I AM 32!!!

Happy Birthday to ME! Oh goodie. I'm older.

My day was magical. :) It started off with a special gift from my cats... a dead rodent in my bedroom. It moved on to a become a day of riding humid buses with sweaty Europeans... and was topped off by my washing machine which refuses to spin my clothes dry (so I pull them out of a puddle). My night ended with my skype phone not working so I couldn't talk to any of my friends or family...

Wheeeeeeee!

ACTUALLY -My birthday wasn't bad, I was kidding... kinda. :) I had a good day with Scotty and ladybugs and a party with some Americans. I actually got two parties! The day before my birthday some moms from school had a surprise birthday party for me. :) The house was decorated in USA everything, I had cake with MANY red, white, and blue candles and presents to open. Very nice!! THEN my American friends had a lunch party for me on my birthday. Erin, who admits to not ever cooking, interrogated my family to find out my favorite food and then cooked me potatoes for lunch. :) I even met a new American friend too! Cool!

Erin also gets extra points because she tomorrow she is willingly watching my four kids so I can go out the movies with my husband.... and her "wrapped gift" to me - candy for the movies and movie tickets. :) How cool is she?!!

Thanks to everyone who was involved in my birthday everything!!!

Where was my family in all of this birthday extravaganza? My husband is having a "busy week" at work. These weeks come up every few months; the price to pay for our recent five week vacation. :) So we plan on my birthday to be celebrated this Saturday. :) That said, the girls were also nice to me on my actual birthday. Michaela and Sierra watched Scotty and Andrea and I got to eat my French Toast dinner while it was still warm! :)

Nothing.

Random Things Because I'm Bored and Not Tired Yet:

- I miss paved driveways. It's great to get the mail/newspaper or run to the car withOUT shoes.

- Did I mention that our mail carrier SHOVED five weeks worth of mail into our mailbox while we were gone? The girls next door did not get the mail as planned. :)

- I didn't have a car today... It was my first bus trip in a while, along with some rides from friends (thanks!). It was okay... I guess. It seems as if my Pauly is tired of riding the bike and now we will "share" the car. *sigh*

- My dear husband opened a coveted can of evaporated milk to use a teaspoon of it in his coffee. Does he think that evaporated milk grows on trees??! Now I'm short a can for my thanksgiving pies. A certain spouse better make a work trip to the States soon...

- I made new friends today at our first "mom's coffee morning". That makes me happy.

- The girls started ice skating already. They were quite happy to go and even happier when they found out the new ice skating coach is Canadian and doesn't speak ANY Danish!!! Even Scotty tried again. He did well and the teachers helped him the whole time. It was like a private lesson. He skates were a little small though and his feet started to hurt so we stopped and will try again next week.

- I need piano lessons for Michaela. Anyone know anybody?

- Where can I buy rubbing alcohol here?

- For my birthday I decided I will go to the American aisle and buy a $15 box of Lucky Charms.

- I cut the grass the other day so my husband will have more energy to ride his bike. :) The silly lawnmower is electric and has a cord. It is dumb to stick a long cord on something with a quickly moving blade. (No, I didn't cut it.)

- Maybe I'll offer to do yardwork for extra days with the car. :)

- Andrea likes leeks.

- Out of the 120 granola bars in my house I couldn't find one to put in lunches.

- Great, I just remembered I have to MAKE lunches. I really dislike making lunches.

SIERRA IS NINE!!!

WHOA. If Sierra is nine that makes me old. : /

My little Bear is getting so big! Nine sounds so much older than eight!!

Sierra's party was harmless and she had a great time. We had 13 girls over for four hours. We watched a High School Musical movie and during the show I SERVED them... popcorn, salad, and pizza. They all sat watching and eating quite contently and only got loud when the "mushy" parts came.

Little did my Sierra know the chaos involved in the kitchen though... It involved long skewers and a nearly empty caesar dressing bottle, frying pizza slices, and exploding butter in the microwave. ...and all, thankfully, while Andrea happily crawled around the kitchen floor carrying her new favorite toy: a whisk.

After the movie we had cake and ice cream of course! I created a High School Musical cake MASTERPIECE. :) Sierra liked it so it was a success. My new birthday cake plan is to hand out HUGE pieces of cake because you really don't want to deal with the leftover cake anyways. Why not share the sugar with others' children too... I had no cake leftover. Sorry to those of who whose children I fed the extra sugar to.

I'm just happy to not be making another birthday cake tonight. For my birthday on Thursday I want chocolate chip cookies. :) Please no more cake!!

After cake Sierra opened her presents. I sat happily watching. I laughed as I remember years past when I would take pictures of her opening every present, make videos, write down what people gave her for writing thank you notes later... This time I just sat and talked with some moms. I took four pictures as she started then called it good as she ripped the wrapping paper from various HSM items.

Her birthday day is done. She had a good day and I'm happy my Birthday Weekend is over. :) It was exhausting! I'm all done with parties until October when my little Michaela will turn 11. WHOA! Now that is old!!

P.S. - Scotty still agrees he is four. Especially when it comes to how many pieces of Bacon he gets and how many books at night we will read. (He used to get three of each!) (The bacon is really small.) :)

SCOTTY IS FOUR!!!

Although Scotty turned four today he was refusing to accept it. He says, "I like three."

SO. Our defiant son spent the entire day being "three" until, luckily, a chocolaty birthday cake with a number FOUR on it came along... just in case a certain little three year old wanted to be FOUR. It was presented to him along with FOUR presents that only a FOUR year old could open. He decided to be four, but I'm pretty sure he'll wake up to once again be "three" tomorrow...

Our birthday plans changed a bit. We had plans to go to Legoland, but my recent lack of sleep with last night being the topper with only four non-consecutive hours, and the current state of our chaos our house is in, we decided to take Scotty to Tivoli to play golf. He liked this idea better than Legoland anyways. Even the girls were happy to stay home.... seems we all need a break.

So we just played at home most of the day and then Paul took the kids to play golf while I stayed home and rested. :) (Yes, I know terrible mother skipping out on my only son's birthday golf event... oh well.) :) They came back to get me and we all went out to a restaurant for dinner. After our dinner, which went really well considering we walked in with Scotty just about asleep and Andrea being woken up from a ten minute nap, we returned to our semi-clean house.

Then cake. :)

Hence his golf cake. This cake took REALLY long (I refer you to my four hours of sleep) and involved re-doing a lot of things. It started off going to be a pool table because he loves pool tables... but things got complicated and frosting was scraped off and reapplied, scissors and USA frosting was brought out... It was a MESS. It doesn't make me very happy, but Scotty liked it so I'm a winner! Of course Scott liking presented it's own problems... we weren't allowed to eat any part with frosting or decorations on it. :)

AND- If you think it looks like something else keep your comments to yourself. :) It is a miniature golf course with a red golf ball and a hole. Nothing involving Christmas Time or Violence...

But I'm not done with birthday planning yet.... Sierra's is tomorrow along with her High School Musical party. I opted out of the big event party and we are just watching a movie, eating pizza and salad, popcorn, cake and ice cream... and that is it! Sounds simple enough. We'll see... She didn't really know who to invite since she has been at school for just a few days. I'd hate to leave someone out and this always results with inviting ALL THE GIRLS. :) ...and I have a problem, when I invite people they ALL end up coming. :) I think I'll have about 14 girls here. Better than 14 nine year old boys! (which will come eventually, I know...)

So I just finished her cake and I'm considering myself lucky because it's only 11:30pm. Yesterday I was finishing Scotty's cake at 1:30am.

Russian Rowers on Lufthansa

After a solid 28 hours of traveling we made it from Canada back to Denmark. Y I P P I E.

Actually I'm really glad to be back home even if it is located in Denmark. I missed our "stuff". I was a little tired of the "living out of a suitcase thing".

P.S. I now own 13 suitcases. Some of them will hopefully find new homes, but I've actually decided the old style ones I've bought for $5.00 are WAY easier to pack since you don't have the roller bars making the bottom uneven and denting your books.

However, I was discussing suitcases with a friend today and we both agreed that cardboard boxes, while extremely ghetto-looking, are actually great for packing lots of large, not-too-heavy objects, such as jumbo sized boxes of goldfish crackers and board games. I think we will use cardboard boxes from now on. :) a

As for "Russian Rowers" as mentioned in my little title... we had the Russian rowing team on our flight from Toronto to Frankfurt. Super. They were all drunk. Super Again. We are about to take off and they get sick. Super Super. THEN we have to turn the plane back to drop them all off. Super Times Five This little Russian Rowing team made the majority of the plane, including us, miss our connecting flights and cause us an extra five hours of travel. This is why I will watch the Rowing Races in the Olympics and cheer for whoever is NOT Russian.

This brings me to my next complaint. Lufthansa. Sure... their downstairs bathroom area was kinda neat... walking downstairs on an airplane is just weird. Despite the fun bathrooms, I did not enjoy this airline at all! It mostly was due to the one available person at their service center in Frankfurt to rebook ALL the passengers from our flight after we arrived hours late. Mr. Lufthansa knew we were going to be late seven hours before we arrived. Still, all the passengers waited in line over two hours to get new tickets because their was ONE slower than slow person helping us all. And as far as I'm concerned it was partly Lufthansa's fault we were late. Why let a bunch of drunk men on the plane? I think that breaks a Lufthansa rule.

As if this wasn't enough... my kids did not get ice cream of gifts on this plane. :) I like SAS better.

Anyways, I've unpacked everything. Please don't confuse this with, "I've put everything away." All my unpacked things are currently scattered about my house. I am now trying to squish cake mix boxes and peanut butter jars into any available cupboards and on top of cabinets. I'm hiding granola bars in the bathroom and fruit snacks and ranch dressing in the closet. I'm stashing ziplock baggies under Michaela's bed. I have cream cheese frosting and onion dip behind the ice skates in the laundry room. Now, don't get me wrong... I'm happy to have these things, but perhaps my husband should construct that IKEA book shelf we bought in Oregon, remember that one my love? ...maybe that bookshelf would be great for my "American Section" in the garage. How secure is the garage though? :)

I haven't even attempted to start the laundry and I just remembered I need to vacuum. I have also just realized I don't have a dog around anymore. I am having to clean up all the food Andrea throws on the floor. I think I may feed her outside from now on. : )

Old Suitcases

It's Saturday morning.

We leave on Monday.

We only have one more day here at the cottage. Tomorrow we will drive closer to Toronto and spend the night there with Uncle Greg and Auntie Red. We fly out Monday... sometime. :)

On one hand I want to jump up and down and laugh and giggle and sing songs about going back home to our own house and our own things and our little kitty cats. On the other hand I don't want to say good-bye to everyone here.... :(

So. Today my plan is to go buy more suitcases. :) I kinda filled up all the ones I had so I have been rummaging through salvation armies to find used suitcases for $4.00. I refuse to pay $50 for some cheap set of suitcases that will fall apart during the trip home. When we moved to DK we bought a couple sets of four for ~$80.00. When we picked them up in Aarhus just about all of them were missing handles or had ripped.

The old style suitcases actually are fun. I kinda like them. mUm gave me one that was Paul's grandpa's. It's my favorite so far. The old suitcases don't have the rolly-wheels on the back but we don't use the rolly wheels anyways, we don't have enough people to roll them. We just get a cart. (Guess what?: Carts are free in DK)

I wouldn't have needed more suitcases but I had a little panic moment when I realized I only had a few more days to shop. So I went shopping. Alot. Shhhh.... don't tell Paul.

Utah and our Hike

In between California and Canada we spent a week in Utah with my dad's side of the family. We went to a local park to celebrate my Grandpa's birthday. The family is so big that we don't fit anyone's house. :) Do you see us?? :) I think this is really only a 1/4 of the family... I'm still learning their names. :)




While in Utah we went hiking... in REAL mountains! :) Hiking here makes all other mountains seem like tiny hills. REAL mountains are HUGE. I will admit that hiking to a cave was my dad's idea and with the 100 degree weather I would have been happy to stay on the couch, but I remember going into a cave when I was Michaela's age and I figured that if I can still remember it then we should do it too.

Side Note: This is my new philosophy on doing things with the kids... I want to make sure my kids do what I can remember doing when I was little because if I remember it then it must mean that it was worthwhile, or at least memorable, which is, in turn, worthwhile. :) - That is my amazing parenting plan now. :) I have several super-favorite times I can remember when I was little and I can remember being SO happy: being first in line at Disneyland and running with my mom to Space Mountain, the first couple days of our week long vacations at Myrtle Beach in SC, bouncing up and down on a tube in a giant wavepool in the sun, speeding through a lightening storm in a boat in the rain trying to get to shore quickly, and eating warm chocolate pudding. :) Now that I've wrote my list out I realize all my "super-favorite" times involved my family so I hope that the girls missing out on soccer teams and girl scouts won't ruin their lives. I guess they will have their own happy times... I'm sure I can think of something else to do to ruin their lives. :)

Anyways....
We hiked all the way up Mount Timpanogos.... while carrying Andrea. :) Even little Scotty walked most of the way and it was a long way - 1.5 hours up and then 1.5 hours down. Once you were at the top you entered the cave and then crawled though it on an hour tour. Then out you popped on the other side of the mountain. Inside we saw all the stalactites and stalagmites and other cave-y things. Andrea didn't see anything because she slept the whole time. I think was happy to finally get a nap in a cool and dark place. (P.S. This means I carried her the whole time.) It was a good little cave. I'm glad we did it.

SHE'S ONE!!!!

Happy Birthday Andrea!!

She started her big day off by playing in the sand, which is by far her most favorite thing in the world to do ...and she has traveled around the world trying many fun things! My little one year old, who started off in Denmark, has been to Germany, Sweden, Italy, United States, and Canada!
All her cousins made her sandcastles that she was allowed to destroy. They made big piles of sand and let her flatten them. She even had her legs and feet buried in sand and she thought this was hilarious! She LOVES the sand and mud. :)


My little Andrea is almost walking. She can stand as long as she feels like, but just won't lift up a foot until she grabs hold of something. She did raise a foot up just a little and take a half step once. :) Does that count? I hear four steps is the official number of steps required for a walker. :) Poozle walks pretty well just holding onto one hand now. She still has another week to take her first steps in Canada. I know Gramma here is urging her on.Here is her giant party. All her Canadian friends were there!

...and here is her wonderful cake made my her wonderful mommy...! It is "yummy sand"! ...and a little bowl of milk to splash in! She LOVED it!! It even had chive "grass"!

I guess I made more than just one cake because we had many mouths to feed. :) Oh, and see that boring black circle cake? It's a "world famous" tort cake from some "world famous" hotel in Austria. My cupcakes were WAY better. I don't even know what a tort is, but it wasn't very yummy. It was like a dry cake. The hotel was called Hotel Sacher. in case you want to buy an overpriced, yucky cake. :) The box was pretty.

SO. That was my little girls day. Thanks to Auntie Red and Uncle Greg and to Auntie Sandra and Uncle Steve for hauling all their kids up to the cottage to help celebrate Andrea's birthday. TAK. Oh, and thanks to Gramma and Papa for smiling while 20 people ran through their house. :)

Wednesday

Today is Wednesday.

It was ~24 degrees and mostly sunny. The kids played in the water, in the sand, and with the dogs. We made lego houses and played on the computer. We ate bagels for breakfast, corn on the cob for lunch, tacos for dinner, and root beet floats for dessert. HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY - I left all of the kids with Gramma for three hours. WHOO HOOO for me!! (P.S. Paul had to go to Austria for work for the week.)

My three hours of quiet was spent wandering the aisles of the local Super Walmart and then eating McDonalds... all. by. my. self. :) Ahhhhhhh..... Maybe tomorrow I'll escape again. :)

Anyways,

Andrea's birthday preparations for her Saturday party are underway:
- She is undergoing extensive walking lessons so that she can, maybe, take her first wobbly steps on her birthday.
- She now has three cute little outfits to wear on her birthday. (No, she can't just have one because she is a very messy little girl. You should have seen her eating her root beer float tonight!)
- The cake has been planned... in my head. I hope it works.
- Her presents have been purchased and wrapped.
- We have all the necessary matching plates, napkins, and tablecloths.
- ...AND The guests are coming. ...Both Paul's brother and sister and their families will all be here for a grand total of 8 adults, 12 children, and 3 dogs. The kids are aged: 13, 11, 10, 10, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7, 5, 3, 1

Oh, it gets better though... These 20 people and three dogs will ALL sleep in this ONE house for the weekend. :) There are some doubts that this is the most intelligent of ideas and I have been blamed ahead of time for anything that goes wrong since technically it is my fault everyone will be here. I have a secret escape plan though... If I get desperate enough Andrea and I will sleep in our big rental car. :) I'll advise the other mothers to do the same.

Night night...

THIS is baby food.

This is a baby food aisle.. in America. It's not doing me much good since little Andrea wants nothing to do with the stuff anymore. Andrea eats BIG people food now. Pretty much anything we eat, we give her. This doesn't mean she will eat it though, she is pretty good about throwing what she doesn't want directly on the floor. :) Today we even bought some BIG people milk to start mixing in with her formula. :)

My little Andrea is getting so big. We are planning her First Birthday this Saturday. :) She has been standing alone alot lately. It's almost like she thinks it is fun to just stand up. I stand in front of her and put my arms out and she laughs and looks at me like she wants to move her little feet but just can't figure it out without a little help. So she plops down on her bum and crawls a step and then grabs my hands. Very cute.