Busy Sunday

Megan is busy with homework tonight so for the first time Brad is writing the blog. So today we went to church as usual in Aalborg at 10:30am. I dropped Megan off at the entrance to the church and I went to park the car. As I was walking to church after parking the car, I saw Megan and Broderick walking towards me. Megan explained to me that the door of the church was locked and a passerby had told her that church was at 2:30pm today. I don't know how we missed this important fact but maybe it has something to do with our inability to fully understand the announcements the previous week in church. Anyway, we were down in the center of Aalborg and we needed to figure out something to do! We walked to a square in the center of town and watched people ice skate for a while. That was really entertaining to Broderick!
After watching the ice skaters, we shopped for a few hours but didn't end up buying anything other than a few toys for Broderick. Below you can see a nice picture of Broderick in front of one of the stores in town.
After returning to Broenderslev, we put Broderick down for a nap and when he woke up, we took part in the Danish tradition of lighting an Advent candle. For a gift for our Thanksgiving meal, Janne had given us an Advent candelabra. There are 4 candles in this candelabra, each one to be lit in the weeks leading up to Christmas as a way to celebrate and reflect upon the Christmas season. So today, we lit the first candle and Broderick was quite excited to do this. Of course, he was much more excited to blow out the candle than light it so we ended up having to relight the candle numerous times. Below you can see a picture of this.
After lighting the candle, we presented Broderick with a few "early" Christmas presents. He was quite excited to open and play with these presents.
For the evening, we went to Joergen and Kirstine's house for dinner. We are going to Copenhagen with them in a few weeks and we spent much of the evening planning our trip. Broderick was a very good boy and was also very fond of Kirstine. Below you can see a picture of Broderick and Kirstine cuddling.
So as you can see we had a very busy and enjoyable day but we also have a very busy week in front of us so we are going to try and get some good sleep tonight to prepare ourselves for the week.
Hej-
Brad og Megan

New Mittens!!

Broderick got new mittens today. He's pretty excited. He's into bears and lions right now and likes to say "rooaar" really loud, so he's having a lot of fun with the mittens.

We got a little package in the mail from Aunt Joni. Broderick was soooo excited and wanted more presents today. When he woke up and saw one of the shark fruit snacks, he announced to me, "I like Yoni". (I like Joni.) I thought you would like that Joni.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! We have had a good day here in Denmark and enjoyed a good meal, a big surprise since I cooked the whole thing. Unfortunately we got a bit of bad news when we picked Broderick up from dagpleje today. We were told that he punched another little boy because he wanted his stuffed monkey. Not good!! But he was quite proud of his art projects and wanted to show his grandmas what he made. (Its a drawing and an little wreath ornament made from orange peels).



Here's the pumpkin pie I made from scratch. It turned out good. Tasted like a pumpkin pie. It wasn't as hard as I had thought it would have been. Once you get the pumpkin cooked, its the same as a normal pumpkin pie.





Here's Broderick and Krister playing together.
Our friends Brian and Janne with their children Krister and Iben. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, gravy and bread. We had plenty of food. I feel about 9 months pregnant right now. By the way, my turkey was about 13 pounds and cost about $100. It was quite expensive.
Megan and Iben. Need my practice with a little girl.
Brian, Janne and Iben.
Here's the whole family. I would like to think Broderick is laughing in this picture, but he's actually screaming.
I'm so glad we were able to celebrate over here, but its days like this that make you wish you were closer to family. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving back home!!!

Romulus

Yeah, I get waffles. Broderick was so excited.
Today, Brad took the day off work and we headed to a place called Romulus. Its a roman bath spa and we enjoyed it very much.
On the way up, we stopped at some dunes, we were going to walk up top and experience the wind. It was so windy today we could hardly walk there, so we had to turn around. We didn't think it would be safe since its even more windy when you get up top. You can see Brad trying to walk.
Here we are we finally made it to the spa and were ready for some relaxation.
The spa was awesome, they tried to make it seem like an old roman spa, they did a good job. Here I am relaxing looking at the view. That is the North sea in the distance, kind of hard to see in the picture.
At a roman bath you go through several baths at different temperatures. Its supposed to be good for you somehow. (I'm not sure exactly how.)
Starting out in 34 degrees.
Moving to 36 degrees.
This is the hot tub.
Then you move back down to 28 degrees celsius.

This last picture is of Brad going into 8 degree Celsius water. This area was the saunas and steam rooms and you're supposed to go back and forth between those and the pool. Its supposed to be good for the circulation. I wasn't supposed to be in this area since I was pregnant. I was ok with that. 8 degrees celsius is only 46 degrees fahrenheit. It was freezing. You can see Brad is tense and not relaxed going in here. After the baths, Brad got a hot stone massage and I got a body scrub and facial. What a relaxing day.

Hokkaidos

Brad just found on the internet that hokkaidos are japanese pumpkins and can be used in place of butternut squash or pumpkins and can be used in pie. Good news for me.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

Hello. Spending the week studying the language and getting ready for Thanksgiving or attempting to. This past weekend we went to our friends Heine and Tina's for supper and to spend the evening. They served a very traditional meal of flaeskesteg (a special pork roast with a crusty top), potatoes (boiled and a sweet), and roedkaal (red cabbage). It was awesome. Definitely recipes I'll have to get and bring home with me, although you can't get this cut of meat in the states unless you butcher the pig. For dessert they served ris a la mande (kind of like rice pudding). And then later, they made us aebleskiver (a traditional christmas pastry). We ate so much. With the aebleskiver they made a drink called gloegg - its a heated red wine with spices in it. Really good, kindof like a warm cider.

Here's the boys with chocolate eggs, in the middle is a prize. These had little cars in them.

Brad and Heine playing with the boys.

Heine and Tina making the aebleskiver and heating the gloegg.

On Sunday after church, we took Broderick to a children's theater in our town put on by locals. Here's mommy and Broderick waiting for the show. The other picture, the lady in the window is the one who found us our babysitters and the lady in the plaid dress in Brad's language teacher.
Of course Broderick had a melt down (lack of nap) about 45 minutes into it, so we didn't even last until intermission, but it was fun while it lasted.

I'm holding something called hokkaido. I don't know what it is or if there is a translation I can't find it, but its the only thing I could find that resembled a squash or pumpkin in the store. So, this is what I'm going to try to make pumpkin pie with. When I picked Broderick up from dagpleje, I asked his teacher if it resembled a pumpkin in taste. She said she thought so. Well, I guess we won't know until we try, right? This should be interesting. You should have seen me trying to find the spices that I needed. I was trying to translate the names and couldn't find half of them, so I made some guesses. I think I did ok, I'll let you know in a few days how it all turns out. The butcher didn't have my turkey in yet, so I hope he gets it by thursday. We're having our neighbors over to celebrate. They're excited to experience an American Thanksgiving meal. I'm excited to have some people to celebrate with but nervous about everything coming together and turning out. Wish me luck!!!!

Playing Wii

Everything over here has to have a different power cord or adaptor, so Brad ordered one for our Wii a little while back. It finally came this week. Broderick had a lot of fun playing.

Turkey!!

I forgot to say in my last blog that I went to the butcher and ordered our Thanksgiving turkey today. I'm so sad that we'll be eating it alone, but at least we'll have a turkey. Most of the traditional foods we should be able to come up with, but I'm desperately sad that we don't have any pumpkin over here. I'm contemplating roasting the whole pumpkin, but it may be too much work. We'll see how ambitious I get. Just thought I'd let you know.

Sickness and School!

Last weekend we went to a place called Jerry's on Saturday in a town called Frederikshavn, which is on the eastern coast of Denmark on the sea. Jerry's is an "American" restaurant started by an American who moved to Denmark. A lot of different burgers and American cuisine. It was good, we had hamburgers and milkshakes. We went there with a coworker of Brad's, Brian Munck and his family. They were really nice and fun to be with. This town has a NATO navy base, there were HUGE ships there.

Then on Sunday afternoon, we took the train to Aalborg for Broderick's sake, and had plans to go to Pizza Hut there. We were excited for some American style pizza. We get off the train, walk all the way there, and it was closed. It had gone out of business. Ahhh, the letdown. Poor Broderick was sad. He kept saying, "pizza dut, pizza dut". So we ate out at a different restaurant, which was fine, but we were all craving some pizza.
Here's mommy and Broderick at the restaurant. You can tell Broderick's eyes are a little swollen here. He has had a cold and it had moved to his eyes. They were red, swollen, and had a ton of drainage. I started language school on Monday, so we called the Dr on Monday morning and told him the symptoms. He told us, its just a cold in his eyes, there's nothing he can do for him.

So, we took him to dagpleje and I went to school. After lunch I look at my phone, there was a message from dagpleje saying Broderick had "infectious eyes" and couldn't be at dagpleje until seen by a doctor. So I had to leave my first day of classes early to pick up Broderick and take him to the doctor. We saw the doctor and he told us again, its just a virus pink eye and there's nothing he can do about it. Broderick went back to dagpleje on Tuesday and I went back to class. When I picked him up Tuesday, the poor guy looked terrible. Eyes matted almost shut with drainage, bloodshot, and swollen. I don't think his teacher was too excited that he was there.

So today, I kept him home with me, hoping he would sleep in a little and get a better nap and have a chance to rest and get better. He wanted to see "Bee Movie" so we went to the movie store and I had a couple of errands I had to get done as well. Of course every store we went to, he had to sit on the animal they had outside. Here he is on a few of them.

I think he's doing a little better. He's still more cranky than usual, but his eyes aren't draining as much and although still bloodshot, they are improving. I don't have class tomorrow, but I do Friday, so I need him better by then.
Eating his "nana".

Playing with his Duplos!

Language class is intense, almost 6 hours a day. Hopefully with that much class time, I can learn something. Most people in my class are refugees from various countries, such as Myanmar, Africa, Serbia, ect. Its interesting to hear their stories. It makes me thankful how easy my life has been. Strange enough, the class is kind-of taught in English, most people speak a little of that. It makes it nice for me. Hoping for better weather. Rainy and windy here. It seems to be the trend. Hope you all have a great week.

We have had a busy week. Starting Broderick's dagpleje, I was supposed to start language classes, and Brad has been sick. I think he is finally getting what Broderick and I had. Broderick has been doing great in dagpleje. The first day he cried, but the other days, I drop him off and he says, "Bye mommy". It makes him seem so grown up when I go to get him and he talks about his little friends, Eske and Tobias and tells me about things he did that day. He is talking a lot, not in Danish, but just in general. I am so thankful that he has transitioned so well there. I don't think he naps great there, but he does actually fall asleep for about an hour, so it's better than I expected. I had no expectations for him to sleep at all.

A few pictures for you, so the grandmas can get their fill. =)
Broderick still loves bath time. He unfortunately likes to dump the water on the floor while he's taking the bath.
After his bath, he likes to be wrapped up tight in his towel. We call him our "little burrito". He thinks that's pretty funny.
Broderick picked out his outfit on this day. His favorite "Lovee Bee" shirt.
Giving mommy a snuggle.
This morning I met Tina and Christina for brunch and a little shopping. It wasn't too cold, but of course it was raining, so not much fun to walk around in that. You can see outside those windows, the black things are their buggies where their little ones napped while we ate. They are really fun girls and its so nice to get together with them.

I was supposed to start language classes Thursday night, so I rode my bike there and met with the teacher and got sent home. They want me in the day classes which move much faster. This is what I prefer too, so officially I start Monday morning and meet 3x/week for 6 hours a day. So it sounds like it will be quite intense. But ... I am ready, so bring it on.

First Day of Dagpleje

Broderick loves lining up his trains all in a big long line. But he sat in the middle of them and then wasn't sure how to get out. He was nervous about stepping over them.
He did not want to mess them up, but was quite proud. "Cheese."

Today was his first day of dagpleje. Here he is ready to go, he wanted to bring his "nigh-nigh."
Tuesdays they walk to a place where they meet up with other groups to sing and play all together. It was rainy out (big suprise), so we had to bundle him up in his gear. Does he look warm enough?
Here he is with Tobias, another little boy at the dagpleje.
Broderick was crying this morning when I left, which of course made me cry. Hanne (his teacher) said that he was fine about 1 minute after I left and he asked for his daddy and mommy only once during the morning. I only left him there a half day today, so tomorrow will be his first full day. I'm very curious to see how he naps there. I missed him today, but it was nice getting errands done without trying to entertain him the whole time.

Tonight we went to see the new James Bond movie with our banker and his fiance. I of course was thrilled that they had good movie theater popcorn here. My main reason for going to movies. (just kidding). Of course the sodas never have ice in them so they are lukewarm, but still ok. It was fun to get out and have fun with another couple. Broderick loves his nanny here, so he was thrilled and when we were getting our coats on to leave, we hear, "have fun mommy daddy! Have fun."

It looks like I'm going to start language classes on Thursday. Finally!!! Maybe I'll know a few words by Christmas to impress you all with. We can only hope.