Mama & Cheese

Andrea has spoken. I've decided these are official words, not just random sounds. :)

- Mama was first. ...because she loves me. :)
- Cheese was second. ...because that's what you say when you take people's pictures.

MAMA
She says "mama" when she sees me and wants me to get her. She has now learned that a tiny little voice saying "mama" will get me to do whatever she wants! She started saying "dada" too but I haven't decided "dada" means "dada". "mama" had been around a while before I decided it really meant me. :)

CHEESE
She says cheese ("eeeezzz") when she holds the camera up to her face to take a picture. She puts the camera down when she is "done taking the picture"... Then she puts the camera back up to her face and says "eeeezzzz" to take another. LOVE IT! She takes 50 pictures with a "eeeezzz" everytime. To her "eeezzz" has no relation to the cheese you eat.

I tried to make a movie, but she sees my camera and wants it immediatley. We are devising a way to hide the camera to show everyone her cuteness.

She know words now too. Bottle, Brown Bunny, Milk, Squeezies (hugs), Kisses... and she's pretty good at waving whenever she hears the word "bye".

She was a little Scotty yesterday. I was holding her and asking for Squeezies and Kisses... and like a well trained little girl she was giving them to me. :) THEN... I asked for a kiss and she shook her head NO! I laughed out loud because it may have well been Scotty in my arms!!! She even had his same huge smile on as she denied my kiss request. She had the smile he has when he thinks he is being hilarious. :) I kept asking for kisses and she kept laughing and shaking her head no. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen and funniest isn't even a word. :)

Charlie

Charlie was put to sleep yesterday. :(

Our family has had Charlie for 16 years. I got him my sophmore (10th) year in high school. I remember driving to San Mateo and buying him up from a shelter. I took him to school the next day because my mom didn't know I had him. It was in my history class that he meowed while in my backpack and we were caught. He spent the rest of the school day in my car. I remember this history class was my sophmore year... so that was all they way back in 1993. :)

When I left home my mom inherited my little cat... not her favorite way of acquiring pets... :) but she loved Charlie anyways...

So Charlie the oldest cat I ever knew. Over the last few years, during conversations with my mom, I'd ask if Charlie was still alive. I'd be surprised every time my mom said yes! Charlie would disappear for days at a time, and my mom was even surprised sometimes when Charlie would come home... but he would always come home. I know he looked a bit scraggly these last few visits I've made back to the States, but he was still our Charlie Cat. :) He was just a tough old cat. He was a good little kitty cat. I miss little Charlie.

...but he is in kitty heaven chasing kitty mice and eating kitty catnip. :) That's where cats go when they die you know...

Trick or Treating Plan

I did it.

I knocked on total strangers doors and asked them to give 50 kids candy this Saturday. I have never gone to so much effort just so my kids can go trick-or-treating! I've also never had to explain how Halloween "works" and what "to do" to grown ups before!!!

When I started I didn't have a plan on what to say... I ended up starting with my standard "Ummm.. Hello, Is English okay?" They would immediately look at me odd. I started to explain that we were from the International School, and as a way to experience another custom we wanted to take the kids trick-or-treating in the neighborhood for Halloween. At that point I'd either see a smile or an even more confused look. I'd ask if it would be okay if the kids could come and knock on their doors for some candy on Halloween night. :) I was amused at how many times I had to explain how it worked and what to do. Most understood the concept of it, but I'd guess some of these people haven't ever done the American trick-or-treating thing. I hope they don't get surprised when they open the door and the kids yell "TRICK OR TREAT" instead of singing a nice song like they do in February at Festalavn. I wonder how many people will hand us a piece of bread? :)

I visited half the houses I needed to so far... most said yes and seemed very nice and willing to help us out. A couple houses were not too excited about the idea though... I'm taking candy back to one woman so she can give it back to us and the older woman just didn't understand our English I think.

So I'm feeling better about my upcoming Halloween. Earlier this month I had read my blog post from last Halloween and that has definitly motivated me with this trick-or-treating thing. :) I want a "regular" Halloween. I have two giant pumpkins which we will carve tomorrow. Our party at school will be fun and involve a cake walk and a Halloween Parade. AND we will go trick-or-treating! YAY. :)

PS. I also read in this same post I didn't like the girls school. Here I am a year later, complaining about all the same school things. Doesn't make me too impressed with my progress in this area. I think means I should be done with the school. I have a meeting with the "headmaster" tomorrow because I kinda told her the school was dumb and a waste of time. (I said it nicely of course.) :)

ALSO from this same blog post I remembered that my Grandma was here last Thanksgiving to help me make everything. I will now call her and ask her to please come again but I have the feeling she would like to come during a warmer part of the year. :)

Whatever Oprah

I didn't watch it all. I can't. I tried. I quit four minutes into it. I couldn't listen anymore. I was getting so annoyed. This will be my one and only comment on it all.

Happiest place on earth? Ummm, no. I'd like Oprah to come to Denmark. She can stay with us for the week, not just stroll the streets of Copenhagen for an hour during her layover to somewhere better.

Healthcare isn't free... ummmm it costs 68% of your salary, and I think to refer to it as "care" is a stretch. "Your son's ear drums will rupture, that's the natural way." "Penicillin, no we don't have any of that left." "Doctor's appointment? ...and you aren't currently bleeding? How about in three weeks?" "You'd like a fan? Your only giving birth..." "Oh, you just gave birth, when are you going home?" I could go on for hours!

Bikes. HA, My husband rides his bike to work because our family of six can't justify the ridiculous cost of another car, not because we love the environment. During my daughters homework project I read somewhere that Denmark makes the most trash and contributes the most CO2. ...but they rode their bikes that day.

The "Happiest Country in the World" is a ridiculous "award" to hand out. It reminds me of a quiz in Cosmo... 1,000 people were polled in each country? Do I have to get my husband to work out some statistical analysis on the reliability and accuracy of those kind of numbers. 1,000 people out of 300 million in America. Seriously? Did someone spend time and effort and money on doing this? What weenie did this study? Yah, I polled 1,000 people in downtown, ghetto USA... then I polled some rich, Georg Jensen loving yuppies in Copenhagen on a bright and sunny summer day.


What about these places? Some website says Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, and Nigeria are the happiest places on earth. Maybe those should be Oprah's next shows since she is obviously running out of intelligent things to talk about. I'm officially not watching Oprah anymore. I hope Rachel Ray doesn't irritate me. :) She's all I have now.
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
how about Nigeria?

I'm not really sure why this makes me so mad. Maybe because I'm an angry American who is unhappy. :) :) ...maybe it's because Oprah is being so dumb. Ask real interview questions Oprah, don't just assume the blonde Danish woman statements are true ...let alone the view of the entire country.

...and I don't even hate Denmark. I'd stay another year in my little international bubble and be quite happy about it. Oprah is just acting stupid. Yep, I just called Oprah stupid...

Spaghetti Ice Cream

Here it is... Spaghetti Ice Cream! ...from Flensburg Germany. Yum!!!

Berlin, again...

Oh yah, we went to Berlin and Prague last week. Here is all about... BERLIN.

Poozle. Poozling through Berlin. Poozle is now a verb. Poozle Poozles.

We traveled with the Califf family. Their family is from Southern California, but they LOVE Denmark. Kidding. They are planning their escape in a few months... They have three kids 7, 4, and 10 months... so they go as slow as us. We probably looked hilarious walking through Berlin with all these kids. :)

We didn't see this last time. See the wall...? That is what is left of the Berlin Wall. I bought a piece of it for 2 euros. :)


Since we traveled with friends we have pictures of our ENTIRE family.

Since it is October we found an "Oktoberfest"... only a short two mile walk away! There was rides for the kids and nutella filled crepes. Sierra and I went on a ride that spun us so fast we were both sick for the rest of the night and into the next morning... not fun. ...okay fun during the first part of the ride, not so much fun the second half when we entered warp speed and started to feel like yuck.
Lesson learned: Mommy is too old for these rides. Sierra is too young.

Looks like fun huh? This is us in the pouring rain trying to make our way back to the hotel. Too bad DANNY picked the wrong way. (I missed Danny in Prauge where all the wrong directions turned into my fault.)
At the Berlin Zoo. I vote this zoo to be the zoo with the happiest animals. They were all moving around and making sounds... The lions were acting like cats and running and rolling in the dirt. The penguins were squawking. The hippos were jumping in the water and swimming up to the glass. As zoos go, it was pretty neat. Would have better without the freezing wind and pelting rain.

All about Prague will have to wait until tomorrow...

Bakken Bears

We went to a basketball game a while ago. :)

I'm feeling obligated to share this website with everyone, it's the International Community in Denmark . It is how I found out there was even such thing as basketball in Denmark... and they gave me six free tickets to go see a game! YAY!

I don't know how I lived here for two years and haven't found this group before. I guess I never looked. New Rule: When moving to a foreign country... TRY to find all the international everythings... they might be good! This is actually a pretty cool little organization. I don't know too much about it other than they have lots of free events and it's all in English. There was probably close to 100 other "international people" at this basketball game... It's fun to know "others" are out there.

Andrea's currently not napping, but I did my blogging duty of the day... :)

Michaela's Birthday ***11***

The 4 hour-to-make-cake. :) I'm running out of cake ideas for these children!!!

I'm a little late, but doing my best to catch up. Michaela's birthday was October 10th!! She is 11 and officially old. She had a sleepover party with a few friends and I believe that fun was had by all!! It wasn't even that hard for me... now they don't want to do a craft or games... just sit around and "talk"... I can't decide if this makes me happy or not..

Here in Denmark Michaela's birthday always falls on the October break which is a week long vacation for an unknown reason. So this year we had her party a week earlier. ...On her real birthday Miss Michaela was in Berlin eating Dunkin Dounuts and checking out the Berlin Wall. (...and please remember that her last birthday was in London! ...lucky kid)

So here are her party pictures. The girls watched movies, ate dinner, stayed up giggling until nearly 2am... pretty typical party I guess!

The highlight was Micheala's laptop. :) She has nagged us FOREVER to get her one. (Michaela this is NOT why you got one!!) I am hoping she can use it to help her be more organized with her school stuff... and begin to keep track of her things!

Skallerup Pictures

We want to go back... and think it would be fun for other families to join us... Who wants to come?