Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Meet our future daughter!!

I went to the doctor today and had another ultrasound of our baby. What a nice surprise that it was 3-D. They did it in 3-D to check out the baby's heart. Praise God that everything looks very normal with her. He asked me if I knew what it was. I told him I was told it was a girl, so he showed me a good 3D picture and Yes, it is definitely a girl. =) The doctor was funny, he kept referring to her butt as a rump. Broderick insists it is a picture of "Bodrick" and says, "I don't want baby, mommy." Hopefully that changes.
The picture is not perfectly clear, but pretty good I think. Who do you think she looks like? The umbilical cord was in front of her face so they had to do a profile. The baby is great on size and everything else, so lets hope it continues. The plan for induction is March 20, so unless I go earlier or something develops, that hopefully will be her birthday. In 2 weeks, I start weekly appointments with fetal heart monitoring and ultrasounds. I'm not looking forward to the frequent appointments, but its a sign there's not much time left.

After my appointment I met my friends Tina and Christina for brunch at a great cafe/restaurant called Stygge Krumpen. A very good place and great company.
Megan, Tina, her son Christopher, and Tina
After brunch, we did a little walking and shopping and then went home. We walked down this street and I thought it was so quaint I had to take a picture.
Brad's online right now reading off baby names to me, so maybe we can decide on something soon. We're still open for ideas. =D

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

First Week Back!!

It is good to be back in our "home" and have a more normal pace of life again. Broderick was pretty excited to see his "Danmark hus". He was excited to go back to dagpleje and see his friends there too. Of course he definitely misses his cousins and frequently asks to look at "Bodrick pitures" (pictures of him which lets him see all his family and friends).
Thanks to all who sent us Christmas cards (here and in the states). We have the pictures hung up and the cards and letters nearby to look at. We love looking at these!
The weather has been nice here. This weekend, we went to church and then had such a nice afternoon. We spent a couple hours in Aalborg walking around, we ate a cafe and I had one of the best sandwiches I've ever had. Afterwards while we were walking, we stumbled into a little bakery with all sorts of good things. It makes me excited for spring to come when we can enjoy being outside more and enjoy the European lifestyle.

Saturday we spent part of day looking for some furniture we need before baby arrives. We found no baby furniture, but did find some other stuff we like. We still have zero names picked out for our baby girl. Any ideas?????

Thursday, January 22, 2009

The Danes visit Iowa!

Brad had flown back to Denmark and returned to the states a week later with several Danes who are considering moving to Iowa for work. Broderick and I stayed around until they returned and we had a busy week trying to show them the town and taking them out at night.
The first night they got to town, Curt and Lorenia met us at Yong's and we had dinner there. Its a Japanese steakhouse where they cook right in front of you. Very entertaining. Not sure if they have those over here.
One evening we had all the Danes come to our house and had many Hawkeye families in so they would have a chance to meet people from the area and possible coworkers as well. That has been one of the hardest things moving from home is meeting people that you can call when you have a question or need help with something.
Janne, Anne Abolt, Luann
Bernie Abolt, Dennis and Sandy Lee, and Aaron Schmidgall
Lillian Kranker and Stephanie Witte
Their last night we took them to Martinis and grazed. I think we all overate.

Most of them left Thursday morning, but our friends Brian and Janne and their son Krister stayed a couple extra days and flew home with us on Sunday.

We took the boys to Fun City Water Park.



I hope they had a good time, it was record cold temperatures while they were here though. We had 3-4 days of -20 degrees fehranheit. We hope it didn't scare them off. It will be interesting to see when we come back if some of them will be living in the US.

Christmas in Iowa!

We were so excited to come back and celebrate Christmas with Brad's family in Iowa and we finally got to see our new house, which wasn't quite completed when I left for Denmark to join Brad. Broderick is quite the fan of Christmas now and learned very quickly Christmas morning how to open presents. At first he was just excited to open a present. After a couple, after he'd open one, he's say, "oh-tay, next present." Cute, but maybe a little greedy.
Here he is with his stocking and checking out the presents Julemand had left him.


Look at my presents. I love the book, "Green Eggs and Ham".
Playing with my cousins - he was so excited to see all his cousins again and has been talking about them quite a bit.
Aaron and Luann had the family for Christmas this year. She made an awesome meal which we all enjoyed except Brad who fell ill shortly into the meal. Too bad for him. I ate enough for both of us though. Look at all the presents!
Naomi and Broderick helping me with a gift.
Curt and Gabe need to see a dentist I think.
Getting ready to leave. Broderick loves Ju-Ju (Jared) and Aunt Lu (luann) so much.
The first night we got into Burlington we were able to eat at Brad's favorite restaurant "Martinis". We were fortunate enough to get babysitters and the adults had a great meal.
All the ladies: Lorenia, Megan, Jane, Luann
All the men: Ron, Brad, Aaron, Curt
We were able to spend some time with Broderick Great Grandpa and Grandma Wiegand also. Broderick loves to see them and loves it when Grandma reads him "Frosty the snowman" book. He goes around singing the song. I'm so thankful he can have such a neat relationship with them. They even babysat him one morning for me.
We came back to Burlington after being in Elgin for Christmas because Brad was going to be returning for business. Broderick and I had a few days there alone before he got there and were able to spend an evening at Aaron and Luanns. Reading the Big Cheese book. Thanks Luann, still have to read that one quite frequently. He loves it.
New Years Eve we stopped by some friend's houses and then came back to ours to spend it with family. Here we are watching 2009 come in. What a lively group, I think it was past every one's bedtime.
The girls playing Phase 10. Poor Luann, she was in a deep hole in this game.
The boys playing Ticket to Ride.
The cousins having fun together.
Naomi got tired and curled up on a bench. She was ready for bed.
We weren't able to make it to the big Schmidgall Christmas, we were with my family then, but were able to make it to the Wiegand Christmas. I unfortunately have no pictures from that evening, but it was a good time seeing everyone and spending time with family.

Spending time with Friends

We were so excited to go home to the states and see our family. But just as much as our family. We really miss all of our friends over here. So we were so thankful for all the times we got to spend some time with friends in both Illinois and Iowa.
Kim, Megan, Tricia, Lynette, Anna
I met some girlfriends for Lunch at Olde World Cafe. Yum, I couldn't decide what to order since there's so many things there I like. These girls are dear friends but also were in a Bible study with me and we all have kids close in age. It was so great to see them.
We met Amanda for dinner at La Tavola in Burlington and her husband Ben met up with us later. They are planning on visiting us here maybe in May. We'll be so excited to have them.
Broderick was so excited to see Amanda. She bought him a book too, so of course he was excited to get a present.
Tomas, Broderick and Mateo hanging out at Taco Bell. (Yes I'm pregnant and had some weird cravings while I was home.)

We had a couple get togethers at our house while we were home. We had one with some of our friends from Burlington and then one with all the Schmidgall cousins. It was a good way to see people without trying to get together with each individually.



































































Broderick has been wanting to go to Fun City for a long time now. Ever since we went to Skallerup Klit here in Denmark, he's been talking about Fun City. So one day we met Lynette and Alaina and Jeff, Terrean, and their two girls.
Little Alaina
Jeff, Raelan, Brad and Broderick
Alaina and Broderick
I got to see my friend Kristi from high school and her two little boys. The poor kids, Broderick kept beating up on them.
Having lunch with Jillian, Arian, and her baby Jacqueline.
I met up with a lot of the girls from high school and growing up. I love and miss these girls so much. Great friends.
Annie and Megan. She is due a couple weeks sooner than me. (I look like a giant in this picture.)
Colleen, Annie, Kelly, Kristin, and Katie
My friend Kelly who I've grown up with. This is who's wedding I missed a few months ago, so I finally was able to get her wedding present to her. Better late than never.

We are so thankful for all the good friends in our life. God has blessed us so much! Thanks so much to all our friends for all the great memories!!