Our spanish connection - gracias a dios!

Little did we know... that living in our neighborhood, just three streets away from us were Thomas and Carmen, along with their three children who were living a parallel experience to ours. Imagine our excitement to find them! Carmen and Niki joined Thomas and his two cutie pie daughters ( my memory is escaping me on their names right now, but I will be certain to change that as soon as I can! ), in Denmark in February of 2008.

Niki is 9 and speaks Danish quite fluently, along with Spanish, and......ENGLISH! The boys have bonded and enjoyed the evening feasting on Doritos and soda and playing video games. The White girls spent the evening being cozy with a movie and trying to stay away from the boys! lol
(Thomas' girls were with their mom this evening, but his oldest is 9 and youngest is 5)

Thomas and Carmen are warm and lovely people that we had a really cozy evening with good conversation and tasty snacks!

Although the last month was crazy busy, we are hoping to get together agaín soon!

...how lovely are your branches!

We arrived at Øster Skovgaard prepared to become one with nature and select the perfect tree for our living room...that is until we went into the butik! Inside those doors was a winter wonderland of decorations, kittens, and as we moved further in the smell of æbleskiver, waffles and coffee stopped us in our tracks.

So before we could begin our quest we needed to taste everything!

Bailey was in a peach of a mood this cozy afternoon, so I did what most mothers would do, I drove her crazy! Funny enough, it wasn't intentional! I just gave her smoochies and hugs and showed her how much fun we could have! Can't you tell by the picture how much she loved it?

We had to enter "the old forest" to find our tree. It was a series of paths that led us to the trees that were ready for chopping! The very helpful directions left by the nisseshow that the Skov (or forest) is this way and that way. The nisse themselves cozy in their home with pie and coffee. ;) The nisse are something like elves, except they are a mischevious bunch and can also play tricks like eating cookies that are left out or hide presents for finding. So they have a good spirit at heart, they are just rowdy! :)

The kids all ran so fast throught this area that I just couldn't keep up to take pictures of them. Fortunately there were fun things throughout the path that I was able to take pictures of!

Is this the one?

Flipping coins for the first cut on the tree. They all did really well with this!

It seems as if the idea of taking turns might finally be sinking in...nah, who I am kidding? Must be the Christmas spirit, but not a single one of them complained about the outcome!

Check out Sophie's cheeks...she had been running through the forest and laughing because I couldn't keep up!

At last tree cutting began...Philip won the toss.

Then Max...

The peanut...

And here is Bailey trying to appease her mother...

not the last time I am sure! ;)

When I could stand it no longer,

I pushed everyone aside and took my turn!

It was soo much fun!

Then...mr. party pooper himself finished it before I had a moment to take the shot I had asked from everyone else! He said..."Whhhaaaaattt?"

I had to laugh, because of course I had taken it down so much it was obviously cake for him after that...hee hee.

Philip was soo good and carried the tree all the way back to the car. We stopped at least four times, and he refused help all four times! He was determined to do it by himself! He was soo proud when we got to the car!

Konfekt Dag at Unimerco

Jule Decoration Dag

The day the washer died....

Our poor overworked washer...finally coughed its way through the last cycle, giving up before completing its last spin. We knew it was bound to happen...being that we do load after load after load. No matter how sad we were...the benefits of our new model...well are numerous! The best part of our new set is that we have the option to have the screen display in ....ENGLISH! Nothing like being able to know what cycle you are running...before you run it! Also...we have cycle times from 30 minutes. At last the ability to do a laundry load quickly! You see cycle times for laundry here a minimum of an hour at best! I am not kidding. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention...this model has a larger capacity! Who would ever guess that you could get so excited about such simple things! ;)

Taekwondo

Two guys and a girl...the latest thing to hit the mats in Taekwondo class in Holing...

Philip, Max and Bailey began Taekwondo two weeks ago and absolutely love it!

They practice on Monday's and Wednesday's, not to mention the hours that they showcase their moves at home! Fortunately Finn had participated in Taekwondo for 12 years and can give useful tips when they are ready for them!