on our way to michigan...

I know it has been ages since we posted last, but the trip mixed with back to school events, a speech about Obama for the Local Rotary club, Max's 9th Birthday...AND the flu had us all out of commission for awhile.
The side view of these pictures will be edited soon, however I was afraid if I didn't save them in here I would forget I had them!

Our trip to the U.S. was eventful to say the least! We varied from our "normal" airline and traveled with Lufthansa through Frankfurt. Although it might seem like this was a small change, it turned out to be a huge factor in our travel. From the moment we arrived in Billund to find that they were using a new check-in system and they were working out the kinks to the flight home...we had trouble! And not the kind from "River City", but definitely with a capitol T! :) The day prior to our flight, Finnie had spent 3 hours trying to "check-in", to no avail. Even speaking with the help desk 5 times didn't work! However, we were assured that once we arrived at the airport we would be able to sort things out. You see, they had placed all four of us in seperate areas of the plane. Not even two of us were seated together, much less in the same section! Now, if my children were teenagers...I can see them being happy to lose their mother for 8 or so hours...but with three 10 and under...NO WAY! :) So after some discussion in Billund, we were able to arrange seats for the first leg of our journey, but not the second from Frankfurt to Detroit. But again...we were not to worry...they would never seat us apart for such a long flight...or so they said... I'm sure you know where this is going... We arrive in Frankfurt, walk up to the ticket counter and they tell us there is nothing they can do for us...if we would like to go to Detroit it will have to be in seperate areas of the plane! Apparently it is perfectly normal to Lufthansa to allow a 5 year old, 8 year old and 10 year old traveling with their mother to be separated! Let me tell you...this 5ft 3in(maybe) woman was soooooo mad! I announced that we would simply wait until they would find us a flight where we would all be seated together! Funny enough, they somehow managed to seat us together on our original plane! We found it hilarious that as we were boarding our plane to Detroit...we saw a little mouse running along the floor! I wish I had had my camera ready!

Fortunately, the kids seemed to be unaffected by their mothers temper tantrum, and after they were reassured that we were all seated together, we were able to spend the rest of our layover playing uno, coloring and people watching!

Bailey, the most squeemish (sp) flyer, was seated, headphones on and chewing gum! Max and Sophie who seem to be less freaked by flying (evidenced by the fight over who gets to sit in the window seat for our connecting flights), got into the normal groove of watching the safety videos and playing with the inflight radio!

The pretzels in the airport were literally almost as big as Sophie's head!

Thank goodness for ipods!

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!