Summer Holiday 2009 - Denmark, USA, Mexico, Turkey

What a summer!  We were all scattered in different parts of the globe, and experienced some pretty amazing things.  I took a summer course at the Spanish University in Cuernavaca, Finn, Simone and Philip went to Turkey, Daniel and Nanna traveled to Paris, and Philip went to Greece with his mom:  It was pretty crazy trying to find a reasonable time zone to know when to skype everyone, but somehow we managed!  Bailey Max and Sophie, spent time with their dad in Altlanta, MI at the "White family" cabin, and I had the pleasure of staying with good friends and my family too.  My sisters and I stayed up late watching crazy shows, and eating snacks, and I had the good pleasure of spending extra time with Maddie and Louie. ( My wonderful niece and nephew) Finnie and the big kids celebrated his 45th birthday, in good style with good food at Svend og Lydia's and after video games at the house!  Bailey got a new hair cut, and some giggles with Angie, and we were lucky enough to see Pilar before she headed out on her own little European tour!  Grandma Koval was wonderful as usual and gave out hugs and kisses...and some fun beach towels too, and Grandma Sandy shared her musical talents with the grandkids...each one of them!  Uncle Brad provided safe rides in the Jeep and Lauren and Adrian, Lexi, Kenna and Brynn provided lots of laughs at the cabin! There was an authentic game of ball in the backyard that included Brynn and Sophie for the first time ever...with just a few minor errors!   It was a great summer, that like all great summers...went by too quickly!  We have learned a bunch of things this summer, mostly that while exploring is good fun, it is much better when you can share the experience together! Thank goodness for Skype! 

They actually sometimes show that they love one another!

                                                                                                                                                                                    Bailey and Maxie were sooo very proud of Sophie and her recent lost tooth!   They kept looking at her and winking at me, because they thought she was so cute!  They just can't believe that their lil sister is getting older.  I guess I forget sometimes that she is their peanut too.  :)

Struer

Frog hunting girls.   They found bunches that weekend!  Perfect weather for it really, cloudy and overcast.  They never did catch the biggest one there, he was simply too fast!  But I can verify that he was huge!  I saw him too and he was GINORMOUS!! :)

The first weekend after school started we headed out again, this time to Struer.  Our friends Jan and Malene were so kind as to allow us to escape for a mini-holiday and test out their sommer house.  It was fantastic!  The weather wasn't at all stellar, but we didn't mind at all!  There were frogs to be found, shells and rocks to be collected and delicious food to be eaten. All in all it was just what we all needed to slow down and gear up for another school year!  One evening Simone and her friend Sare ( ? sp) stopped by for dinner, and a game of charades.  It was really fun and worth the almost two hour drive!

Looks like the hand from the Robots movie but is really supposed to represent tree roots...we liked it as a hand better. Apparently there used to be an old tree in the town that eventually died and so a local artist created the sculpture to memorialize it.  It is his head on its side in the accompanying photo with Sophie.

Finnie's yummy dessert

     

The peanut loses a tooth!

With everything that we have had going on lately, I tend to forget to stop and savor the moments with the kids. Fortunately, there are events in the meantime that help me to remember what it really is all about!

Sophie and I were sitting together on the couch talking about the days events while she was eating an apple plucked from our tree a few minutes earlier, when all of the sudden...we heard a pop, and before we knew it Sophie had a very loose tooth! It was hanging by a thread and I think that it caught both of us by suprize! I am not by any means an expert tooth extractor, that title is reserved for my Bailey, so I was unsure of what to do next. Sophie was a little nervous, a little green, and a little excited all at once! She refused to allow Bailey to approach her and darned if that little stubborn girl didn't pluck out her own tooth later that day!

That night we discussed what the tooth fairy really does with all of those teeth anyway, and where she gets the money to give to kids anyway, and then I smooched my peanut and tucked her in.

Herning Friskole

Principal Peter Astrop welcomed everyone back with a morning song, and speech. There were kids in new clothes, sporting the last bits of their summer tans, and parents greeting one another while looking at their watches! ;) Surely wondering how long the morning's events would take before they could go back work!

Morning song takes place almost every day in the same place for students from second through seventh grade throughout the school year and it isn't uncommon for the teachers to play the piano, and guitars on occasion! It is a really neat tradtion that the kids enjoy a lot. The other day all three of them came home singing "Solsikker" in Danish andi have to admit it was a sureal moment for me! The song is about a sunflower who is being asked to look the other way while a child takes an apple from his neighbors tree! It is really a funny song, and the kids sang it without missing a verse. Bailey and Sofie were back in business without missing a beat, Max was geeked that he was seated next to Andreas, and Sophie was so excited...well you can see it for yourself by her expression!

First day of school

Ahh, finally the secret day parents wait all summer for...the first day of school! The kids griped only a little when I forced them to pose for the traditional first day of school pictures. I actually had to select a only a few due to the fact that they started going "vogue" on me! :)

Esbjerg

The weekend after Simone's party we headed out on a mystery trip to Esbjerg. Our first stop was at the Esbjerg water exhibit. (OK, so I can't remember the real name, but it encompasses a lot of what we saw and did there! ;) We saw fish and seals and even had the opportunity to look at shells and other sea skeletons through microscopes. The sea lion show was really great, they are really cute, and amazingly graceful in the water! We managed to get there early and had a great spot to see the show...thanks to Max! He ran ahead and secured our place. While we were there we could look from the deck over to the four statues of men that we had on our agenda to visit too! They were donated to the city by an artist, and are enormous! (I will add the exact information in a bit later, but I am trying to play catch up :) The water museum also was home to a World War II exhibit, with actual bunkers that were used during the war. They were damp and downright yucky, and I can't imagine being in them for extended periods of time. The kids said that they felt a little bit like they were haunted...and I have to agree! The statues were last on our list, but certainly not least! ( These guys had secretly been on my wish list of places to visit since before we had moved to Demark, so I was sooo excited to finally see them!) It was a great trip and we came home tired, but happy! Don't tell the kids, but I think they learned a little something too! ;)