Scotty Ice Skated!

Our Exciting Weekend:

We drove to Copenhagen for the weekend and paid that silly toll again. UGH x 41 twice.

We went to Tivoli and saw all the Christmas lights and decorations and it was cute. It was also freezing! Tivoli did have something that I thought was the most ingenious thing EVER! It's this giant, metal, hot "table" full of red hot coals that burns propane somehow and it is SO warm! ...They probably permanently scar at least 10 children a year because they are just placed along walkways with no guards or anything around them; but I'm sure it cuts back on frostbite cases. These "hot places" are the only reason I lasted out there as long as I did. Every now and then it's good to feel your fingers again... I want one for the backyard. I wonder if Bilka has them. :)

We stayed at Dan Hostel which was amusing too. The last time in Copenhagen (after my Dad and his Marriott points left) we stayed at Dan Hostel as well... but in a different one by the river that had a family room. The family room was huge and there were 8 beds and our own bathroom so that's what we were kinda expecting. This time we had four beds and that's it. :) The room had enough room to walk between the bunk beds and the double bed, and just enough room to squeeze the stroller in... and the bathrooms were down the hall. It was fine for one night and we all had fun with it.

As for my thoughts on hostels; I always thought they were for spiky haired teenagers who ran away from home. :) We only saw one spiky haired teenager. Our room was very nice and clean; it was pretty quiet; we had a good heater in the room; and breakfast was just as good as some hotels we've been in. I'm sure you can get good and bad hostels, but I feel bad for having a negative view of them until now. I was quite proud of my $160 deal for hotel room, Tivoli tickets, and breakfast. It helped because we knew to bring our own sheets and so that saved an extra $70. Score one point for us! Oh, but then score 510 points for Denmark because we translated a parking sign wrong and got a 510 kroner parking ticket.

The highlight of my trip was definitely Scotty ice skating!! The girls are great little ice skaters since their PE class at the ice skating rink last year, but I wouldn't have thought Scotty, my little boy of routine and all-things-familiar, would have even touched an ice skate... plus he wasn't feeling too well.

When I asked him if he wanted to ice skate he said yes... so I quickly whisked him off and rented some skates for him and put them before he had a chance to change his mind. He made it around an entire lap and didn't cry or scream... he just said, "Hold my hand so I don't fall." A small potty accident ended his first ice skating lesson but today I went to see if I could find some Scotty-sized skates so we can go again. :) Very cute little boy. He's feeling better now. It must be a 24 hour thing.

Our Christmas!

Our Christmas was great. The kids all had a good time. Sierra did get sick in the afternoon though so that was sad...but at least she felt okay opening her presents. We tried to find the bright side of being sick on Christmas and we could only come up with "At least you get to use your new High School Musical kleenexs." She was all better today though and just as bouncy as ever.

Christmas morning Scotty was so funny though; he wouldn't open any of his presents. He had no desire to at all! He left and went into the other room to play computer. :) We'd have to open a present a little bit and let him see what was inside but even then he wasn't very interested. He kept saying "too much". :) I thought it was a bit much, but when it was all said and done it wasn't as bad as it looked. Remember six people = a lot of presents.

We had a very yummy turkey Christmas dinner (only one more frozen turkey stashed in the freezer). I had wanted to have our "big" dinner on Christmas Eve because the thought of touching a raw turkey ON Christmas didn't make me feel very Merry. However, the thought of touching a raw turkey on Christmas EVE didn't end up exciting me either, so I ended up putting it off until Christmas. BUT my wonderful husband ended up making our Christmas Dinner so I didn't have to... gravy and all. He even peeled lots of potatoes so I could have as many mashed potatoes as I wanted. Paul has just started a new family tradition in which HE cooks our Christmas dinner. :)

Oh, and I got a new laptop so I can tippy-tap on my little blog from the comfort of my couch. It's been a long time since I've had a laptop and I half expect to open it up and pull up some big database or map.

Here are some pictures of our Christmas and the week before... :) Kids are cute huh?


I know how this "mess" thing works. I know that this is NOT messy. Messy is when they start to feed themselves.




We made popcorn balls. I've been wanting to do this for years and I don't think I'll do it again for many more years. It worked; we have balls made from super sweet popcorn. This is our "popcorn mountain", it was the popcorn we just let cool off because we were tired of burning our hands.










The kids and I made Daddy the best present ever. It's a shirt with roads that we drew on the back. Scotty climbs up behind him and drives his car along the road; it's like a back massage, or as much of a massage that a father of four gets.



Here is Andrea with Andrea and Andrea. :) Andrea is a popular blue bird from a Danish cartoon. Andrea is friends with a green frog? named Kai. So obviously Andrea needed Andrea toys.

God Jul

God Jul may translate to "Merry Christmas", but every time I see it it reminds me of Good July.

It's Christmas Eve and we just ate our dinner. We decided to do our turkey dinner tomorrow if I can just remember what Grandma taught me. I may be calling her at 3am to ask her questions. I did call and ask her some things yesterday. She will have her own 30 pound turkey to cook this Christmas! I will definitely be sad to miss that!

Our tree looks like Santa has already come and the kids are obviously very excited. Scotty isn't thrilled with the idea of Santa coming at night and leaving more presents. He says we have too many already... which is true. I'm slightly appalled at how many gifts are under that tree already... I guess there are six of us. Six people equal a lot of gifts! This is when big families get fun though. :)

Oh, I tried to make stockings for all six of us so we can finally get all matching ones. HA No way. I'll wait until I get into a Target and buy some really cute ones for $5.00 each. The one we did finish making will be for Andrea. :) She doesn't mind what it looks like. I'll use the rest of the fabric for a table cloth of something. :) It's a soft squishy material that doesn't like to hold still to be sewn.

So we already ate our dinner and we're waiting to eat dessert... Chocolate Pudding that we made for the Nisses that apparently live in our attic. :) With any luck the Nisses will leave us a present too! That is if they like our American box of chocolate pudding mix... It's got to be better than rice pudding!

Sierra has carefully selected nine carrots for the reindeer and some of our sugar cookies for Santa. Just in case Santa is tired of cookies we made him some brownies too... with our last box of American Brownie mix. SO YUMMY.

Okay, I'm off... maybe I'll sneak away from the chaos tomorrow and put some pictures up of our day. Whoever reads this should call and wish us Merry Christmas, it's just a local call remember! Go skype Go!

Today.

Scotty has been chewing on his fingers a lot lately. Today I asked him for a bite. He said yes and then stuck his slobbery finger into my mouth and said "Be nice."

At the store today Scotty wanted a small lego toy. He held it up and said, "Pleeeeeease". I took it from him and looked at and he said, "Don't put it back mommy. It fun. Pleeeeeeease." So I bought it.

Scotty says we have too many presents under the tree.

The girls are giving Andrea "rolling over" lessons. Andrea is very un-interested in rolling over.

Scotty calls the stocking cookies we made, "sockies". He likes the blue ones the best. He lines them up to select the one with the most frosting.

I sent the girls down the street to mail a letter today. On the way back I saw them giving each other piggy-back rides. It was cute to see them being nice. It made me happy.
)

WOW

This is the first ever picture of Scotty and Andrea so close. He doesn't really like to be too close to her and so this was HUGE to have his cheek actually touch her head... she was even leaning on him!! However, as soon as she can grab that game it's all over...

Scotty is paying a little more attention to her these days. He thinks it's funny when she chews on things like blankets and toys. He says she's silly for eating her toys. He also says she can't eat any of his cheeseburger because she doesn't have any teeth. As she becomes a little person I'm sure he'll like her just fine. :)

No, he didn't push her over... :)

Paul's Birthday

Thanks for the help with the chocolate everyone, but Paul's birthday cake ended up being a frozen "whip cream" cake. :) I didn't have time to do anything that day because Andrea said I needed to spend some quality time walking around the house with her... A L L D A Y L O N G. Other children got in my way too. :) It wasn't a very productive day.

Today, in an attempt to make up for the lack of cake yesterday, I tried to make Hilde's mousse, which recently won an award for the best tasting thing ever. After locating the correct chocolate I took turns with Paul whipping the heck out of those egg whites by hand... my arm is still sore. The mousse was yummy, but I couldn't eat it knowing it was just raw eggs mixed with chocolate! Is having raw eggs normal or is that a Flemmish thing from Belgium? :)

For Paul's birthday we took a bus ride into town and saw all the christmas lights. It was fun... and COLD; so Scotty needed a cheeseburger to make him warm. (Everytime Scott sees the yellow M he proclaims, "I cold. I need cheeseburger to make me warm." This works because I thought it was cute so I bought him one the first time he said it... now it's still cute so it usually works for him. I am smart enough to know what I was getting myself into but it was just so cute!)

Anyways, we ended up at McDonalds, which Paul and I knew we would. It seems only fair that Paul's birthday dinner was at McDonalds since mine was too. Maybe some day we'll make it to a nice restauraunt... I estimate this will happen in 2.5 years. Maybe I need a paper chain to count down with. ANYWAYS. We ended up with NINE cheeseburgers because sometimes things get lost in translation. When we first moved here we'd always get wrong things when we ordered anywhere... either double what we wanted, or extra mustard instead of mustard... Once we almost ordered 15 baked potatoes at a restauraunt, but luckily the lady asked if that's what we really wanted! When Paul's parents came last summer to visit we got so many fries once it was silly! During that first six months we were here it was a huge accomplishment to get what we really wanted.

SO. That was the start of our Christmas Break. Now I get to spend 24 hours a day with all FOUR of my wonderful children until Jan 5th. Actually it should be fun... and I'm looking forward to not having to take them to school!!! :)

Happy Birthday HAPPY

Happy Birthday Happy.

We thought it would be festive to decorate Happy's bike so his birthday ride home would be more enjoyable. The pointy birthday hat we attached to his helmet lasted only half the way home in the rainy wind. :) The pink streamers still remain...

I love you Happy. Thanks for riding your bike in the cold dark so I can drive around in the car with my "bum warmer" on. I wonder how much longer you can pedal that bike now that you are WHOA! HOW OLD!!!?!?? -How old am I again...? OH. Not as old as you... :) xoxoxo

I've seen some pretty old people pedaling so I think you have a few more years in you. :)

Need Birthday Help

Let's start by saying I've NEVER made a cake from scratch... never had to. I'm out of cake mix and I actually thought it would be nice to make a very yummy, from scratch, chocolate cake.

His birthday is today, but we will have cake tomorrow... I'll put up another post of his "present" hopefully later tonight.

SO. My help needed. What on earth is dutch processed cocoa and where in Denmark can I get it? Is it a powder or is a bar or is it in the form of chips?? Is it the yucky baking chocolate? I'm so confused. What is cocoa vs' chocolate??

AND should I use bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips. I do have a big supply of chocolate chips to use. :)

AND How do I make chocolate frosting? OH SO CONFUSED.

Any help would be great - Mom, mUm, anyone... please be specific. I'm newly domesticated.

WHOO HOO - As I was typing Scotty went potty and he pulled up his pants ALL BY HIMSELF! He didn't yell - MOMMY!!!!!! Yay.

Swimming "Party"

I think I traumatized my children tonight. I made them go to their Christmas Party for their swimming classes... even though I had my doubts on how well it would go. I won't make them do that again. :) ...that's not true, I probably will.

It was at a different, much larger, pool and with ALL the kids at their swimming level. We didn't see their teacher anywhere and didn't recognize anyone but I pretended to know what I was doing so they wouldn't feel "out of place" HA!! I plopped the girls in a line of wet kids and told the teacher they didn't speak any Danish. I felt like such a turd to then just go sit on the benches and watch them shiver in line.

When it was their turn they both jumped in and I laughed so hard! Sierra went really far underwater which is not something she enjoys... She popped back up and had this look of panic but she paddled her way to the side of the pool, then glared at me. :) It was at this point that I tried to stop laughing. They both lasted a bit longer, but trying to figure out what to do got a little complicated... so I bribed them with McFlurrys from McDonalds. Sierra opted out of the McFlurry and sat with me and Michaela hung in there a little longer.

It was cute. They put a Christmas tree on a big floaty thing and all the kids sang and swam around it. I thought Michaela might drown... so much so that I put Andrea down in her car seat in case I had to jump in to save her. Kids were everywhere and all trying to go around this tree!

Michaela is my hero. How many of us would go into a large group of people who we can't understand and try to be included? Honestly, I wouldn't, especially by myself. She swam around that juletree, fighting off Danish kids right and left, struggling to stay above water... and she made it around that tree!!! She rocks. I was so proud of her and she looked so miserable I said we could leave early.

Next Time. :)

What I would do different if I ever move to a new country again:

- Learn the language. I'd never use it to talk to anyone probably, but at least I could read signs and my mail. I hate going to the grocery store and in the checkout aisle seeing a big sign in capital, red letters which is saying something that is obviously important and I have NO idea what it says. It took me forever to translate the swimming party flyer. To learn Danish now would just be silly, we are leaving in a year and I doubt I'll ever hear Danish again. :) (Awww... sounds a bit sad... and a bit relieving!!)

- Bring more supplies. Instead of bringing however many 25lb cat food bags would fit in my trunk I'd estimate how many I'll really need and bring that many. I still feel bad about not finding a cat food my cats like yet. Running out of peanut butter is my worst fear. Scotty would FREAK. :) I wish I would have filled every single empty space in that shipping container.

- Go shopping. Spend a week and go into every store and shopping center to see what is there. AND write down where you find something good because you won't remember where you found it. AND buy it if it's really good because they may never have it again.

- Public Transportation. In the first week ride the train and the bus around so you know how to do it. I think the train is much easier than I thought and it could have been helpful all along. ...and riding the bus is a survival skill as well. I had to drop off the car the other week at the shop and was able to confidently walk to the nearest bus station through the freezing rain with my poor two children and make my way home. (Then call a friend for a ride back) :)

- Go to Bakery and buy one of everything. Maybe something is yummy. You'll spend the first year trying everything anyways to find the ONE yummy thing. Just get it over with. I'd do this at the grocery stores too. If you don't know what it is and there's a possibility it is yummy - buy it and try it. You'll get desperate enough eventually... so again, just get it over with.

- Find activities. ...and be a bully about it. It took me forever to get my kids in activities here. I roamed the halls of gymnasiums "FYI these are NOT gyms, they are high schools"; I visited swimming pools; I harassed other parents... :) It took me too long to sign the kids up for things.

- Find Websites. Find a good translating website... one that will translate most words. I used a terrible one and put up with it for most of the year. Then I found gram trans and was able to translate... and thus able to find activities for the kids. :) ...also a community website that tells about activities in the city would be nice too - haven't found that one yet.

So there you have it... Those are my less obvious ones. I'm sure there's more, but I need to get ready for the first of five parties in the next three days. :) Sierra wants me to wear something sparkly... Sierra is WAY too into this party. She's planned her outfit for the past two weeks, she spent an insane amount of time on her "snack mix" to bring (pretzels, crackers, American GOLDFISH!, popcorn, etc...) She even got out of bed on my first request today. She said today will be better than Christmas! :)

Us

Quick update because I haven't written in a while. I'm still not sure why I'm busy if I'm down to only one kid every morning.

Scotty's been a good little bornehaven kid for a couple weeks now. Today I dropped him off and he ran to his teacher (the zero english one) and jumped on her. It made me happy that he likes her. It really is a cute school... He's confused at why we go to bornehaven when it's still dark though. I can't figure out how to explain this one to him. I just promise the sun will come out "soon"...

Sierra and Michaela have a few more days of school before their winter break. Not that school is really involved this month... it seems like it's been field trips and parties every day. Little do they know that winter break will bring "mommy school". They need to learn something. :)

Andrea is enjoying her cereal at night and seems to sleep better with a full tummy. Poor little thing has a stuffy nose though and that makes her/me sad. She still is full of smiles though!

Paul is working lots and very excited about his birthday on Thursday. :) On Thursday he gets to go to Scotty's bornehaven party and the girls gymnastics party. WHOO HOOO. (Swimming party is tomorrow night) NOTHIN' BUT PARTIES OVER HERE IN DK!!

I am being domestic and baking cookies and bread!! Go me!!

Yesterday was soup night and I tried to buy sausage for a sausage/tortellini soup - sounded good. At the store I couldn't find anything that looked like what I thought sausage should look like so I bought these hotdog type things with the intent of cutting them open and "squeezing" out the sausage. ...nope. They really were hotdogs. I was desperate so I tried them in the soup anyways. It cooked for a while but it looked gross with all the hotdog pieces floating, so I fished them all out and tried to fry them thinking they would brown and not look so fat and slobbery. ...nope. So then I tried to mash them with the potato masher... still fat and slobbery. I eventually made an entirely different rice and carrot soup to eat and threw the slobbery hotdog soup out.

Nummy Cereal!

HOW TO FEED ANDREA:

Step 1: Remove shirt so you don't make a huge mess of it.


Step 2: Choose prettiest spoon.


Step 3: Have big sisters choose an "appropriate" bib for you.


Step 4: Try to eat bib.


Step 5: Decide rice cereal is NOT yummy or fun and scream until mommy picks you up.


We tried to feed Andrea some rice cereal last night... I had decided to mix it with some formula and YUCK she says! :) I don't blame her; it even smelled icky.

We tried again today with some mommy milk and she gobbled it all up. Appears the little one has opinions already. :)

See... went much better during round two. :)

My American Cats

I write enough about my family but not usually about our two cats, Velcro and Skwaky.(and this picture again because I'm in AWE at how much stuff we brought via airplane)

My imported kittys made the move here with us from American and I've decided that at $1000 a pop these little things are the most expensive cats in Europe and I have to make sure I take care of them!

I don't think I ever told about their journey here but it was amusing and involved happy drugs, hotel rooms, endless paperwork, cat scans at security checks, and lots of meow-ing. :)

Anyways, we just ran out of American cat food; and YES, I did bring enough cat food to last an entire year. :) Turns out my cats don't find the new Danish cat food very yummy. They hardly eat anymore. They just sprint into the cat food room everytime I go near it hoping I'll give them some better food. I've tried different brands and even tried Whiskas which is a brand I know... but just like a Nestle cookie from here tastes nothing like a Nestle cookie from home, maybe Whiskas doesn't taste the same either.

I just sent an email to a friend who has already gone back to the states asking her what her American cats ate. :) OH, the problems I have...!

Oh Well, I'm off to coffee morning with all the other moms, and NOT Scotty. :) Scotty was last seen at bornehaven happily reading ToysRus brochure. Now I can just sit and not worry about him destroying someone else's home.

Ingrid, why can't you come? We are beginning to think you don't like us anymore! :)

Translated Meeting

I'd never thought I'd need a translator, but today I had a meeting with Scotty's bornehaven teacher... and we needed to schedule another teacher to translate for us. :) I'm totally serious when I say one of his teachers speak ZERO English, but I really really like her. (see proof that everyone here does NOT speak English)

Having a translator was odd. Who do you look at when talking? What do you do when the other person is talking? Do you laugh when they make a joke and laugh... they know you don't understand them...? I found my mind wandering off about these things and then feeling bad because I wasn't paying any attention to her... but I couldn't understand any of it anyways! I listed to the English part at least! :)

Scotty's teacher would talk, sometimes looking at me, sometimes looking at the translator... I'd just look at her and try to pick words out of whatever she was saying. Once I thought I heard the word for feet - "fa-lugal" or something like that; then I thought: "no, she wouldn't say feet, maybe she said bird, maybe Scotty saw a bird, oh no, maybe Scotty kicked a bird with his feet!" Turned out it had nothing to do with birds or feet.

Sometimes when we were talking the translator would stop us so she could catch up. :) That was funny. We did a lot of smiling and laughing to get us through hard parts; like when nobody could figure out the word for "room" and it turned into a charades game. "stu-a" I think...

Needless to say the meeting went on for twice as long, but I'm really happy with this school. It's so cute and the teachers are all very kind to Scotty. It's so calm and nice and "home-like". The teacher even said she will come to our house to visit and bring two of Scotty's friends at school because the kids like to show their teacher their toys and their room, etc... It's like a show and tell for Scotty, but he gets to show everything at once!

Scotty is doing great at school. He seems to like it and we've been sending him every day because little-monster is all about schedules! Our new plan is to send him Monday - Thursday and not on Friday. I still think five days a week is too much. I'm also just sending him from 8:30am to 12:30 pm. Here's my thinking: They go outside at 11:45ish to play, but it's 1 degree outside! That's cold!! I don't want Scotty to freeze to death so I pick him up at 12:30 if it's really cold or raining... and I'll leave him there longer if it's warmer... you know like 5 degrees. :)

He also said his first, unprompted Danish word!! Mad-pakken. His lunchbox! He has his "taska": (his huge, American, insulated, rocket-shaped lunchbox; and he has his "madpakken": his plastic, square Tupperware container, which is more similar to every other kids lunchbox. He also says bornehaven which is cute as well...

I wonder if there's a spot in his baby book for "First Danish Word" :)

It's finally happened.

I now think 20 kroner is cheap.

...and let's keep in mind it's really ~$4.00!

The other day I was shopping at Tiger, which is like a dollar store with lots of odd things. As I'm putting things in my cart I realize I'm thinking, "Oh cool, only 20kr!". So I keep putting more things in my little basket. When I get to the checkout my final total comes to $60.00!! and I have a basket full of a dozen dollar store items!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN BUY WITH $60.00!!??

When I first got here I'd see 20kr and quickly say "No way am I spending $4.00 on that!" I'm not sure at exactly what point I deemed 20 kroner a good deal, perhaps it was a survival instinct. ...or maybe I just got tired of NEVER buying anything.

I still convert prices to dollars sometimes, but I usually don't even look at the price anymore... espically while grocery shopping. For Snacks and cookies I'll usually convert to dollars, and then more often than not, put it back. Meat or Vegetables I just quickly stick it in the cart because, hey, we have to eat.

Even when I'm done shopping I don't look at my reciept... I did the other day because I bought some toys and wanted to make sure they really were on "sale". ...and I saw I paid $25.00 in taxes! See, looking at the reciept is depressing.

Taska og Klokken

Michaela understands Danish and she didn't tell me! ...Meanwhile I'm suffering through a ten minute charades game with Scotty's bornehaven teacher to figure out that they are eating lunch at 11:00 and then playing outside after they brush their teeth.

I found out that Michaela understand Danish last week as I was proudly explaining to Paul that I know what a "taska" is. She pipes up with a "DUH". Then she proceeds to tell me that a taksa is a bag. THEN she proceedes to tell me she knows as much Danish as a walrus. Whatever little kid!! ...because earlier today we were watching a home video of Scotty at his Danish play gym. I wasn't even listening to what the teacher was saying since I think I instincually ignore Danish talking now, but Michalea says, "Down. The teacher said to get down." Sure enough all the little kids eventually lie down on the gym floor. I was in awe!! ...so she gave me a lesson on how to say 12 o'clock while laughing at me for not knowing.

Scotty, on the other hand, I feel will fight Danish with every ounce in his little body. He gets upset when we switch seats at dinner so you can image his reaction when I pointed at his bag/lunchbox and called it a taska! "NO! NOT TASKA, LUNCHBOX!!" :) Once I tried to count "En, To, Tre" and he yells, "NO! ONE, TWO, THREE!" It will be interesting to see how this one pans out! :)

I know another mom from the States and she sent her four year old boy to bornehaven and three weeks later he came back calling her "Moe-ah" instead of mommy. I think I would cry if I turned into a "Moe-ah". :) (and as a little note: I spell my Danish words how they sound/how they should be spelled.)

I always tell the kids we are lucky that we at least know English though. Sierra came home from school the other day and told me that a boy from Hungry said his first sentence in English and the entire class clapped and cheered. I thought it was so cute. Even kids that I met last year, who didn't speak any english at all, are talking and screaching in class just as much as the others now. Very impressive.

...and another special benefit to an "International School" is that the girls are learning fun words in different languages. They can say "stupid" and "loser" in German. Oh good.

Oh - one more Danish story. When my Grandma and I went to Den Gamel By last week, a lady who worked in a shop asked where we were from. I proudly said that I lived here and my Grandma was visiting from California. Then she asked how long I'd been here and why I didn't speak Danish yet. HA! She didn't exactly say it with a smile and I didn't want to seem like a rude American who isn't bothering to learn the language so I said, "Ya-i taler lit densk, men ya-i-soons du taler mile got englask.", to try and make her like me. (I speak a little Danish, but I think you speak very good English.) These sentenaces are literally the bulk of my verbal Danish skills and I learned them from a cassette tape while sitting in my car waiting for the girls to finish soccer practice in Oregon. AND OF COURSE, she says something back to me in Danish. I just smiled... and said "yes" hoping it would fit the question. :) Phew! It did.

363 DKK

Who wants to know what this says??

It says... Don't park your car in this parking garage under any circumstances. (Of course it's located NO WHERE near the entrance of the parking garage!



Who wants to know who these people are??

These are the people I was supposed to give a ride home to... They are cold and tired and have just eaten pickled herring.

I'll let you figure out the rest of the story... :) It involved buses and husbands whose wives didn't lock their only car overnight in a FOREIGN PARKING GARAGE!!!

(You would think I would have learned from our Sweden experience... You will all be happy to know I did NOT park in a Parking House in Germany!!!)

Bye Grandma

Right now Grandma is a few hours into her 10 hour flight. I'm feeling guilty because I'm sitting here eating pie about to go to bed. I'm so happy she came to see us though; we had a really great time and we all would have loved for her to stay longer.

I never really spent a lot of time with my grandma before, a day or two at the most; but the past 14 days has been different than just a quick visit to Grandma's house. It's been great to have her here for swimming lessons, school, grocery shopping, breakfast, etc... and just to have her hang out with "us" doing what we do.

I've always loved my grandma but over the last two weeks she's become one of my best friends! I miss you lots Grandma - see you soon!

Sweden

We made it to Sweden! Grandma and I rock! We even did it without any problems... except for that one little incident with the parking garage that wouldn't let us out...! I'm very proud of us!!

We left Saturday morning and drove through the rain to Copenhagen. When we got there it was still raining and pretty cold so we didn't walk around the city much. We did drive around quite a bit though... and got to see all the same things! Some of it looked vaguely familiar from my last trip with my parents so I was able to maneuver us around okay. I was even able to remember some facts to tell Grandma so she thought I knew about Denmark! The best part was that I didn't hit any people, bikes, OR scooters!

We eventually ended up at a fountain near a big old church and I knew we were near the Little Mermaid. (Which by the way is going to China for a while!??!) There was lots of parking available so we decided to get out and walk to the top of the hill/fountain and go and see the Little Mermaid. The walk there was nice but it seemed that as soon as we arrived to the statue it got much colder and windier. We were the only ones there! Gee I wonder why...?

We took the obligatory pictures standing in front of the Little Mermaid and hurried back to the car. I don't even think we looked at the statue. :) Grandma has even seen the one in Switzerland but says it looks younger than this one; like a younger girl opposed to a teenager.

Then we took off to Sweden... After crossing another bridge that I don't want to talk about, we arrived in Malmo and drove around a bit. We decided we were tired and so we:
- found a hotel
- got upgraded to a nice suite
- ate a really yummy dinner
- went to bed. :)

The next day we went around Malmo. We did some shopping for food in toothpaste containers and saw the "Turning Torso". Food in toothpaste containers included everything from cheese and butter to caviar and shrimp in a something that looked just like a toothpaste container. AND. The Turning Torso is a huge twisting apartment complex and I can only imagine how expensive it is to live there!

Next stop in Sweden was Lund. Lund had lots of big old churches and other buildings and we walked through the streets for a bit. Lund is also the home of the evil parking garage that wouldn't let me pay and therefore wouldn't let us leave. I was getting close to ramming through the gate! I could write a post all about this and maybe one day I will... but I learned a valuable lesson which I will now pass on. NEVER PARK IN A FOREIGN PARKING GARAGE WHERE YOU CAN BECOME TRAPPED. We did get out... and I didn't have to damage any property.

Last stop in Sweden was Trellerborg on the southern coast. It was a bit smaller but we saw all the big ferries at the dock. It was getting darker and colder so we decided to start back towards Denmark.

After crossing both of those bridges again we eventually made it back to Denmark. We were going to take a ferry back, but I got scared because I had not looked into the ferries or their schedules. Plus it was dark and we couldn't see anything anyways. :) I had a great time with Grandma, I hope she enjoyed Sweden - I did!! :)

Scotty's First Day!!

Awhhhh... My little monster went to school today!

I thought I'd be more excited at the thought of some Scott-Free Moments, but I was too worried that he wouldn't like it and throw a fit... and then this whole thing becomes complicated. He did fine though and was happy to play with other little kids. I don't want to overdo it so I'm going to send him every other day.

Today I only left him there for part of the day to see how it went... When I went back to check on him an hour later I peeked in and found him was sitting in a circle listening to everyone singing in Danish. I have no idea what they were singing but I could hear him saying loudly, "I'm hot. I'm hot." :)

Then it was time for lunch and then they were going out to play. I knew he'd like lunch and outside time so I decided to leave him there and come back later. (I had to take Andrea to the doctor for her shots. :( Poor Little Balubit.) I came back an hour or so later and as I was arriving his class was leaving to walk up the street to the gym to play. They looked just like all the other preschool groups I see around town: 12 little bundled up kids in snowsuits trouncing along ...and my little Scotty was one of them!! He ran over to me and I got a big squeezy hug. It was so cute!! I would have liked to have seen them wrestle him into his snowsuit. :) HA HA

I didn't get to talk to his teachers too much since they were on their way out, and one of them speaks ZERO English, but I think he didn't seem too traumatized . I asked him some questions and he seemed to answer them.
- He said he got a new pink toothbrush to brush his teeth after lunch.
- He doesn't like the little potty, he likes the big one.
- He admitted to crying but didn't say why.
- His favorite part was eating his peanut butter and brown (nutella) sandwich.

Turkey Day

Happy Turkey Day! (a day late)

Our Thursday was too busy with school and work and "life" that we had to postpone our Turkey dinner until today. So this morning Grandma and I woke up dark and early and started cooking! HA get it...? not bright and early because it's not bright until around 9:00am... Yup, I'm funny. :)

First we made pumpkin pies. From a can. BUT, we did make the dough from scratch because there is no such thing as pre-made dough here... or so I thought. After the crusts were made I find out from another mom that they do have pre-made dough here. Grandma hates making crusts so... Grandma, I'm sorry for making you "cut butter into the flour" to make the pie crust dough, but at least I know how to "cut butter" now ...but I'll never do it because I just learned they have pre-made dough in Denmark. :)

Then we started cooking the pies... Sorry again Grandma. She tried to cook those pies for nearly two hours and was getting very frustrated that they wouldn't cook all the way through and set. They were still wet in the middle when she put the knife in to test them. I told her that is how mine always are and that I can never get them to set. We just blamed the oven and moved onto the turkey. Later, after everything had been eaten, and as we were cleaning up the kitchen; I saw that I had too many eggs in the refrigerator. Sorry Grandma. I didn't put eggs in the mix and that's why it wouldn't set right. So. I've been guarding two cans of pumpkin pie mix and one can of evaporated milk for an entire year, only to mess them both up by NOT putting the eggs in. :( For the record though I thought the pie tasted fine. :) I wonder if I've ever put eggs into my pies?? Oh. Well.

The rest of dinner was yummy too. We had a turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, peas, salad, crescent rolls, cranberry sauce, and gravy. For dessert we had two egg-free pumpkin pies and a cream cheese pie with no graham cracker crust because I'm too stingy to use that many American graham crackers for just a crust. :)

We had fun telling our Danish friend about our traditions and finding out that she thought it was odd to eat a turkey, much less marshmallows on whatever a sweet potato was. :) ...and of course she found it odd that I'd never even considered cooking a duck.

Tomorrow. No Day-After-Thanksgiving Sales for us, but Grandma and I are taking a road trip to Sweden for the weekend. ROAD TRIP!!!! Andrea gets to come but others are getting left behind. The only problem is that I'll have to pay that dumb toll to get to Copenhagen. Grrrrr.... AND we also have to pay the even dumber toll to get to Sweden.

I'd said I'd never pay that toll again! BUT I guess I will for Grandma. AND Apparently I've gotten some facts about that bridge wrong... Apparently it is long. However, I still don't think it was anything out of the ordinary... AND I still don't think it should cost $41.00 to get across it! Maybe I didn't pay attention to the bridge itself because I was still in shock from paying the silly toll? (OOOOUUUUHHHHH It's all just my opinion!)

Night night...

More goodies

The girl's grandma (their dads mom) in California sent us a package... thank you!!! Some pancake syrup! :) ...and advent calenders!

I think the advent thing is big here in Denmark. They have all kinds of things to "count-down" until Christmas Eve. Last year we got a candle with numbers down the side that we had to burn every day. Of course we got it on the 10th of the month and it took us a week of constant candle burning to catch up. :) I just learned yesterday that they have a Christmas cartoon on every night on some channel and the kids watch it and open their advent treat for the day. Anyone know what channel it's on?

Anyways... the package was a big hit with the kids. The bubble wrap was a good half hour of fun and the box is now a car for Scotty! :) Maybe people should just send us empty boxes of bubble wrap and circus peanuts. :)

Hope the video works...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR_hYXioxYI

I can't get the video to "embed" so you'll have to cut and paste the link for now.

Custom Made Pink Hat

It's the cutest thing ever!! I love her little face surrounded by her pink hat that Grandma made for her! It fits perfect and is so cute that I've requested another pink hat one size larger for when she grows. :) So of course Grandma produced another pink hat!! Now Sierra wants a matching pink hat so that is today's task. I am trying to make a hat for Michaela but I'm not convinced it will look anything like a hat. So if you see Michaela wearing something that looks like a funnel/pot holder, tell her it looks great. :)