Sunday, March 23, 2008
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.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
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
Thursday, March 20, 2008
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.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Julian with his puzzles
Monday, March 17, 2008
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
Monday, March 10, 2008
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
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.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
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.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)