Get Focused. And celebrate your birthday!

Yayyya.


So my birthday weekend is over. It was a hard day at school today- didn’t get much sleep this weekend, but i guess i’ll catch up... somday next week...
My birthday was great. My cool, lovely clasmates started singing for me the moment I came to my history clas, and I got “kinder maxi” form Hege and Johanne! Thanks!!!
Thanks for all the messages on facebook, myspace, hamarungom, my phone and by mail! But most of all thanks to Nano! Check it out!
Left for Tønsberg and Get Focused about 1 hour after I got home from school. Pretty stresfull, but alrigh! Yay for that. We ate cake in the car. We were driving two cars... to the other car: do not get mad... lol. We got to the place we were staying kinda late, but it worked out. It was a lot of fun seeing Eirik and David again, and to meet all their Skien-friends! Yay Yay Yay.
The weekend was a lot of fun. The meetings were great and the concerts too... Dilirous? rocked!!! Yay for that too.. And I got to shake the singers hand. Yay for him (and me). And I had to stand on a chair together with Solveig (15 on Saturday) and the other bithday kids and the 1 500 people who were there were singing.
That was basicly the weekend. A picture sais more than 1000 words... So here you have about 10 0000 of them....










The gang!











"gutta boyzzz". Intimate and kozy..













Jenny and Jan-Erik.
















The Guldbrandsen brothers












alright... me, david and pål!












Jan- Erik is trying to dance... It's late..


















Roger, Jeremy and Mathias chilling..















Kaja, Marie and Magnus on the way to the store


















Melissa and Eirik!







The boys in the back seat!

FINALLY!!!!

So I woke up at around 7:30, when Marie and Helene called me. They were singing... Then my mom, dad, brothers and grandparents came and woke me up again. They where singing... And then I got a whole lot of presents!!
Oh yeah, it's my birthday! You American guys don't know that I'm talking about. Cause you don't to stuff like this. But in Norway this is how we do it! We totally wake eachother up. With singing and presents. And the greatest thing of them all- I'm turning 18 today! YAY. Now I can drink, drive, vote, smoke and get in to all the clubs. yay....
But I'm leaving today, for a think in Tønsberg calles "Get Focused". So yeah, I wont be home the whole day. That's why I'm writing this note so early.
...and I'll get back to you with more. But here's some pics from this morning.


Ok, so this is not really normal- the things they're holding is like... uhh... somthing we got in thailand during our christmas break in 2004. we had to leave early, cause of the tsunami, and I guess my mom and dad found out that today was a good day to use it.... it was noisy, but pretty hilarious!

A London Story...





So, I met this one lady- her name is Operah I think (she's up there)- and she introdused me to this great man... It was really love at firsth sight, so we decided to get married...



Here he is, isn't he gorgeouse??? Sorry you guys missed the wedding, we kinda had to do it fast- he's on his way over the sea taping some other video...

So these two cool guys showed up- they were two of our few guests...

And David and Victoria was of course invited...

After the wedding me and my man went trough London and we bought this great house we can live in and raise our kids! It was a lot of space, and we're thinking that we might rent out some of it... and there's this great big backyard!!!

JK guys! :) But it would have been fun...

Home sweet home...

It's alright here... Nothing new really. What a surprise...

So we went to the "Rock you" musical monday. It was alright, I liked the music, but I do think my brothers got bored.. Tuesday me and my mom went to see "Les Miserables" while my dad took my brothers to go and see "Three blue men". As my dad was buying the tickets for the blue men thingy, they asked how old Mathias (my youngest brother) was. Dad said 7, and then they asked if they could write him up as the birthday kid. My dad said yes, and when the show started the whole big screen in the background said "Special welcome to Mathias Tønnessen who's 7 years old today!". "the three blue men" got Mathias to stand up (even though that didn't make him to much higher), and then the everybody had to say the happy birthday song for him, cause they were afraid they couldn't sing... LOL. My brother's birthday in April 12th....









My brother knows spiderman really well.. If you want an intervju, please contact me first- I'm his manager!
















My brothers and I..
















I LOVE IT!!


















Calling Grandma...?














So, I though me and Bush needed a talk...














My mom and dad totally paid £1 to take a pic with these guys... yeah, I was totally laughing the whole time... (totally fønni)

Latest news from London...

So I'm here, in the big city! It's kinda awkward beeing back with all this english around me, and typing it the same as in the US! Dang! Sorry for any mistakes, i have to get used to this again..

So why am I here? Well, I'm here with my family.. On vacation that is! Yay. I've been here sense saturday, and i'm leaving wedesday, so it's pretty cool. When we got here early saturday moring we went by 3 starbucks before my brother and I finally got our will and we stoped... It's just NOT normal for me to not stop at starbucks!!! I had problems with it every time I was at WalMart, and now it's been like 4 months sense last time, so.. yeah... So I've been drinking a lot of coffee from Starbucks, and we've been shopping and stuff. And seen a lot of the tourist atractions... I'm actually woundering if there's anyone left here to see the last 2 days.... Yesterday we went to see the lion king musical, it was AWESOME! Today we're seeing "we will rock you"... It's not really a musical (i think), but there's a lot of music from "queen" and stuff, so that's kinda cool. My uncle said it was cool, and he's cool, so I bet it's cool...

So, I'm having a blast, and I'm hoping you are too. I'm leaving (going to starbucks actually) and I'll get back to you with pics...!

Latest news from London...

So I'm here, in the big city! It's kinda awkward beeing back with all this english around me, and typing it the same as in the US! Dang! Sorry for any mistakes, i have to get used to this again..

So why am I here? Well, I'm here with my family.. On vacation that is! Yay. I've been here sense saturday, and i'm leaving wedesday, so it's pretty cool. When we got here early saturday moring we went by 3 starbucks before my brother and I finally got our will and we stoped... It's just NOT normal for me to not stop at starbucks!!! I had problems with it every time I was at WalMart, and now it's been like 4 months sense last time, so.. yeah... So I've been drinking a lot of coffee from Starbucks, and we've been shopping and stuff. And seen a lot of the tourist atractions... I'm actually woundering if there's anyone left here to see the last 2 days.... Yesterday we went to see the lion king musical, it was AWESOME! Today we're seeing "we will rock you"... It's not really a musical (i think), but there's a lot of music from "queen" and stuff, so that's kinda cool. My uncle said it was cool, and he's cool, so I bet it's cool...

So, I'm having a blast, and I'm hoping you are too. I'm leaving (going to starbucks actually) and I'll get back to you with pics...!

Just some old picks...

About 1 week ago my church got visit from Romania, and I got really reminded about our trip down there last summer. When the team from YWAM Costanta were talking in church, they also had a lot of pics of kids and people we met when we were down there. It was fun! Yeah... So here's some pics from our trip, and some fun picks from last summer before I went to the US.










When we gopt back home...
Me and some of the kids in Romania.







At one of the meetings among the poor people.




David and I are playing backgammon...





Jon Arne and some Romanian boys.

A A bunch from the team.





David....






Cricket at David's place...

It's this time of the month again...

...to update my blog i mean! Hey, no 'bad' thoughts on this blog!

And if that wasn't enough, it's this time of the year too... The time when the last of my friends that's leaving this town for the year, really is leaving... Aww, it's sooo sad. Not like I haven't seen it coming, but dang it's hard when the time really is here. Today I said goodbye to Ole Josè and Eirik, and it was pretty much sad.... But they're not moving that far away, it's gonna be worse when Synnøve leaves. She's going to Australia! I wish I could go too! Emily Bruce and Synnøve, here I come! But, dang, then it's the money....

So when I'm writing this it's past midnight and I'm sick and I'm talking to Kayla at MSN at the same time as I'm writing on facebook and an e-mail. Dang, women knows how to do two things at the same time! Well, my point is- you are probably wondering why i'm up so late on a school night? Well, #1-my parents are not at home at the moment. #2- I don't have school tomorrow! Yay for Norwegian schools!

YOU are perfect in God

"What do you thing you are good at?". The question was last asked me Tuesday by Jon-Arne (my youth pastor). “Dang”, I thought “what am I good at?”.
It's been a while sense I first asked myself that question, party cause the world forced me to do it. So, what am I good at? Well... I can cook. I know that, not because I really love what I'm cooking, but because others do. Or at least they say they do... So I hope they're telling me the truth. If not they'll just have to eat my stuff and pretend to like it. Well, even though I can cook, I do a lot of mistakes when I do it. Like when Helene and I was responsible for the dinner the last day we were in Sweden... We were making "Grøt", and bought 5 bags with rice for it. When we got home David came to us and asked us what we were thinking. To be honest I don't know what we were thinking, whatever it was it was totally wrong!!! We ended up using about 1/2 a bag of rice. To all 14 people... The rest we brought home and I could hand it over to my grandma who now probably has rice for the rest of this year... and next year....
Well, whatever. What more am I good at? Writing notes! Dude, I’m good at that... At least that’s what I’ve heard. Can’t really say I’ve noticed it myself, but when I get a lot of happy faces turned my way because I do it, I can’t really say that I want to stop...
So, both of the things I’ve said I’m good at, I’ve told you because others have told me. It’s not like I’m writing a note to my self, and when I’m reading it I’m thinking “Wow, Martine. Good job. Now I feel a lot more better!!”. But I love when other people say that to me. That’s when I know I’m good at something. When people tell me so.
So why don’t we go around telling people what they’re good at? It doesn’t take time, it doesn’t take much effort. All you have to do is say “Good job!” or “Way to go!” or even something longer and even nicer to someone you care about. The truth is that we’re all good at something. And it’s a lot of fun hearing someone telling you that you’re good at something! Maybe we already know that we are, but the world keep on saying “Whatever you do, don’t say you’re good at something! Don’t accept the fact that others thinks you’re good at something! Then the world will think you think you’re good at everything!” It’s called to brag...
Even though I’m a good cook, I SUCK in drawing. I promise you, my drawings... uh... they’re just ugly! Well, the world says: “Whatever you do, don’t say that!! Then world will think you’re not good at anything!”
So basically the world suck... It tells us to keep quiet no matter what! And if we keep on being quiet when people tells us that something we did or made was nice, well then they’ll stop saying it. And then you’re in “the evil circle”. Cause a lot of people today need somebody to tell them that they’re good at something to believe it. And if we just keep quiet and never tell anybody that they’re doing something good, a lot of people will think they’re not good at anything!
So here’s to all of you thinking you’re not worth a thing: YOU ARE!
Here’s to you who don’t think you have any positive parts: YOU HAVE!Here’s to you who think you’re a loser: YOU’RE NOT!
Here’s to you who think you can’t do anything right: YOU CAN!

God made us perfect for him. We are not meant to be of the world, that’s why we don’t fit in perfectly, that’s why we can’t to everything perfect. We were created by God. He knew all your talents and all your flaws from the very beginning. But he created you perfect for him, perfect for the Lord of lords and the King of kings. Now that’s something to brag about! And dude, that’s something we should brag about! That’s what He called us to do: go out to all the corners of the world and brag about how perfect He is, and how perfect we are in Him.

So let’s brag! Let’s go out to the corners of the world, the country, the town or your school with the good news. We are perfect! Not for this world. But for God.

Here’s my challenge to you today: Go out and tell your friends about what they’re good at. Tell them over and over again, and do not stop even though they’ll deny it the first, second or even the 99th time. On that way we can all spread Gods wonderful creature without yelling “JESUS LOVES YOU!”. Even though that’s true, I’ve noticed that a lot of people close their ears when you tell them... Work your way to the top, start with the small, but important parts, like self-confidence. It’s SO important if you want to understand God. But it’s also important to understand God if you want self-confidence...

And if you’re not a Christian, still, tell you’re friends what they’re good at! You can never hear it enough!

Back with pics!

So, what do you do when you're bored a saturday evening (I'm babysitting my brothers...)? Well, first of all you have to find out what you have to do with the pics to make them fit here.... And so I did, and here you go!
And sense I've been talking so much about them....

Sweden pics!

They're finally here. They're few, but they're funny, and there's a lot of humor and thoughts behind them!








Departure... We had to wait almost 1 hour in front of Kiwi in Stange, cause Jo Yngve had forgotten somehing home... But it was alright!









Grocery shopping in Sweden!


















Pål and David!













On the parking lot...




















The guys and the Furbees... and Helene...













It's the look...














Epelering is the word... and it hurts!














Volleyball!













On our way to Liseberg!



















Right outside the haunted house....








And yeah, it was deff raining!
















That one's SCARY!














Heck yeah we went swimming at 5 am!











Helene and Pål... In the middle of the night..

Pics from the summer vacation!




Andreas and Jonas watching a soccer game...










Me, Helene and Andreas








Andreas is trying to show that boys can do two things at once... Talking in the phone and jump...








The gang watching Pål being a reff at a soccer game...









My 3 dearest sunshines!










Lol. Ole and Ruben...











Kristian is showing the newest fashion...











Tonje, Jenny and me at Synnøves b-day party!








Tonje, Ruben, me and Synnøve!






Andreas and Jonas is fighting over the popcorn!













Kathrine, Sven Erik and Pølle... LoL






Eirik, Me, Helene and Pål at the Marit Larsen concert...

Time to update?

To be honest, not much has been happening... It feels kinda pointless updating a blog when you don't have anything to say. But oh well, here I go...

We can start with the ovbious; School... Right now I'm sitting here with a paper, due in... yeah like a week. I know that I have to do it, but I also know that don't want to do it. Then again, have to and want to do something is two totally different things, and in this case, the have to overwins the don't want to part... But sense I've been working today, I've given myself permission to not do it today; but tomorrow. Like I always do... But I know that I have to do it tomorrow, cause I'll never have time during the week...
So yeah, of course I'm stuck with homework on a weekend... I guess I can thank myself- when I don't show up to the classes we get permission to work on it in, I'm the one being stupid... I did not jip though! We really didn't have to show up in that class, and nobody did, so I guess I would have been a nerd if I had... Lol.
Well, school in general is ok. I just droped out of one un necessary class- SKb. It's the most boring class, and I would probably have failed if I had continued... But I wont so it's all good...
During lunch and free hours I usually have a big dicustion with my clasmates about God, Jesus and Christianity. It's great, even though it's hard sometimes, being the only one there with 7-8 people around you thinking you are wrong... But I love it, I really do! God is great, and he can use me. Maybe that's how he's using me now!

Besides school, my life is pretty much filled up with Work, Friends and God. And I'm pretty much loving it! Yesterday I first went to Freak, before me and Mimi went to a party. The contrastes are huge.... From a GREAT group of friends to a bunch of drunk people... And it was probably the most boring party ever! I'm so unbelievable thankfull to God that I can have another kind of life than that! I'm sorry guys, I love you, but I totally think (and you know it) that it's a waist of time laying drunk on somebodys toilet throwing up... But I have to say that it's so much fun listening to what you're all saying when you're drunk... Yesterday Jenny came up to me and wispered: "Martine, i so totally respect that you are a christian. But what would you be if you were't a christian? I meen, like I'm a budist, but I'm not a budist!" Jenny, you crack me up! I love you!

So, yeah, nothing new... Life is filled with FUN stuff, but nothing big- nothing to really brat about...
Take care!

School's back...

...and that's for sure... I was so NOT looking forward to it, but now that it's here I'm surprising myself by feeling it's kinda ok... School in Norway is a lot harder than the American school. That kinda sucks, cause now I have to study sooo hard to catch up with the others. But you do have a lot of more space- today I don't start before 10 am, and in the middle of the school day I have 45 min of. But still, when the school year really starts I probably have to study those hours I have of. But we'll see, my scedule is ok so...

I got a job! Wohoo. I'm now a shoeseller. Jenny, Mari and I went down there yesterday, and I learned so much new stuff about shoes. Now I just have to remember it all....

So, I guess the uploading pics thingy still doesn't work... I'll try to work on that later. This computer has way to much security on it, so that might be a problem... lol.

Lately I've been missing Kansas a lot. Talked to Jane the other day, and that was pretty cool. It's kinda awkward sitting here and remember so much from last year. At this time I would have been in Marble, Colorado hiking with the Kenagys. Well, I'm not. I'm still here in good, old Hamar. On a way I'm pleased. I like it here. Being away from it a whole year, I still know most of the streets and stuff. It took me while, but now I'm back in business. I'm still driving the wrong way in some of our one-way streets though, but it will work out. I've lived here basicly all my life (moved here from Oslo when I was 5, but I don't really think of Oslo as my home..), and this is here i have my life too... Some say that life starts when you move out and away from your parents. Others, like Marie, says it starts when you take DTS. I don't agree. My life has deffintely started, and I don't have to move away or go to a special school to understand that. I knew it before I left, and I know it even more now. It's kinda awkward. On this time next year I'll be done with school. And I have to figure out what I want to do with my life. I don't feel old enough at all. This is my life, and I love it. I don't want things to change to be honest. Things are great. But I know they will, and I'm not planing on getting stuck here, when everybody else are running around in the world doing great stuff. So I guess I'll just have to work out my feelings and get a life. Just like I had to the months in Wichita, when I was so ready to go back home, even though it was months away. Then I wanted to go back to my life... And now I'm here...
Being so far away for such a long time really does something to you... Now I appriciate a lot more things over here. Like not having to drive everywhere. I still do though, but that's only because I have Jenny's scooter. Well, yeah, anyway, I do LOVE Hamar a lot more now than earlier, but that might be because schools out, and we don't have curfews and usaually stays up to WAY past midnight. And wakes up at noon. lol. Yeah well, I still miss Kansas. It's really awkward. I have 2 homes now, here and with the Wendts in Wichita, KS. And I love both places, even though I know I'll never go back to the US except for visiting. The year was hard in so many ways, but I know I grew a lot and stuff, so it was worth it... Yeah.

Okey, so this post got kinda crazy, but that's kinda how my feeling are, so you'll have to survive... I miss all you AFS & Kansas people a lot! But I love it here! So yeah, mixed feelings... I know all you other foreign exchange students knows what I'm talking about... The rest of you... well, good luck, cause I don't think you will ever know...

Enjoy the last week of summer vacation, Norway, and have fun at school Wichita!

A house, a lake, 3 cars and 14 friends....

...and Sweden!!!

Last saturday 9 of my friends met up and went to Holsjunga in Sweden (about 1 southeast of Gøteborg) were 3 lovely girls were waiting for us. It took us about 10 hours to get there, but don't worry, we didn't drive all the time... Sunday Jenny and Andreas came after, so from sunday- saturday we were 14 teenagers living in the same building. It was AWESOME!

We had a great time, even though the weather sucked for the most part.... It ended up being som long nights and some late mornings... Helene, Pål and I woke Andreas and Øyvind up at 1 pm and they got PISSED! Helene and I had to pay for that later that day- with water. I was wet all trough my clotes after being carried into the shower... Not funny guys!!!!

We went to Liseberg wednesday.... It was raining a lot, but we still had fun! Liseberg is an amusement park with a lot of rides. It was fun! I'm not the biggest rollercoster fan so Krisin, Stefan, Jo Yngve and I went shopping in the City of Gøteborg in the morning and didn't get into the park before like 7 pm. It was still worth it... The hunted house in that place is creapy!!!

The house we lived in was an old home for elderly, so we all had rooms with 2 beds. we had a lot of fun playing poker, singing and playing guitar and going swimming at 5 in the morning... The last night some of the boys got make up on too! Going home was fun too, and we ended up by the churck were the car with all the luggage droped off all the stuff, and then the 2 other cars would come and pick it up later. My car got there, and we had to pee so bad we kinda broke into one of the guys (Pål's) house to go to the bathroom! Lol. No worries- we got promision, so... lol

The uploading pics thing is kinda not working right now, so I'll be back with more pics later!

Until then, so long!