themed fun, this time together with our oldest daughter’s two classmates (last year it was only me and my daughter). We played many games, and the kids carved pumpkins as well. On October 31st, we walked around our neighborhood together with one of our neighbors, and the kids knocked/rang several doors with Halloween decorations to get as many candies as possible. Several rounds of door knocking/ringing also happened to our house, and luckily we have prepared two bowls of candies for them.

That is all I can remember for this year’s personal retrospective, and I am happy that I have been blessed with another year filled with beautiful moments. I hope this will continue to the next retrospective. Fingers crossed 🙂

40 years have I lived my life, 4 decades have I breathed the earthly air. A bit sad that I have used roughly half of the typical human life-year-credit, but happy that many things have happened along the way, both the ups and downs. As I enter my 5th decade, I think it is the right time to look back to the final year of the 4th decade.

We celebrated my birthday on a Sunday evening at a restaurant in Stavanger sentrum, trying to enjoy fine sushi as much as we could. Unfortunately, our oldest daughter could not share the joy as she ate something that she was allergic to.

We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary by having another dinner at a restaurant in Sandnes sentrum in the third week of November 2023.

We then visited Kongeparken using company-sponsored tickets the following day together with our neighbor. It was a rather cold Sunday evening, but I think the kids enjoyed it.

My oldest girl wanted to ice skate, so we visited Vinterland i Sandnes on a Saturday afternoon in the fourth week of November 2023. It had been a while since she last skated. I also enjoyed watching some live Christmas music performances on stage.

The sky was clear, so we tried chasing the northern lights at a relatively nearby beach later that evening. It was a rather rare moment in our area where we could see green lights in the sky.

My oldest daughter performed in a mini concert together with other children in her orchestra group in Sandnes Kulturhus the next day.

My oldest daughter ice skated again with some friends in the first week of December 2023, and we watched the official lighting of the big Christmas tree in Sandnes sentrum.

We had a joint venture with our neighbor in celebrating our daughters’ birthdays at Leo’s Lekeland in mid December 2023, inviting all of their girl classmates. Our daughters were born on the same day, so it made sense to arrange a joint celebration.

We booked a company cabin at Haukeli for several days in the fourth week of December 2023, and celebrated Christmas there with several friends. I went skiing with my daughter as well, as there was a small ski resort just behind the cabin where we stayed.

We drove with our neighbor to watch fireworks in Stavanger sentrum, and had a dinner at a restaurant while waiting for the show to begin. Our baby became a bit cranky, so we had to send her and her mother home. I drove back to Stavanger sentrum with my oldest girl, and reached the city center several minutes before the show started.

December is the month of Advent of Code, so I started solving the daily puzzles from day 1. I am happy that I managed to complete all riddles, although I finished several days after December 25th. But I think I was still ranked somewhere on the top 10 list on my employer’s leaderboard. Not bad 🙂

After my wife took almost 9 months of maternity leave, I started my paternity leave from early January til mid April 2024 (15 weeks to be exact). Norway is, from my perspective, a very generous country in terms of family well being. Our salaries were covered by the state during our parental leave (topped up by my employer), covering us about one full year of absence from work. This means I became a full time dad at home for about 3.5 months, taking care of our baby: feeding, changing diapers, playing, taking her out for a walk. But not bathing. Bathing was the mother’s job 😀

My oldest daughter joined Kjempeseminaret, which is a unique classical music retreat for children from different age groups that spans 2-3 days, during a weekend in the first week of February 2024. They practiced together, and performed in a concert at the Stavanger Konserthus at the end of the event.

My wife passed her final driving test in January, and we decided to buy a smaller electric car for her daily use. Household errands suddenly became much easier to cope with. The car was delivered in the third week of February 2024.

We drove to Trysil for the winter break with our neighbor during the last week of February 2024. It took us almost 12 hours to reach our destination, and I found my wife’s driving licence very useful 🙂 My oldest daughter joined a ski class with other kids, and I enjoyed my time skiing and snowboarding. The ski resort was nice. My wife also went skiing, taking turn with me in taking care of our baby.

We traveled to Stockholm by plane during the Easter break for a couple of days. Apart from walking around the city center, we also checked out Avicii Arena (Globen), ABBA museum and Skansen.

My paternity period ended in mid April 2024, and I had to go back to work. Most teams in our department moved to my employer’s headquarter building, and I was happy that my office stuff had been moved to my new office desk. And we were hit by an issue: our baby received offers from several kindergartens, but all of them would only enroll new children in mid August. So we came up with a plan to invite my parents to Norway to babysit our baby, and we were grateful that they accepted our proposal. My parents arrived in Norway in mid April 2024, a couple of days before I started going back to work. That was the first time they physically met our baby. And the Norwegian government was generous enough to provide us with monthly allowance for the baby until she started going to the kindergarten in August. This country is very child-friendly.

We took my parents to watch our oldest daughter performing in a concert at Sandnes Kulturskole‘s open day, and visited several places in April 2024 (e.g. the oil museum, the botanical garden, Arboret).

We drove to Sirdal with my parents and stayed at one of my employer’s cabins for several days in the second week of May 2024. During our stay, we had lunch at a restaurant with a breathtaking view that I had not tried before, not far from the cabin.

We also visited Gloppedalsura during our stay in the cabin.

Then came 17. mai, the Norwegian Constitution Day. My oldest girl took part in a parade with her classmates under her school’s banner in the morning. I and my father followed them from the sideline while the rest of our family waited at their final destination, the Tananger stadium. We visited Stavanger sentrum later that day to watch the adult parade.

We traveled with our neighbor to Bergen by boat during the weekend, one day after the constitution day, and stayed in a hotel close to the city center for a night. We walked around the city center, and took a funicular up to Fløyen for experiencing a spectacular view of Bergen from above.

We had a small celebration for my father’s birthday at home in mid June 2024, and enjoyed a nice dinner at a restaurant the day after.

We went to the Gladmat food festival in Stavanger sentrum in the last week of June 2024. The weather was good, and so was the food.

Two days later, it was time to say goodbye to my parents. But not for long, because we were also traveling to Indonesia five days later. I really appreciate their help, and I hope they enjoyed their stay in Norway.

We flew to Jakarta in the first week of July 2024, stayed for two nights at my parents’ house, then took a train to Bojonegoro to visit my mother in law and other families from my wife’s side. I stayed there for three nights before taking a train to Yogyakarta alone for selling my property. I met my father in Yogyakarta as a witness in completing my business, stayed at my grandmother’s house for two days, then went back to Bojonegoro by train. My father took a train back to Jakarta. It was a bit hectic, but thankfully everything went smoothly.

Two days later, our youngest daughter was baptized at a Catholic church in Bojonegoro. My parents, who arrived a day earlier from Jakarta, joined the ceremony as well. I could imagine how tired my father was. We then had a nice dinner together at a restaurant.

We stayed in Bojonegoro for several days more, celebrated my wife’s birthday, then headed to Yogyakarta by train. This time I was joined by my wife and kids. The last time we visited Yogyakarta was back in 2015, and I noticed the city had changed a lot. We had several reunions with families and old friends, visited several tourist attractions, including Kraton (the royal palace), Prambanan temple, Malioboro and Sonobudoyo museum. We also visited our old university where we studied together back in 2002.

We stayed in Yogyakarta for several days more, then we took a train back to Jakarta. We had another round of reunions with our families before we flew back to Norway in the first week of August 2024 and concluded our summer vacation.

We attended the celebration of Indonesia’s independence day in Stavanger in the fourth week of August 2024.

A few days later, I flew to Oslo to attend a sector gathering event where I stayed overnight at a hotel. And I had the opportunity to visit the new national museum as part of the program.

We held a hackathon at work where several energy system modelers and software developers gathered for three days at one of our Stavanger office buildings. I learned new things from that hackathon, which was interesting.

We booked one of my employer’s cabins in Eigerøya, and stayed there during the last weekend of September 2024 with another family. The weather was not very friendly, we ended up visiting the chocolate factory’s cafe in Egersund and going for a short hike (not all the way to the lighthouse).

We went to a science-for-kids event at Vitenfabrikken where my employer was a sponsor in the first week of October 2024.

I and my oldest girl visited Kongeparken in the third week of the same month where they arranged a Halloween-themed attractions, including pumpkin workshop and ghost house. We played many games that day, and my daughter was very happy. It was our me-time, just me and my daughter.

The next day, she joined her orchestra to perform a concert in Sandnes Kulturhus as part of Sandnes Kulturskole’s 60 years anniversary. I enjoyed the concert, and I kept playing one of the songs they played, Pomp and Circumstance, over and over again on Spotify. I have no idea why, it just sounded good to my ears 🙂

I think that concludes my 4th decade’s final year retreat, and I am sure I have missed many events along the way. But life is not perfect, and neither is this retrospective. Time flies, and it felt like only yesterday I wrote this post. It was 10 years ago! I am thankful for the past decade, and hope to experience many more decades ahead. I hope the universe will be on my side.

“The only constant in life is change.”, said Heraclitus. That sentence echoed in my head when I tried to scan through important events in my life throughout 2023. Some fundamental changes occurred, and luckily, I think they were for the better. We heartily welcomed our second child, I switched team and project at work, and, believe it or not, we bought and moved to a new house again 🙂 Without further ado, let me conduct my annual retrospective of notable life events for the year 2023.

We celebrated my birthday one day after the actual birthday by having a nice lunch in a local restaurant. I must admit we were not strong in the creativity department as we kept visiting the same restaurant chain over and over again 🙂 I was happy to receive a nice pair of winter shoes from my wife as birthday present.

I attended a work-related team building activity in the third week of November 2022, where we had a fun indoor mini golf tournament continued with a superb sushi dinner in Stavanger sentrum. I and my wife (plus our girl) celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary in a restaurant a day later, and we concluded that weekend by visiting Kongeparken using company-sponsored tickets. The weather was good, albeit cold, and I had a lot of fun with my daughter.

We visited Vinterland i Sandnes on its opening day in the last week of November 2022, and my daughter enjoyed herself ice skating on the available outdoor ice rink. She still managed to do it well despite not attending ice hockey lessons anymore. We visited the venue several times until its closing date sometime in mid December 2022.

We drove to a Christmas market in Egersund in the first week of December 2022 to experience Christmas vibes. We watched some shows and enjoyed tasty roasted almonds. The market was quite crowded as we expected.

My daughter invited her school classmates (only girls) to her 6th birthday party at Leo’s Lekeland in the third week of December 2022. They started by eating popcorn and hot dogs, continued with a birthday cake that we brought. Then they enjoyed themselves in the play area. She received quite a lot of presents, and looked very happy. I was happy for her 🙂

On Christmas Eve morning, we took a chartered flight to Gran Canaria, trying to enjoy the warm desert climate for a week. We realized that there were quite many Norwegian tourists, and several restaurants we visited had Norwegian-speaking waiters. I guess it is one of the top destinations to escape winter for many Norwegians 🙂 We went to several children-friendly attraction places, including watching a dolphin show (which I found surprisingly interesting). We returned back to Norway on New Year’s Eve. All in all, it was a nice relaxing winter getaway, although it did not quite fit with my taste for a holiday. My daughter, on the flip side, enjoyed it very much, to a point where she asked to visit the island again. Well, we will see 🙂

Winter season is typically associated with winter activities such as skiing, but since my wife was pregnant, we did not have any family ski trip this time. We even cancelled our apartment booking in Trysil for a ski trip that we planned earlier in 2022. I, on the other hand, hit the slopes several times with some friends. I think I skied (and snowboarded a bit) for four days in total during the winter season. Not much, but enough to keep my body and brain happy 🙂

My daughter performed in a mini-concert together with other children (all cello, viola and violin students at the beginner level) in the fourth week of January 2023, and we watched a children theater show at Stavanger Konserthus a day after.

We celebrated the Valentine’s Day on February 14th by having a nice dinner at a restaurant. The food was good and the ambient arrangement was quite romantic. The only issue was several other couples who sat next to us kissed passionately and used their hands to explore very private areas of their partners’ bodies 😀 The scenery was not very good for our 6-year-old daughter. But OK, it was our mistake bringing an underage child to a restaurant for a dinner on Valentine’s Day. Lesson learned.

My girl joined another mini-concert performance in the second week of March 2023, and I officially joined another team at work one week later. I had enjoyed working in the subsurface area for about 2.5 years, and I thought it was time to try something different, something more on the renewable side of the company’s business. Still developing software, but on a different project. And I was honored to be invited to my last retrospective in my previous team with a nice buffet lunch included in late March 2023.

I joined my wife and daughter (and her friends) watching The Super Mario Bros. Movie at a cinema in Stavanger sentrum in the first week of April 2023. I think it was fun.

On April 15th 2023, our second child, a beautiful baby girl, was born through a natural childbirth. I was thankful that the process was very smooth, and I think my wife would agree. We arrived at the hospital at around 15:30, and the baby was born at around 17:30. My first daughter’s wish came true, as she had been asking for a younger sister. Well, I guess I officially became the most handsome guy in the house 🙂 My wife stayed at the hospital’s hotel for two nights while I and my eldest daughter stayed at home. We returned home together in the evening of April 17th. We became four!

Following a standard practice in Norway, I took a 2-week compassionate leave right after the birth of my second child, while my wife had started her paternity leave earlier (which would then last for about eight months). Since spring came a bit early, I and my eldest daughter took a very short hike close to our house in the middle of my leave, a week after my youngest daughter was born. The weather was surprisingly great.

I attended software craftmanship day gathering at work in mid May 2023, where several colleagues presented some of their latest cool stuff from work. A nice buffet lunch was of course included 🙂

Then came 17. mai, the Norwegian Constitution Day, which is one of the most important national days in Norway. Since the weather was not good (it was raining quite a lot), my wife and baby did not join us celebrating the day in the city center. My eldest daughter joined her classmates parading across the streets of Sandnes sentrum while I witnessed from as close distance as possible without immersing myself into the parade. It was her first experience joining an official school parade.

We visited Vitengarden with some friends in the second week of June 2023. We were just curious to see what were displayed in the museum. The weather was excellent.

My eldest girl joined another mini-concert in mid June 2023, and this time it was aimed to be a practice run for Sandnes Kulturskole‘s annual summer festival concert a couple of days later. She took part in the festival, and performed in Sandnes church together with an existing local children orchestra. She later decided to join the orchestra and practiced once a week for more than an hour.

We drove to one of the company’s cabins in Sirdal for a weekend trip with some friends during the first week of July 2023. The area is more well known for winter sports (i.e. skiing/snowboarding), but we managed to try two summer activities that were offered: mountain cart and climbing. It was fun!

We visited Soma farm in the first week of July 2023, where people could get close to farm animals and children could play. The weather was very warm and the day felt like a proper summer day. It is unfortunate that the farm is now closed to public, so we are happy to at least have visited it once.

We had a relatively long trip to Oslo by car during the last week of July 2023. And since we brought a baby with us, we stayed overnight in Kristiansand to have enough rest and to charge our car. We also stopped briefly in Arendal before heading to Oslo, and believe it or not, we finally had the chance to use Tesla Supercharger (we had always charged our Tesla at home since we bought it). The main reason for this trip was to process our baby’s passport, since physical presence in the Indonesian embassy in Oslo was mandatory. But, of course, we also used the occasion to enjoy Oslo a bit, and to meet an old friend and his family. A bit exaggerated, but I think we discovered our new must-go destination in Oslo: Paradis Gelateria. I am sure my wife could not agree more 🙂 We stayed in Oslo for three days.

On our way back to Sandnes, we stopped again in Kristiansand, but this time for three days. We visited Dyreparken for two days, and Badelandet for the remaining one day, and some friends joined us too. I and my eldest girl tried something different from our previous visits to Dyreparken: we watched Sirkus Jesper and the popular Kaptein Sabeltann show. The latter took place late at night, but it was worth it. I could still see my daughter’s excitement about Kaptein Sabeltann a couple of days after watching that show.

We attended Indonesia’s independence day celebration organised by local Indonesian community in Stavanger in the third week of August 2023. As I had not been very social within the local Indonesian community circle, it was nice to meet other fellow Indonesians at least once a year and ate Indonesian dishes 🙂

On August 30th 2023, we took over our new house. We made a decision to buy a new detached house (enebolig in Norwegian), that was still under construction but almost completed, a couple of months earlier. The rationale behind this decision was to have more space, since we had a new family member. I and my wife’s professions required us to sit (or stand) behind computer screens, so we needed two office desks at home for those days when we had to work from home, and our old house fell short in satisfying this requirement, unfortunately. The moving process was quite tough since my wife had to take care of our baby and our eldest girl could not help much, so we paid a local relocation service to help us. Thankfully everything was fine in the end (without any serious injury 🙂 ). The back- and front-yards are still homework for us, though.

I attended Equinor Developer Conference (EDC) in the second week of September 2023 for four days. I joined an excellent workshop carried out by one of my colleagues in our team at work, and there were several interesting presentations as well. The short talk by Børge Lund during the mini gala dinner was especially remarkable, as he managed to draw a character from his comic series less than a minute live in front of the audience. It reminded me how practice makes perfect.

Paying monthly mortgage for two houses (i.e. owning two houses) in Norway was doable but quite tough for us, so we started the process of selling our old house soon after the takeover of the new one. We used a service offered by a rather well known local house broker, and our old house was out in the market by the fourth week of September 2023. The house was thankfully sold in the first week of October 2023, one day after the public display/open house (visning in Norwegian). We were lucky there were several serious bidders who eventually inflated the final price way above our initial expectation. I guess the effect of our baby’s second/middle name, Fortunata, kicked in 🙂

We were allocated a cabin from my employer in Eigerøya during the autumn break (høstferie in Norwegian), so we stayed there for a week in the second week of October 2023. I had a wonderful hike with my wife and two daughters to the lighthouse one day when the weather was excellent (only I and our eldest girl actually managed to reach the lighthouse). Unfortunately, most of the days were rainy and windy. Some friends joined and came to visit us as well during our stay.

Our eldest girl joined another mini-concert in the last week of October 2023, and she joined her friends in our new neighborhood to gather candies on Halloween day.

Another year has passed, and there were certainly things that I planned to do but did not manage to pursue. But I am very happy to welcome our second child, and we became four. Moving to a new house posed some challenges, but I have so far been happy living in our new neighborhood. Switching team and project at work also meant learning new stuff, which I enjoyed, but became a bit difficult when a newborn baby was added to the equation. I think it is also worth noting that during the month of December 2022 I joined Advent of Code, solving daily coding challenges which I enjoyed. I managed to solve all of the 25 days’ challenges, despite some of them using brute force approach 🙂 I am happy to be in the top 10 list of our company’s private leaderboard, and I bought myself a nice T-shirt 🙂 At last, as always, I am looking forward to another year with interesting adventures ahead.