WAKING UP IN REYNISFJARA
Our night in Reynisfjara was pretty intense. Although we were some distance from the beach, we could hear the waves crashing against the rocks. The wind was louder than any wind we've ever heard. But shout out to Ragnar for building an airtight cottage. We are so used to hard beds in Europe, that these soft beds have kept Josh and I in bed longer than planned. Thank goodness for having Tarzan on the iPad to buy us an extra hour of sleep. Josh is now convinced we need a 100 sf cabin with a sleeping alcove like last night.

BEATING THE CROWDS
We attempted to beat the buses and crowds of people to visit the black rock beach and basalt stacks. The cave and cliffs must create a wind tunnel. Our visit was quicker than it might have been if it weren't snowing and knocking our five year old down. We did race in front of a bus to get the stacks to ourselves for some photos. I bet the sunset the night before was gorgeous from down on the beach.

FOSS & SIDU
At some point during today's drive I got very confused. I'm not sure if it was the children asking to eat every 15 minutes or the remembering to not let the car doors fly open. Whatever it was, I couldn't keep up with my Lonely Planet book, Josh's photography location guide and the itineraries I had pinned. So I'm sure the were tons of cool stuff we just drove by. So when we saw the slightly frozen waterfall on the side of the road we pulled over. I then realized this was one of our planned stops perfect. You couldn't get very close yo the falls but it was super loud and gorgeous. It wasn't spraying upside down like it sometimes does.

DVERGHAMRAR
This was a random group of rock outcroppings. The board at the fence entrance indicated there was a myth that elves lived in the rocks. Well all I had to mention was "elf" and the kids were infatuated. They climbed all through the rocks knocking, peeking and listening for elves singing. It was quite cute to see how interested they were in something that seemed so simple. We had also brought our waterproof camera for our son to use on the trip. Today he spent a lot of time demanding that we stop for a photo. I'm curious to see what he has been capturing it.

HOF
HOF is a tiny little town but I had read that they had a storybook church made of timber and peat moss. Church? Grass roof? Sold. It was really picturesque but I had trouble getting a good picture. I hate when that happens. I was wishing we had found the church a day earlier and could have filled one of the 12 benches inside. I then realized church would have been in Icelandic and I was satisfied with our quiet visit today.

JOKULSARLON GLACIER LAGOON
Let me preface this section by saying that the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon was one of the parts I was most excited about. I'd seen so many amazing photos. We also had planned a couple other stops before this but I've finally learned. We can only do so much in one day - especially with kids. I know. Crazy thoughts. So when the kids started taking apart ink pens in the backseat and making up nonsensical knock knock jokes, I made the executive decision to go directly to Jokulsarlon and bypass the other stops. So we started on the beach side of the road at the aptly named, Icy Beach. This is where pieces of glacier have made their way to the ocean and washed ashore the black beaches. Some sections were quite beautiful. And we had it to ourselves. We then headed over the road to check out the glacier lagoon. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Huge glacier chunks that were the size of buildings? There was one large one in the middle. But I wanted to get close and see some crystal blue ice. I saw one piece. Way on the other side of the lagoon that we couldn't reach. We walked as far as we could go. The kids kept barking to try and convince the seals to come closer. They didn't. Our daughter managed to slam her walking stick into her eye. Our son took off climbing ice covered hills. We explored as long as we could without a major accident in the middle of nowhere.

SLEEPING
Our home base for tonight is the Seljavellir Guesthouse in Hofn. A simple building with modern motel type rooms. Huge bathrooms, common living room and breakfast in the morning. Not to mention a gorgeous view of the mountains end glaciers. We splurged and got two rooms. We needed some time to separate the kids. The host was again super nice and brought the kids ANOTHER one of those chocolate eggs. My word we have a lot of chocolate. The are mind melding  and becoming insane. We cleaned up and headed out for dinner in Hofn.

KAFFI HORNID
We were beyond excited to find more than one restaurant open. The top ranked place was empty so we opted for the log cabin restaurant that had people in it. Halfway through dinner all the tables were full and they were turning away people who came in. Hofn is a small fishing village that is known for lobster. So of course I had the lobster bisque (again it's all about the soups) and Josh got the grilled lobster tails. The highlight of our meal might have been that each could insisted on wearing bunny ears to dinner. Normal. We ended the night driving through the harbourside of Hofn at sunset. That view might be one of my favorites yet. The houses along the water get one spectacular backyard. We finished by looking for reindeer at the watering hole but weren't lucky yet.

TODAYS LESSON: ENJOY THE UNPLANNED
It's pretty easy to get so stuck on plans that we miss the really special stuff with our family. Before today I'd never guess that my favorite parts of today would be watching the kids hunt for magical creatures or doing a family sing along to "I Know What You Did Last Summer" at the top of our kings. But they were. And I'm completely satisfied and thankful for that. To share in the wonder that is a five year old singing pop songs with bunny ears: https://instagram.com/p/BDgeKHlrMG5/

DOGSLEDDING

Going dogsledding has been on my bucket list since before I knew what a bucket list was. When I was younger I very much considered going to college to become an animal behaviorist and work with  Wolves. Soon after booking our flights, I found Dogsledding Iceland and booked today with them. They were almost completely booked months in advance and now I know why. They are completely legit and are the only professional tour group in the country. I realized afterwards that the female owner (run by a couple) was actually the musher for our sled.

This was definitely the splurge of the trip. But it was worth every penny. It was so much colder than we expected. We were dressed for it but it was still cold. Three people sat on the sled while one person rode on the skis standing up with the musher. Josh actually had to work, pushing and turning at the beginning, while the rest of us enjoyed the ride. I rode on back for the fastest part of the ride and that was crazy. A bit like snowboarding with 10 string dogs dragging you. The kids had a blast. The ride was about an hour and we stayed around for 20-30 minutes petting every dog there. Ours, other sets, the dogs that didn't run. They were just like ours at home. Lots of kisses and each wanting to play and scratches. Those dogs were so well taken care of. They have 15 puppies and there was someone there to shovel up each piece of poop every time it hit the snow. The life. I think that was an adventure of a lifetime.

LUNCH OF AMERICANS
We were hungry and exhausted by noon. Our sledding was at 10. Lucky for us it was Sunday. And Easter. Almost nothing was open. We found s smoothie/hamburger/ice cream place. Now I'm not sure why but two things I've found that all the locals love: ice cream and water slides. That seems very odd being that it is absolutely freezing but whatever. So we taught the girl working all sorts of English words for fruits and got smoothies to fill us up.

LESSON: DONT LEAVE THINGS ON A PLANE
A few things I've now learned the hard way. First, bring double or triple anything that is super crucial and spread out the stash. For example if you wear contacts and are blind as a bat - make sure you have extra saline solution for when you are half asleep and leave your toiletry bag on the plane. Yes I did that. And didn't realize until the first night. Luckily I did bring two extra pairs of contacts and another case. We went to at least 5 stores today (ok gas stations because that is all that is open) and no one has any clue what I'm talking about. This is not good. I managed to pour the liquid from the packages into my case and am praying we find somewhere soon.

DORKY GREEN STUFF
On our way towards the southern part of the island we passed a town that had a lot of geeky stuff I was interested in. Some housing architecture grabbed my attention so I had to grab a few photos for work. I'm sure my coworkers thought I was nuts when they got those images. In the town we discovered it was a huge geothermal spot and where they had centralized the regions greenhouses. I tried to show the kids an outdoor geothermal cooking station for a restaurant and they obviously thought I was nuts too.

WATERFALLS
The next stretch of the route took us to two waterfalls. There were a lot of tourists so we took pictures from afar and stretched our legs. There were rainbows at both Skogafoss and Seiljalandsfoss but they were super hard to capture on film. The kids were more interested in looking for pots of gold then the huge waterfalls. They also enjoyed having me read the guidebook as we drove. Mainly because of all the names that I have no hope of pronouncing and they think that's hilarious.

REYNISFARA
I had wanted to stop at the plane crash on the beach (don't worry not recent) but the gate was shut so everyone was parking on the Ring Road and walking what looked to be quite a distance. We were worried about not finding dinner so we went ahead to check into our Gardar Cabin overlooking Reynisfara or better known as the black sand beach. We found the host and he seemed surprised to see us. That wasn't comforting but he showed us to our cabin that was made up for the four of us. We spent some time talking to him. His family had owned the land for a long time. They literally own all the land to the beach and back to the town. He was a sheep herder (or shepherd?) who had 210 sheep last year. He built these three cabins by hand when the volcano erupted. He said that was impossible cleaning ash off the wood every day. He was content with the three little cabins and his sheep until Airbnb. He said he gets about 80 emails a day for the cabins. The one we had he only lists straight through his personal page which is how I found him somehow. 210 sheep make him the same amount of money as one cabin in a year. This year he only has 70 sheep so that he can manage the cabins. That's crazy. He also knew the dogsledding guides from the morning. I knew this was a small island but that's crazy.

DINNER
Luckily the Black Beach Restaurant was literally next door. They were closing at six so we ran in and ordered almost everything on the menu to eat at our table by the window. The view really is a million dollar view. We were so hungry we didn't take pictures of the food. But the meat soup was great. Local soups are a big deal. A broth based soup loaded with vegetables and lamb. After dinner we watched an amazing sunset in our cabin and got ready for another good nights sleep.

WARNING!!! Long post. Because we planned a LOT for our first day.

BLUE LAGOON
When we first started researching for the trip, the Blue Lagoon was always the first thing we found. And the pictures look amazing. But then we read how touristy it is and how you can get to some amazing pools off the beaten path. And then we remembered we were going to Iceland with a 5 and 6 year old. And decided a little touristy might be appreciated after a long day traveling.

So a few weeks before we left we made a reservation for the first of the day 9am. We were on the road with our rental by 6 so we had time to kill and got to watch the sunrise out at the lagoon. I'm sure the price of admission and whatever we paid for two towels was way overpriced. But the place was spotless and amazing. So glad we went when it opened and there were very few folks. We got to explore all the hidden nooks. It was absolutely freezing outside but nice and toasty in the water. Not sure what is in the water but we were urged to load up on conditioner before heading in. I probably went overboard and had the kids dripping in conditioner. By the time we were done exploring and taking pictures in the midst of the steam, the crowds had come. We showered, grabbed sandwiches t and grimaced at the number of buses.

STAYING CONNECTED
Everything we read said we needed to buy a SIM card with as many GBs as we could find, to switch out in our iPhones. Sounded easier than it was. Four stops later we settled for 1GB cards to make sure we had something. We are halfway through our Golden Circle drive and have yet to get Google Maps to work.... Update: Apparently, activating the SIM cards like the handy instructions say is helpful.

STOCKING UP
You can't do a road trip without loading the car with snacks and drinks - and SIM cards, if I could find them. Kids were passed out after the lagoon so I headed into the first Bonus we saw. I grabbed a lot of Icelandic snacks I couldn't read, some Coke for caffeine and some American snacks, just in case, and some strange giant chocolate egg that every other mother was buying. I wanted to feel "in the know" for Easter. I should have bought stuff for dinner....

STROKKUR Geyser
According to the guidebook, we did the Golden Circle backwards. Mainly because of where we were spending the night. So first up was Strokkur Geysir. Not to be confused with the Geysir 10 km down the road. That confused the heck out of my navigation. Basically right off the road was this big geyser that performs every 5 minutes. Kind of a lazy traveler delight, but no complaints. I convinced the kids not to run under scolding water while we got some shots and a bit of exercise.

PONIES
We ran into our first large group of Icelandic Horses on the way to our next stop. We shamelessly pulled over and taunted a bunch of horses by not allowing our children to touch or feed them. That worked great... Don't worry my phone was never harmed and we think that horse was just giving our son's jacket s kiss. They really are cute beasts in person.

GULLFOSS
Gullfoss Waterfall is ginormous and loud and terrifying. Those kinds of places terrify me with children. I cut the looking short because I couldn't take the anxiety with two exhausted and active kids. Luckily the snow covered path out to the rocks at the rushing falls was closed.

THINGVELLIR NATIONAL PARK
Research showed this was the most historical part of Iceland due to the history and home to the government for a very very long time. But what we really cared about was seeing where the two tectonic plates (North America and Europe) were meeting and causing Iceland to grow a bit each year. No, we didn't snorkel. Won't risk drowning like that with the kids for a while (bad Cruise encounter sung scared kids). I had scene pictures and pictured huge cliffs. It was beautiful but much smaller. There were a lot of quarters (or silver coins) thrown in at the bridge. No one told me the logic behind that.

SLEEPING
By now we were exhausted. 5:30 but we really had only slept a couple hours the night before. We purposely stayed up today to get onto the right sleep pattern. It was hitting is hard. Worried about missing our cabin, it became apparent it was impossible. We had rented one of the Cottages of Lake Thingvellir through Icelandic Farm Holidays. Luckily we found out LATER that the reservation hadn't been communicated to the owner and she didn't blink. Our cabin had a breathtaking view and was perfect. Simple cabin with two bedrooms. One double, two twins. We checked to make sure the forecast wasn't good for Northern Lights this night and headed to bed after dinner. (Dominoes rub nearby because we were in the middle of nowhere)