Farfar's (Grandpa's) birthday at the summer house

We all spent the weekend at the summerhouse to celebrate Farfar's birthday. Viggo turned 84. I think he had a nice weekend with his family, geat food, beautiful weather and Inge's traditional cake.

 The picture is of Charlotte, me, Thomas, and Julian. We climbed up a grav høj which is an ancient burial mound from the bronze age. They are all over the island where we live. we even have some in the woods near our house. The one that we are standing on in the picture, you can actually go in and see what it's like. Not much to see really. Just a lot of rocks and drawings from the bronze age, which is kind of cool!

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Home again, home again

We had a very simple day today. Julian put his rain suit and boots on this morning even though it wasn't raining. Maybe he misses crummy weather. He asked Christian to go outside and in no time I got a text message saying that Julian wanted to walk to the boat, which about a mile away. I ended up picking them up at the woods between us and the harbour. After lunch, Julian and I spent the rest of the day at the beach with my friend Amber and her two children. They played in the (cold) water and climbed at the playground next to the beach. We met Christian at the boat afterwards and went home. Julian was completely exhausted. As I put his dinner of penne with pesto, cucumber chunks, and corn on the cob on the table I realised that he fell asleep on the sofa while watching Night At The Museum. He loves that film! It was only 6.45 which is quite early for him to fall asleep. It was a good day. I just hope he sleeps until morning now. Tomorrow is his only day at the kindergarten this week and it's show-and-tell day.

Julian making brownies

This morning Julian and I made brownies. While they were in the oven we drew pictures of the summerhouse. It's farfar's (dad's dad) birthday on Saturday and he will be 84. I thought Julian could give him a picture that he drew of the summerhouse. I think this might be a week long project, but we have the time. 

Julian spent the afternoon at Julia's house.  They splashed in puddles outside and played games. I am beginning to think the strike is nice for the kiddies. Julian is a lot more relaxed now that he's not in barnehave/kindergarten all day.

More activities

Sorry for not posting sooner, but here are a bunch of the latest snaps of Julian. Taken last week. Julian has been home a lot more since there is a strike. Some of the people who work in kindergartens are striking for more help and more money. I wish them the best, but this strike is not organised very well. 

The result of the strike is that we have been having a lot of fun. Last week we went to Sweden for the day. We had lunch in Helsingborg and went to Råå Harbour to check out a boat store at have an icecream. Julian also played for a long time at Capella play, an indoor playground. The weather has been really nice here, so we have been to the beach a lot and Julian has also made good use of our new sprinkler. Julia, his friend who is also half American, came for a playdate too.

This week we have lot's of play-dates planned and he can go to barnehave/kindergarten once this week. 

Now we are about to make brownies! Yum.

Julian's activities this week

Strike

From Monday morning there is a strike at Julian's kindergarten. The school has given us a four week plan where he can be there 5 times in the next month. It's fine with us since I am not working right now, but I feel bad for the families where they really depend on the day-care/kindergarten. I have planned a few outings for us. Julian likes to take the train, and we will go to Sweden one day with the ferry, and of course the beach and Louisiana museum. 

We have recently been to the summerhouse for Mothers Day/Whit Monday weekend. I'll post the pictures very soon. 

Springtime Snails

It really Springtime here now. This afternoon we cut the grass, Julian came home from kindergarten and had a popsicle outside and he found snails in our garden and proudly collected them on one of our rocks. He was busy with the snails for two hours. Before having dinner Julian said, he played outside all day and it was a good day. 

A Sunday at Home

It's Spring and we are fixing up our fixer-upper again. We decided to paint the wood around our house. If in doubt, paint it black. Right Mom?

Also, a picture of Julian taking a playdough  break.

Julian is calling me upstairs, we're B-BQing tonight and celebrating springtime.

Cheers!

Spring Weekend in Hamburg

We decided to get away for a couple days, so we drove (only three hours of driving) down to Hamburg. We stayed at a Design Hotel with a pool and hung out in a city park most of Sunday.  

Easter Sunday

Julian finding his Easter basket on Easter morning and us going to church. Vedbaek kirke (church) is where Julian was christened. We sat through most of the service, but had to leave at communion because the pipe organ and choir was too loud for Julian. 

Asleep at the wheel

Julian sleeping at the wheel while we were mega grocery shopping. I guess the car ride, the ferry, the indoor playground and lunch at MAX (Swedish fast food :-( ) wore him out! Notise he has his seat belt on. We couldn't push the cart until he fastened it. If only he knew that mom and dad never used a seat belt until they were 16 years old!

Capella Play

Julian enjoying some serious playtime time at Capella Play in Hyllinge, Sweden. While Denmark was closed down for Maunday Thursday, we went to Sweden to have some fun family time and shop.

Going to Sweden today

Everything is closed in Denmark (basically until next Tuesday) because of the Easter public holidays, so we are off now to take a ferry over to Sweden and shop for the day.

Julian with his puzzles

Julian loves to put puzzles together. He is a master at his simple ones with 8 or 10 pieces and the patience to complete the more difficult ones. 

Julian with a full bubble beard

Julian trying out the rides at Bakken

Here is Julian on his first ride at Bakken. It looked totally innocent and little kid friendly, but once it got going Julian grabbed the banana water guns at the side of the boat and said he was finished! The other kids were also holding on tight for their lives :-) I think the rides need a bit of tuning. He did enjoy some other rides, but riding his bike in the woods was probably the most memorable.

Funny Felt Faces

Julian had a lot of fun last week playing with his Funny Felt Faces from Early Learning Centre. These are just a few. 

Walking in Jægersborg Dyrehave

AKA Dyrehave (animal park) or Eremitage (hunting castle on the grounds) This is a great family activity for anyone visiting or living around Copenhagen. There are many miles of paths for walking, running, skating, and biking. You can rent a horse carriage to take you to Ermitage or Bakken.  Bakken is the oldest amusement Park in the world, dating from 1583. It's free to get in and you can experience authentic Danish culture. Drink Carlsberg, eat a hakkebøf (like a burger patty with grilled onions with a bun, but Danes with not compare it with a burger), ice cream, see theater,  see Pjerrot the unofficial host of Bakken

Christian, Julian and I took a two hour walk in Dyrehave last Saturday. It was probably the warmest day of the year so far, about 55F. The paths were crowded with families strolling and horse carriages taking people to the castle and back. Julian ran down the paths and through the leaves. He collected a handful of sticks and loved walking around Bakken where people were busy spring-cleaning for the 2008 grand opening in three days. He made plans about all the rides he would try next time we come back.

Gækkebreve

Christian and I received a *gækkebrev (the orange one above) in the mail last Saturday. It looked like it was made by a child and was sent from Copenhagen City. We didn't know who would send us one. The name had six characters and we really couldn't guess who sent it, so we just put it aside. While eating lunch on Sunday we brought it out again and were trying to figure out who sent it. Then Julian yells, "It was me!". We had such a good laugh at that. We never considered that it could be from Julian. Then I remember one of his teachers saying that they were going to take a walk in the woods to pick snowdrops and press them. His poem says,

My name in suns below

Now it is spring

*gækkebreve  English translation "snowdrop letter"

This is a letter that you send to someone in the springtime before Easter. It can be decorated by cutting paper with scissors or a nail, snowdrops, coloured paper, and poetry as seen above. The poem is normally about springtime and a hint of the name of the sender. If the receiver of the snowdrop letter does not guess who sent it to them by Easter, they have the give the sender an Eater egg containing chocolate. 

This tradition started in the 1600's. H. C. Andersen was famous for his paper cutting, link above. Children began sending these to adults in the 1930's in hopes of getting Easter eggs and chocolate. 

Today, they are mainly sent by children who make them at school. You can also buy readymade snowdrop letters at the postoffice and bookstores. The handmade ones are really the best though. This is a wonderful tradition in Denmark.

I should add that the other gækkebreve images from above were photgraphed from the book Årets Traditioner, Politikens Forlag.

Weekend at home

We just had a nice relaxing weekend at home. It all started with a pre-dinner play-date with Liliana & Nikolaj where we tried to make creatures and flowers out of pipe cleaners. 

Saturday we went into Copenhagen to do some shopping and to take Julian for a ride on the Metro. He loves trains and we were going to just ride a few stops and ride back to Magasin, but he was so tired and cranky that he decided himself to go home "to Julian's house". We made decorations for our Easter tree (we still have to find some branches and paint them). Julian peeled his first Egg. Suddenly, he loves hard boiled eggs. Julian said that Sofie eats them for lunch and he would like to have an egg in his madpakke(lunchbox). I like his new interest in food. He also makes healthy suggestions and wants to go grocery shopping with me. 

Sunday Julian practised riding his bike while Christian did some yard work. I also took him for a ride up on our bike path while I jogged next to him. He got the hang of it quickly and after a few minutes I had to really run fast to keep up with him. I can't wait for the warm weather and he can come out running with me while he rides his bike. I look forward to when we can remove the training wheels. Children here in Denmark learn to ride bikes from an early age. When we lived in Copenhagen it wasn't unusual to see four year olds riding their bikes to kindergarten behind their mom or dad in the busy city traffic. I could never imagine that in the states. Here it's just a way of life, but not quite as necessary in the suburbs when we live. 

Sunday night we had a good workout with Julian bouncing a punching balloon in our living room like beach volleyball, said Julian.

Julian visits the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Last Thursday Julian took a day off of Barnehave (Kindergarten) to meet Amber (and her two kids), Liliana and Nikolai at Louisiana to see the new exhibit and to play in the kids area. The new exhibit is Cézanne & Giacometti. During breakfast we looked at the catalogue of the exhibit, so Julian could look forward to seeing some of the art when we got there. He seemed to be drawn to the still life paintings by Cézanne and a few of the sculptures by Giacometti. We went quickly through the exhibit pretending to eat the fruit in the painting and having a good laugh at some of the sculptures. Then we moved on the children's art area in the museum. It's three floors of activities and they change with the exhibits. Our kids wanted to play in the lego area and made flags.

Louisiana is one of my favourite museums and anyone coming to Denmark should really consider a visit there. 

Julian at the Natural History Museum in Berlin

We have just spent a few days in Berlin where the highlights of the trip for Julian was the Natural History Museum and swimming in the spa pool at the hotel.

Julian absolutely loved the dinosaurs! In part from watching "Night at the Museum". I think he could have stayed in the main dinosaur room all day. We also visited other exhibits there, but nothing else made such a great impression. Julian did not enjoy the rooms filled with dead and stuffed animals. And there were a lot of those! That was a bit too creepy especially for a three year old. We left the museum with a giant poster of dinosaurs and tired feet from a whole day of walking in Berlin. 

Julian also swam everyday while we stayed at the hotel. I had taken him baby swimming for nine months, but he hadn't really swam much since then. Last time we were at a pool he had no interest in swimming and I figured it had all been a waste of time and money. Luckily, the pool in Berlin was the perfect temperature (I think that had a lot to do with it) and he took to the water like a duck. He's really confident in the water now and we all can't wait to go swimming again. 

I've read a bunch of Blogs, but this is my first go at writing one. I am always looking for a way to keep in touch with family and friends and am also interested in sharing ideas with other moms out there.