Sierra to Copenhagen

I thought it was absolutely crazy when Michaela went to Copenhagen when she was nine. Now that we have been living the "European Lifestyle" where I send my kids to the grocery store for milk and make them ride city buses alone... going to Copenhagen at the age of nine doesn't seem so unreasonable. :)

Needless to say, Sierra is totally excited and has her bags packed and ready to go. They are gone December 1, 2, and 3rd. :)

Thought I'd tell everyone.

ThanksgivingS done

We had TWO thanksgivings. :) Neither one I was very good at taking pictures though. Thursday and Saturday. Thursday's are hard sometimes because it's just a normal day for everyone here. Work, school, etc.. It was a good day though, even though I spent the first half on standing at random bus stops in order to get kids where they needed to be and eggs that I needed since my car had been in Germany for the week! (Yep, this also means I transported a frozen turkey on the bus.)

...AND because of the pouring rain and a missed bus Scotty and I even justified a $20 snack of some juice and a cookie since it was Thanksgiving. P.S. - I've upped my "Danish level", 40 kroner is now considered cheap. 40 kroner is EIGHT DOLLARS!

Paul was driving home from Germany all Thursday morning which left me to prepare the house and cook the turkey. It was all relatively stress-free since I started so early and I cooked most everything the night before. The girls were a huge help too. I even made cranberry sauce from real, live cranberries!!! How domestic am I!!? I don't think I've ever seen a real cranberry before. I learned you don't eat cranberries unless you "do something" to them first. ick.

So for Thanksgiving Thursday we invited the remaining Americans to our house and had TONS of food. We had everything we needed/wanted... other than some great flyers to flip through but I'm not going to talk about what we DIDN'T get. It was a really nice night, I was happy. :) I think it was a record for number of people served dinner in my house. 8 adults. 10 children. It went pretty well and the house recovered. My house seemed so quiet when everyone left. :)

Saturday we invited another a different family over. Definitely not as crowded but it was a fun night and I got to catch up with my friend who, until she got a real job and moved to Horsens I got to spend a lot of time with her!! :) I miss her and the kids...

I hope my children don't think we are going to have a huge party in two more days. Party time is over at the Happy's. :) I will now scrub the floors and I will enjoy not cooking while we eat leftover turkey for a week. I made turkey soup just like my grandma taught me. I'll make another batch of turkey soup from the Saturday turkey too. :) My favorite turkey leftover is turkey and pineapple and cream of something? soup... put on top of white rice. YAY! I'm looking forward to that! I wonder what other yummy turkey things I can do? :) I'm sure I can figure out something.

I just decided I am going to try and feed my family turkey every day until I can't do it any longer. :) Let's see how far I can go!

Bornehaven

Bornehaven Story.

With the help of a friend I finally translated the newsletter from Scotty's school. On the last page it has funny stories telling about what some of the kids did/said that month. This month Scotty was in it.

His bornehaven has two rooms, the red and the blue. Scotty is in the red room.

One day all the kids were playing together in the blue room. A "blue room" girl was playing with Scotty. Another "blue room" girl came up to them and began playing with them. Soon she realized Scotty was speaking funny (English) so she asked the other "blue room" girl why. The girl said it was because he was from the red room. :)

I thought it was cute. :)

Scotty's teachers say he is speaking more Danish and English sentences and it's hard to sometimes pick out which words are from which language. Now when he tells me something about his day he tells me if it happened in English or Danish. Like, "I needed more soap so I asked in English."

Missing things...

...I miss being warm. Today in Tracy, California is was 20 degrees AND sunny.

I talked to my grandma on the phone yesterday and I miss her too ...and my mom, I miss her too.

I can WHISTLE!

I discovered yesterday that I couldn't whistle with the wire on my front teeth.

But I can whistle now!!! This morning the dentist took off the wire and glue and I look normal again. The chipped tooth isn't too bad, you can't really tell. I will go back in a month for another visit to decide if I want to do anything else with my teeth. My teeth still need some healing time. I can't use them to bite or anything and they still feel "weird", but I'm happy for now. My husband is taking me on a date tomorrow night to celebrate. :)

So this whole thing cost me 2000 kroner ($500). Not bad in my opinion. The only bill I ever got was for the first emergency visit on Halloween, and the most expensive part of that fee was the $300 "after hours" fee. It was only $200 to do the actual work... x-rays, numbing medicine, little piece of ghetto wire...

Both of my two appointments afterwards were free and one even included an x-ray. I don't know if she was just being nice or if this is common, but I always thought dental work here was crazy expensive. I probably would have paid close $500 in the States even if I had dental insurance.

WHOA. Did I just say something nice about Denmark? :) I told you guys, I don't really hate it here..

My lovely day at the post office.

I'll pay $5.00 for 16 strawberries.
I'll pay $3.00 for a can of soda.
I'll pay $2.00 for a candy bar.
I'll pay $15.00 for a chocolate croissant and juice for Scotty.
Heck, I'll even pay $16.00 for a box of American Lucky Charms.

BUT I HATE PAYING SHIPPING COSTS! (If Scotty ever hears us say "hate", he reminds us we don't say that word.) so... I REALLY DISLIKE PAYING SHIPPING COSTS!I went to the post office yesterday and spent ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND TWENTY FOUR CENTS to mail things. See? 500.70 dkk!!! I mailed a 2114g box to California ($60), a 1490g box to Germany ($25), a card to California, and a small envelope to Utah... that's it. I didn't even send $100 worth of stuff!

Going in I knew it would be ugly. I also knew I was going to be irritated so I tried to work my self up for it. I had totally talked myself over it before hand. I knew it had to be done and I was just going to do it and move on. At least my packages won't get taxed when they arrive at their various destinations.

I have more things to send, but I'm now going to send it with people TO the states and have it mailed from there, or I'll just buy a plane ticket. ...and I think I may just email Christmas cards. :) Has it become acceptable to do that yet? :)

And if you are trying to add up my costs I also bought Letters to Santa "kits" for a silly price of $6.00 each. But I've been here long enough to know that 30kroner is cheap...

:) Oh well, now that I've complained I can move on... :)

Impossible to Photograph

I have decided that my family is impossible to photograph. We are in capeable of ALL looking at the camera and smiling. I officially give up. :)