Time at the Coast

On Sunday morning, we were able to leisurely get ready and packed and head to Skallerup Klit, the resort on the western coast. This is only about a 40 minute drive from our house. We had done so much traveling this summer and we had loved all of it, but this was probably our most relaxing holiday. This place is great for families. There was so much for the kids to do, and if the kids are happy, it makes the parents happy.

The resort had an outdoor excercise area. Marie and Terrean are trying out the elliptical machines.

Terrean and Marie at the ocean.

We went to the town of Lokken one night to eat and Broderick and Raelan got a ride in a train.

We visited the water park there one day. Raelan was quite excited as you can see.

Brooklan was still crawling while she was here, so this pool was perfect for her.

There is a farm right by the resort as well, so we walked there one day and Broderick and Raelan got pony rides. Broderick's pony was interested in one thing ... eating grass and was quite difficult to control.
Raelan had an accident in her pants, so Jeff and Terrean fashioned a dress out of Terrean's sweatshirt. Quite creative! Look at her smile, she was so excited!

Making some crepes over a fire.


There was a playland at the resort as well that the kids loved. It was a perfect place to let them run around and have fun.

And of course Daddy Jeff got involved in the fun!

Raelan and Broderick riding on a monkey!

Love this picture of them.

Brad and Jeff giving rides to Broderick and Raelan on the way back to our cabin.

It was a great time there. When we left the resort, we spent some time showing them some of the sites in our area of Denmark.

Showing them some sites ...

We took them up to Skagen one day (the northern tip of Denmark where the 2 seas meet) and ... well ... we could have had better weather. I mean, this was August, but it definitely wasn't feeling like summer. Such is the weather in Denmark.
Here they are ... I was proud of them. They actually got in the water.

Marie, with one foot in each sea.
div> Here's the group (except Marie, she's the photographer) eating in Skagen.

They were impressed with the playroom in the restaurant. Denmark caters to children in many ways, this would be one of them.

Terrean and Raelan walking up a steep sand dune.

The family in front of the lighthouse.

Jeff and Terrean in front of an area where the coast is eroding away at a rapid pace. The week prior to them coming, about 10 feet had fallen into the ocean. Terrean was an earth science teacher so she took a special interest in this.

Terrean and Raelan on top of the Dune with Denmark landscape behind them.

Jeff, Marie, and Brooklan with the North sea behind them.

The last evening they were here, we went to dinner at another coworker of theirs in Aalborg. He also works in sales, so him and Jeff work together frequently. He had stayed with Jeff and Terrean once while he was in the US. Thanks Torben and Maiken.

I didn't get hardly any pictures that night, but here's the kids at their own little table.

Jeff and Marie both work at Hawkeye, Pedershaab's American counterpart. So Jeff and Marie rode their bikes there one day to meet faces they had only talked to on the phone and see the operation here.

It really was so great to have all of them here. Even though I would have considered them all my friends, I got to know them in a whole new way and became even better friends. It seems sometimes you can spend a lot of "quantity" time with a person and maybe not have much "quality" -- where you're actually able to learn who they really are. So thank you for coming and spending some quality time with us. Broderick talked about Raelan for a long time after their visit and still does sometimes. He even taught her some Danish words while they were here. Not sure if she remembers any of it ... maybe they have to come back and learn it again.

Legoland

A couple of weekends ago, we drove south to the town of Billund. This is the town that Legos come from. That's right .... the Lego toy comes from Denmark. The original Legoland is here and we thought we better visit it while we're living here. We went on a day that was cool, but not too bad. With our jackets and mittens, we stayed pretty warm.



The rides weren't that great, as far as an amusement park is concerned, but ... the things made out of Legos are amazing!!!! Really, I mean AMAZING!!!!!!!
Brad and Broderick at the entrance to the park.

On a boat ride.

Broderick was excited to get in the pirate's chest. (Of course made out of legos.)

Broderick riding the froggy ride.

Brad and Broderick on a spinning ride. (Yeah, mommy doesn't do those.)

Mommy and Broderick on a train ride.

And a safari ride.

Anika was all bundled up.

This pirate was at the entrance to the locker room of the water park. I thought it was pretty funny.

They have a part of the park called miniland, where they have recreated numerous sites from around the world all out of Legos. Millions of Lego blocks were used to create these sites. Like I said before ... amazing! Here's a few of the things they had built...

This is Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen where the Queen of Denmark resides.

Mt. Rushmore

Broderick with Bob the Builder

A man mowing the lawn (can you believe all these legos?)

This is a re-creation of the Billund Airport. Those little yellow trucks by the plane were driving around actually spraying liquid, de-icing the wings.

Nyhavn - a popular street/canal in Copenhagen.

Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany
Kennedy Space Center
Some ostriches along the safari ride.
The Statue of Liberty
The Capital Building

We had a fun day and was so glad we got to see this Danish landmark. It made Brad really excited to build things with Legos - and was a little sad that Broderick is still in the Duplo stage. And the Lego store there had 30% off of everything, so we were able to pick up some Christmas presents for Broderick.

Anika is growing up

Anika is growing up so fast. She is almost 8 months old already and she is a lot of fun right now. She is sleeping about 12 hours straight at night (LOVE her for that.). She loves attention and eagerly bounces until someone looks at her at which point she will gleefully smile and laugh, especially when Broderick is around. He could entertain her all day. She cannot get enough of him. She is moving, but not in a trational way. She sits on her butt, reaches her hands forward and then scoots on her butt. She's not fast and its hardly noticable, but you'll look at her and realize she's 3 feet away from the spot she was the last time you looked at her.

She is spending more and more time on her stomach and rolling around, so maybe she'll start crawling soon.

And her hair keeps growing. There is actually some hanging over her ears and I can actually comb it a little bit. Here she is doing one of her favorite activities. We'll set her on the floor and the next thing we know, she has scooted over to the magazine rack and is destroying one magazine at a time. It entertains her for long periods of time.

We went to my friend Tina's the other day and got to meet her friend Åshild and her boy Thomas. Åshild and her husband just adopted him from South Africa a few months back and he is adorable.

Anika is getting some help from Christoffer with her pacifier and here's Thomas charming the camera.

Anika and Christoffer playing together. Christoffer is over 1 year old and he was so sweet with Anika.

Accidental Day at the Zoo

This past sunday, we woke up and in frantic mode (as mornings are in our house) got ready and went to church. Unbelievably, we actually got there early. And by early I mean 3 minutes early. And who knew that when you get to church 3 minutes early, there are so many empty parking spots so close to the front door. So we go to the church and we realized we are still not getting all the announcements in church - I blame Brad, he's better with Danish, he should be catching those important things. =)

That's right ... church wasn't until 2pm that day. They were having some other sort of activity that morning so church was switched until that afternoon. Ok, now some things were making sense ... like why there were so many spots in the parking lot and also our plans for the day.

Let me explain. See, the previous sunday we had been invited to go to one of the pastor's houses after church this week. He had asked us to come over directly after church (which gets over about noon) and then we would have coffee at 4 and pizza at 6. That whole week we were a little nervous about spending like 7 hours at someone's house who we barely knew. Hopefully we would have a lot to talk about and hopefully we get along. Ok, so now that we realize church is getting over at 3:30, the invitation makes so much more sense.

So, what to do? Do we drive back to Brønderslev or find something to do in Aalborg? We decided to go to the zoo. We weren't really prepared for this, it was a bit cold and didn't have all our winter gear and I had heels on. Brad didn't think that was a problem (easy for him to say). But ... it was actually a fun relaxing way to pass the time and Broderick was very excited for a surprise visit to the zoo.

Like I said, it was a little cold. The poor monkeys were just huddled together by a rock hugging each other. I felt so bad for them. Broderick kept calling the big gray haired baboon the grandma monkey. Grandmas ... I'm not sure if you should be offended or not. HaHa.
As we were walking along, outside one of the buildings we see these buckets with pieces of meat sitting there with labels for which animal they go to. By meat, I mean limbs and heads of animals. It was disgusting. Double click on the picture and you can see it in better detail. These are for the male and female lion.
Daddy and Broderick with the giraffes.
Since it was cold out, many of the animals were inside the houses. Broderick hated going in them though because of the smell. Here he is plugging his nose in disgust. We wanted to go in them to warm up a little, but the whole time Broderick was crying to leave. Its "yucky"!
This is a "sut træ" or a pacifier tree. One tradition here is when your child gets rid of their sut, you take them to a sut træ and they hang it there. We have been talking to Broderick about visiting the tree and we found one at the zoo. Yes, yes, I know my boy is 3 and still has his paci (mainly for sleeping) - BUT in my defense with all the traveling and airplane rides, having something that I knew would help him sleep was so nice to have. Anyways, that is a discussion for a different time. Broderick was not so excited to hang his there and we didn't have it with us, but I thought you might be interested in seeing one.


And we had a good time with our pastor and his wife. They made some great homemade pizza and we had plenty to talk about. Still not sure I would have wanted to be there for 7 hours +, but the day turned out great.

Recent Happenings

Here are some of the things we have been up to the last few weeks ...

I got a ladies night out and was so excited to go. Brad willingly watched the kids and put them to bed ... all by himself. These are woman from our church here and they meet together every 3 weeks. They usually take turns hosting but we went out to a cafe this evening.

We went to visit Hanne, Broderick's dagpleje mor, again. We had brought her back some treats from the USA to give her a "taste" of some of the things that we miss and are popular back home. Broderick was very excited to see her and the other kids again. He wasted no time going right for the toys.
Broderick and his friend Sofie.
Broderick showing me how he took naps when he was there.
Here's Hanne with Broderick, Anika, Sofie and Emilie.

This past Saturday we were invited to go to Jerry's with the Munck family again and then to their house for coffee and tea after. It was a very hyggelig evening. With the days starting to get very short, this is when the Danes turn inside their homes .... lighting candles, spending time with friends and family..... and creating this thing they call hygge. There's not a good translation for it in English but a very important part of their culture here and we like it. You can have hygge all year, but especially during the holidays and winter season.

And since it looks like we are going to be spending the holidays here, we need to get this hygge thing down.