Grocery Bags and Cheeseburgers

Americans should use re-usable grocery bags.

Here you pay about 50 cents for every shopping bag you get at the store. This new, annoying cost was definitely the incentive for me to start bringing my own reusable bags to the store and even then loading up the arms of all three children to carry any extras to the car. After two months of this, bringing my own bags has become a habit, so I think everyone should do it. The Disney channel said every family uses 500 plastic bags a year. Not me!!! ;)

Danes should eat cheeseburgers with their hands.

I noticed the other day while sitting in a cafe that these two girls were eating their cheeseburgers with a knife and fork. The cheeseburgers were messy and I decided they were being sissys for not just picking it up. Then I noticed a guy doing the same thing! It just so happened that I was waiting for my cheeseburger, and it was a big and messy one too... so I ate it with a knife a fork just in case that was the rule.

After some cultural investigation I learned that in Denmark you eat Cheeseburgers with a knife and fork unless you are at McDonalds. Then I thought back to all the other times I just picked up my big and messy cheeseburger and ate it right there in the restaruant. Oh well...

tara

Scotty loves apples :)

Scotty and I go shopping and he always gets an apple. I do have to bite off the skin for him or else he ends up handing little chewed up pieces of skin as he bites them.

They sell most fruit and vegatables by the piece here. It's usually 10 pieces of "whatever" for 25 kronner ($5.00). So after years of trying to find the little smaller and lighter ones - we now just find the biggest "whatevers" we can. Bananas, Oranges, Potatoes, Pears, etc...

I think it's more simple that way... and I can pay for an apple core at the end of the trip and not feel too bad about it.

This picture is when we were shopping at one of the "malls". It's the downtown walking street area: several streets that are mainly for walking. They are filled with all different shops and cafes and other things... toy stores, shoe stores, hardware stores... like a mall - except you are cold while you shop and end up browsing in stores much longer to avoid going back into the cold.

tara

Driving

Things I like about driving:
- The "get-set" light. It's the red and yellow light together and comes right before the green. "Get Set!"
- No stop signs, only yields. Yay!
- Roundabouts are okay, but sometimes- unless you are brave, you'll never get a turn.

Things I DON'T like about driving:
- Bicyclists (sorry dad). Bikes are like annoying flys pedaling everywhere. They have their own roads next to the car roads and sometimes their own lights, but they come out of nowhere and I'm going to hit one eventually.
- Parking Lots. Parking lots are silly here. You can go in 13 ways, but out only one way. Actually, we did go to a Parking Garage and it was full so the little gate made us wait outside. When a spot became free (a car exited) the button lights up and you race the other four lines of people to push that button to get your gate to go up. If two gates go up at once it's a RACE to find the free spot! ...like the musical chair car commerical. It's just like that! Maybe I like parking lots, they do have signs up around the outside telling you how many spaces are free that very second.
-Right Turns. There is no "right-on-red" here. Needless to say that after 15 years of turing right on red, I still do out of habit... and that is me running a red light. :) Oh well, at least I look first.
-Pumping gas. You have to hold it the entire time, no little thingy to hold it for you so you can sit in your car instead of freezing outside...

Scotty Talks

Scotty talks all day... he even likes to hum along to songs.

He says:
No, More, Stop, Help, Whoo Hoo, Yay, Me, Go, Down, Slow, Fast, Meow, Ice, Maa, Daddy, Whee, Oww, Off

I'm sure there are more and perhaps if I was a good mommy I'd write them down or something. :)

He'll imitate just about anything and some things he ends up repeating later... He counts along with the TV and sings along with the ABC song. My favorite is LMNOP which sounds like "lalalaPPPP"

It's cute, but now not so much when he screams STOP at me over and over again. Quite the little independent boy...

That's all for now, I figured I should type something. :) I'll put pictures on soon - I still haven't figured out how to print them out here. There isn't a Costco.com around. BUT if anyone gets a package of pictures from Walmart.com... they're from me!

The Complete Danish Experience

So. Before we left home Paul and I decided that we needed to experience the Danish lifestyle to it's fullest. ...and how else better to do that than to have a baby here!

As some already know - This August, the sixth, and final member of our "not-so-little" family will arrive in a Danish hospital, delivered by a Danish doctor, and hopefully with the help of some Danish drugs! I can't say the thought doesn't scare me to death, but I guess there isn't much we can do at this point except hope for the best!

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and the whole process seems a bit similar I guess. Yes, my doctor speaks English. Some words she says are wrong and it makes me smile, but I get the point... They ran all the same tests as I've done before. I go in again tomorrow for a "scan" which could mean ultrasound, but I'm not sure. :) I'll drink lots of water just in case.

Good thing this isn't my first or else I'd already be on a plane home!

The Bus

I have mastered the Danish buses... Well, I didn't get lost at all today so I'm feeling pretty good about it! Much better than the second day when the kids and I ended up soaking wet in a dark alley hiding under some scaffolding in the pouring rain while trying to make it to school. :) Today we even rode a bus to take our new ice skates to the public (free) ice skating rink downtown.

I've been testing out the buses to see how difficult it is since we aren't too excited about paying $80,000.00 for a Ford Escort to drive. Scotty loves them and there is a stop at the end of our driveway. We'll see how it goes, but the buses go everywhere and pretty often; and not like in the US. For real. Most people use them and it's rare to have a two car family here (I refer you to the $80,000 Escort mentioned, and then go ahead and throw in the $9.00 for a gallon of gas, and then try to park the thing somewhere downtown -UGH)

I'm not passing judgment on the buses yet, I'll try for a bit more. As for my dark alley story... It was dark because the sun wasn't up yet, and alleys are pretty common here so it wasn't scary or anything, we found an umbrella in Sierra's backpack and made our way to a coffee shop where we stopped and had some fun hot chocolate and waited until another bus came along. Hot Chocolate is a cup of hot milk and a chunk of chocolate on the end of a stick that melts in the milk! YUM. ($8)

Pictures are of Sierra and her friend Alex at PE at school. :) They are having an ice skating "unit" and go once a week. We bought some skates to go on our own since the rink is free. The other is of a.... guess..... It's a fish stick. We were a bit concerned there was a head and fin and tail inside, but it was just shaped that way. ;)

Snow!

It snowed! It also snowed a bit last week, but it was just a light dusting of snow that kinda stuck to the ground. This time the grass was white and snowballs were thrown!

All day Saturday the snow fell, sometimes really hard and it blew everywhere like a little mini-blizzard. The girls loved playing in it. The BOY did not. Scotty doesn't like the cold wind in his face at all so he was harder to convince to go and play outside. We brought some snow in, but he didn't want to touch it. :)

Sierra wrote in her journal that night, "Today was the best day of my life." :) She has enjoyed scraping frost off of the railings and tables and making little dirty frost-balls; so to play in fluffy, white snow was a real treat.

Saturday night it must have warmed up and rained a bit though because we lost some of our snow today. There was still enough to make a pile in the front yard and bring out the sand toys though and play a while. (Figures that Denmark would warm up just enough to melt our fun.)

School tomorrow - YAY.

sorry for the sidways pictures, i'll fix them later...

Happy New Year!

The countdown of our two year contract offically started on Jan. 1, 2008! Not that I'm already starting to keep track. : )

New Year's Eve here was quite the party! Even little Scotty stayed up to take in the excitement. The fireworks we saw here were by far the more impressive fireworks than any others that I've ever seen! It put the Fourth of July to shame!

At midnight the entire sky lit up. We were at a friend's house up above the city and 360 degrees, all around us, the horizon was filled with fireworks... Not professional firework displays, but just normal people in the middle of their streets, shooting huge fireworks high in the sky. It was incredible! ...and it went on for over an hour -the sky just lit up all around. Fireworks continued all through the night. I woke up to them at 4:00am still. I'll never be impressed with another firework "show" again. I could go on and on, it was really amazing. I made a little movie fifteen minutes into it, but it just isn't the same as seeing it in person.

I wanted to go away for Christmas next year, maybe to Canada to ice skate on the lake and try out the new "Super Bobsled Ramp", but I will definitly be back here for the next New Year's Eve.

No mUm, nobody threw dishes at our door. :) I guess we haven't made any good Danish friends yet...

My little vidoe doesn't work on my computer, but maybe it will on yours, let me know. :(