My heart feels so full. 

It is wild to imagine my dads grandpa growing up on this farm. 

Now relatives live there. 

There were three siblings. Daniel, Herborg, and Sven. That was their birth order. 

Daniel was the oldest so he got the farm. But he fell in love with a gal who also had a farm and they went to her farm. So Herborg got the farm. 

Sven was the youngest and he moved to the United States (one third of Norway immigrated to the United States because only 3% of Norwegian land was farmable.)

That became my family. 

So 2/3 of the family was still in Norway, and this weekend we went and met the family and met the farm. 

They are delightful, warm, pleasant, and family. The farm was gorgeous, set in the mountains and just the terrain to raise brave warm children. 

I loved the two little dudes living there. 

I made friends with H- who was 32 and I believe in my generation. She had the two little dudes, 4 and 2. 

The 2 year old grasped my hand (we don’t speak the same language) and tugged and pulled me toward the upstairs. I wasn’t sure if we were invited upstairs, but I followed allong. 

The little dudes excitedly ran around showing me their toys, jumping in the ball pit. “Woah is that your room??” I asked all excitedly. It was amazing to see the new with the old. 

Original wood still lay bare and exposed, from when Sven was a little boy. One room two stories and the original wood was in there. 

The new house was built around. 

I dreamed of what it would be like to have grown up there and then immigrate to the United States. 

To start my family. 

I grew up hearing about Sven. I always thought it was amazing to know that I was directly from Norway, or at least part of the line. To know my great grandfather was brave enough to pack his life up in a trunk and cross the ocean to come start a new life, a promise of a new life, inspired me. The trunk sits in my cousin Alli’s house to this day. 

And here we were, all 11 of us, back in Norway. exploring the farm. Dreaming of what it would have been like to be Sven. 

Even better, we were there with distant family. They spoke a different language and had a different culture, but they were family. Truly fascinating. Something I hadn’t considered much yet. These people were the great grandchildren of the original three – Daniel Herborg and Sven. 

We were the US descendants of Sven. All others were the Norwegian decendents of Daniel and Herborg. 

They still farm at Herborg’s farm. Two delightful little boys romp and roll around the yard and petting and teasing the cows. Cows and bulls all tucked away in a barn and roaming the apparently 10 thousand acres.

It’s pretty cool to stay in touch with your family’s roots. 

Something about the warm house in the middle of the cold mountains, even though the sunshine warmed the grass and flowers we still had coats on. It made me feel like family, like Christmas. 

These little boys had no idea who these random blond and brown haired adults were exploring and admiring their home. 

They must have caught on that their parents were pretty proud to show their farm, and grasping my hand they began tugging my hand and assuredly pulling me towards the upstairs. Proudly they showed me all their toys and waited to see my reaction – I gasped and awed – just like they saw the other adults do for their parents. 

He reached out his little hand and I grasped it. “One.. two.. three!” I called as we mustered all our strength and jumped across the puddle. He usually landed in the middle. We took turns and giggled and then everyone called me to leave. 

I gave a big hug to his mom who I felt had become a friend. Or family. Or both. She was kind and warm and her little boys loved her. 

“She is the farmer” her dad boasted proudly. With the nice man who she met on the internet, sweet eyes and pleasant face, soft spoken yet assured. She seemed happy. She had lived in Bergen for a few years, then came home. The city had so much more lines than the farm. 

Want to love this kind of stuff. Family. 

Family. 

Take the pressure off. 

I liked my friend. She and her little boys were my favorite part. She lives in the old house on the farm. There is something so magical about that connection there. 

Being in that old farmhouse with the family. The Norwegian side and the Etrheim side. 

It was cool because all our last name was Etrheim. 

My grandma’s in-laws house. Wow.