Halloween

Halloween this year was a bit different, since it's not really celebrated in Denmark as widespread as in the US. From what I've been told, the past 5 years have seen more and more US traditions take place in Denmark concerning Halloween.  At the stores, you would find a few Halloween related items, like pumpkin decorated napkins and plates, the toys stores carried a few costumes, but really, that was about it.  There is an amusement park in Copenhagen called Tivoli that decorates for Halloween, but we didn't make it there this year.

Anyway, we were invited to a party on Halloween night.  Our friends had a bunch of fun treats and everyone was dressed up.  I had to leave early to go to YW's.  We had been invited to another wards Halloween party.  They had made up their basement as a haunted house and had the missionaries down there scare the youth as they walked by.  They also sent us out trick-or-treating.  Which is funny, because most people don't do trick-or-treating.  Most of the homes the youth knocked on just said they didn't have anything for them and sent them on their way.  A couple of the homes gave them a bag of chips or candy to share.  There was one lady that insisted we were out on the wrong night.  It was really kind of funny.  

Meanwhile, back at home, my kids had headed home after the party and were dressed up and excited about lighting our pumpkins that we had carved earlier in the month at a friend's house.  Myra was a witch, Lexi a ballerina and Noah was batman.  Halloween was definitely a disappointment for them.  They talk all year about what they want to dress up as for Halloween and to not get to go trick-or-treating or to wear their costumes at school was a disappointment.  Oh well.  I'm glad we were invited to a party.  They had fun there.  And they loved carving their pumpkins and dressing up. 

Black verses White

Every year in October, Denmark has a week-long Fall vacation.  The community has all kinds of activities going during that time.  We didn't really know that much about it until it was too late to go and participate, but we did make it to a couple of things.  On one day, we went into Copenhagen with our friends Alaina and Olivia.  We just played at a couple of museums kids areas.  The kids loved it, but it was so crowded!  The only picture I took of that outing was at the Milk City. 
 They make these huge milk cartons out of milk cases, then they sell milk products and give out free samples.  We tried a couple of smoothies and Myra got this weird milk drink that was just plain milk with these round, juice filled balls in it.  You bite into them and they burst.  I thought it was a little gross, but the kids all loved them.

The other thing we did that week was go to a Medieval Festival.  It was such a beautiful day.  The sun was out and we didn't even need our coats.  Just jackets.  That was nice since we've been wearing out winter coats again since the end of September.  The festival was held in the National Armory museum.  We walked through that for a while.  Pretty lame.  Just a lot of old cannons. I guess half of the exhibit is closed for renovation.  There was a small medieval market we walked through.  Not much to look at.  Although, we enjoyed watching these kids doing tumbling tricks.  For the next couple of days, our kids were practicing their balancing skills as well.
The tournament would have been more fun to watch if we understood more of what was being said, but we were able to pick out enough to figure it out.  We got to cheer for which knight we wanted, black vs. white.  It was pretty fun to watch.  My favorite was the actual jousting.  The horses were amazing, so well trained.  We had a fun time watching.

After that, we headed over to Christianshavn, another part of Copenhagen that we had never been to before.  As part of our entry fee into the tournament, we could also go and view the National Ship Museum.  We only had about 40 minutes, so we pretty much flew threw it.  It was actually pretty neat, complete with an entire floor done up like the inside of a submarine.  And it was all hands on.  The kids loved checking out the little rooms and flipping all the switches. And in the basement was a fun kids play area with a bunch of model boats they could play in. 

Jægersborg DyreHave

There is this fantastic park North of Copenhagen that we have just discovered.  Dyrehave, which translates to Deer Park, was created in the 1600's as the Royal Hunting Grounds.  You can read more about it here. It's home to over 2100 deer that roam freely around the park.  I'd been hearing about the park for a while, but it took us a long time to finally decide to go.  I think it may be one of my new favorite places and I hope we can go back really soon.  We went with our friend Alaina and her little daughter Olivia.  We ended up getting rained on, of course, even though the weather said no rain.  You'd think by now we would have learned to always plan for rain.  Anyway, we walked around the park, saw a ton of deer and even some old Burial Barrow's.  We walked into the center of the park and were able to see the Royal Hunting Lodge.  Unfortunately, it was closed for renovation.  We also found out that the World's oldest still running amusement park, Bakken, is found in the park.  So, we'll have to go back to that next summer.  The park was really beautiful and it was awesome seeing all of the deer. 

 

You can pay to have a horsedrawn carriage ride through the park.

When the kids saw these fallen trees, they immediately yelled out, Look a playground.  Noah looks like he's having so much fun with Olivia.

Chad took mostly Mushroom pictures on this outing.

This horse kept scratching it's behind on the fence by us.  It was so funny.

Barrow Entrance

Royal Hunting Lodge

We saw probably 7-8 of these White deer.  Very beautiful!