On Saturday, we celebrated Daniel and Mathilde's birthdays. "Happy Birthday to you..." is Mathilde's favorite song. It is one of the few songs the Nannies know, I think. We have heard it countless times over the past months, but on Saturday she was allowed to sing it as many times as she wanted. Daniel just wanted to sing the dirty version, of course.

That morning, it was the last match of the football season. The results for Erik and Daniel's teams could have been better... but it is the taking part... right! Afterwards, there was an award ceremony where they handed out team photos. The intention was to give out trophies aswell, but they were still in customs... so no trophies... that is how it is out here...

After football, we went up to see Santa, who had come to the school. We brought with us some old toys of Erik, Daniel and Mathilde's, which went to charity and in return they got to sit on Santa's lap! Scouts was cancelled, partly because of this and because of partly because of Daniel and Mathilde's huge.. amazing.. joint.. birthday party which some of Erik's scout friends were also going to.

The party started at 12:30 and people arrived over the following couple of hours (not like in Norway!). There must have been about 20 or thirty kids and ten or twenty adults. We hired a bouncey castle and DJ and all the children had a ball. We invited all of Daniel's class and he spent the whole time running around or swimming with a grin on his face. Mathilde invited her girl friends and ran about with them or followed the older boys and girls! She had a lovely time.

Salako and the other stewards did sausages for the kids and a great BBQ for the adults with plenty of wine and beer (and G&T... purely medicinal you know...). That evening Alexander stayed the night and we intended to open the presents together in an ordery fashion. The next thing we knew, all the presents were opened and scattered over the bedroom floor... well that's how it is at that age I guess...

On Sunday morning, we did have some presents left that had not been opened (mostly Mathilde's) and we opened them. We spent the rest of day by the pool with Carl and Oddbjørg, who were celebrating their last day in Nigeria before leaving to go back to Norwy. We gave Mathilde a play-kitchen for her birthday and I set it up outside for her - that was a big hit. I don't know how many times she took her little toy casserole out of the oven! While the kids were playing, we drank champagne by the pool and ate the rest of the lasagne that Salako had made for the party. It was sad to see Carl and Oddbjørg go, they were a bit like surrogate grandparents and we will miss them.

Jeremy