Christmas Letter 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

What a life changing year 2012 has been for us!  I don’t even know where to begin.  In January, we packed up and moved our family to Copenhagen, Denmark, so that Chad could pursue a PhD at the University of Copenhagen. This year has been filled with trials and triumphs that we could never have imagined going through.  We are so grateful to the family and friends that have given us the strength to set out on this adventure, and to all the new friends that have enabled us to survive in a completely foreign world.  

Moving to a new country has filled up our year with so many new experiences, I could write pages and pages about all that we’ve done and seen.  We have visited countless Medieval Castles, churches, cathedrals and fortresses.  We’ve wandered the halls of many museums, viewing sculptures, paintings, various art and learning about Kings, Queens, Vikings and so much history.  We’ve ridden our bikes through a forest so dense, it’s was like night time, we’ve watched knights battle it out in a jousting tournament, and we’ve wandered through a park filled with so many deer you couldn’t even begin to count them.  We’ve braved new foods like Liver Paste on Rye Bread, eaten some of the best pastries (ironically, there are no Danishes in Denmark) and decided that Shwarma Kebab’s are our favorite (and the most affordable) fast food.  We’ve watched the sun stay up past 11 at night during the summer and then go down before 4 in the afternoon in the winter.  We’ve struggled to live without a car, Wal-Mart, Cream of Chicken Soup, A&W Root beer and Butterfinger’s.  It’s truly been an amazing year! 

Our family has thrived here in Denmark.  We’ve grown a lot and are enjoying this experience.  Chad is very involved in his PhD program, he is meeting lots of people, teaching classes, designing experiments and learning so much.  Shannon has learned a lot of new cooking skills, reinvented her online business, is a counselor in the Young Womens, and still dislikes “driving” the kids around in the bike trailer all the time.  Myra is nearly fluent in Danish, we often ask her to translate for us when we go places, she is an amazing big sister, and has learned to ride her bike.  Lexi has learned some Danish, lost her first tooth, loves being a little princess and enjoys field trips with her class. Noah wants to be Batman, loves running everywhere and will probably never be potty-trained.  Our kids have walked the halls of Kings, but still like the play place at Mr. Chicken the most.  They have made friends with kids from all over the world, including, Pakistan, Turkey, Canada, Slovakia, and the Philippines. They are happy and healthy and we couldn’t be more blest.

More than anything we have missed our friends and family back at home and hope that Love, Health and Happiness find you all during this wonderful Holiday Season.  Merry Christmas!

With Love,

Chad, Shannon, Myra, Lexi and Noah

Denmark by numbers:

Days in Denmark:305                                                                                                     
Castles, Fortresses and Ruins Visited: 11

Medieval Churches Visited: Too many to count                                                                          Museums Visited:  12

Bikes Purchased:  7 & 1 trailer 

Hours spent travelling by bike, train and bus to church:  261+ 

Miles Chad has ridden to work on his bike:  2000+  

Miles I’ve pulled the trailer taking Lexi to school:  259+

Pictures we’ve taken:  6255+

November

I'm not sure what happened with this month.  Really, it was a kind of blah month.  The weather got really cold again and we mostly kept indoors.  There were a couple of notable things that happened, so I thought I'd write a quick blog to sum up the month.  

The biggest thing that happened this month was that Noah started "school." 

 

 Anyone that has talked to us know that this has been a bit of a sore spot for us.  In Denmark, they have a law that if you move here from another country and you don't speak Danish, your kids have to attend a "Kindergarten" for 30 hours a week, starting when they turn 3.  If you fail to follow the law, you can be fined.  Lexi was 4 almost 5 when we moved here, and for some silly glitch in the law, she also had to attend a kindergarten, but for only 15 hours a week.  To explain, Kindergarten here is not like it is in the US.  Kindergarten here is Day Care.  People usually put their kids in Day Care by 6 months old.  It is extremely rare to come across anyone that stays home with their kids and doesn't put them in Kindergarten.  The Kindergarten's are licensed through the government and have to follow a bunch of rules and regulations and so, as far as Day Care goes, they are very good.  They do a lot of activities with the kids, including field trips and a lot of outdoor time.  We didn't feel bad putting Lexi into it, because she had been attending Preschool before we moved here and we felt it would be good for her to attend.  Even had we been given a choice.  But, we dreaded Noah's 3rd birthday and were pretty uncertain what would happen.  

So, once Noah turned 3, Lexi's teacher mentioned to me that he would need to start Kindergarten, but she was super helpful about it and suggested that she try to see if she could get Noah admitted into the same group as Lexi. Normally they only take 4 & 5 years old, so Noah was a definite exception.  After a few weeks she told us that it had been approved and we were ecstatic.  I really like Lexi's teacher and was happy I would only have to send him for 15 hours a week instead of 30.  We are kind of bending the rules a bit, but really, Noah will Never attend real school here, so I think that this is sufficient for his needs.  Talking with the teacher, we decided to hold of a little until the new school year had gotten going a little and finally, decided in November that it was time for him to start.  I was very reluctant to send my baby to "school" 2 years before I would have if we hadn't moved here.  So, I was glad that the teacher was fine with him just coming 2 or 3 times a week.  And so far, it seems to be working well.  Noah loves going and I like having a little time to go grocery shopping and clean without the kids.  Here are a couple of pictures of his first day.  He loves the balls and heads straight there almost every time he goes.

Weather here in Denmark is much different than what we were use to.  We had such a cold, wet summer, if felt like Spring had just kind of merged in to Fall.  By the time September and October rolled around, it felt like the weather had finally caught up to the season.  Then November hit with it's cold winter temperatures and out came the heavy coats and flyvedragt's.  Flyvedragt's translate directly to Flight Suit and I guess they kind of resemble that.  ALL of the kids in Denmark from the ages 6 and under wear these, sometimes the entire year long.  They have ones for cold days and really cold days and wet days and kind of warm days.  We were lucky when we moved here that a woman in our ward gave us 3 for our kids.  They fit Lexi and Noah perfectly, even if Noah's clown suit isn't exactly something I would have purchased. 

 

On one of the cold days this month, Chad took the kids out to visit some local parks and to do a little rolling down a hill.  They were warm and happy.

 

 

The other thing that happened this month was our first Thanksgiving away from home.  Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Denmark, so no time off from school or work for anyone.  We decided to hold our own Thanksgiving dinner with our friends, the Jensen's, on Saturday. Of course I didn't take any pictures of all of us or our dinner, but it was a really excellent day. We cooked a turkey, stuffing, rolls, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, broccoli and pies.  It was a stretch for all of us, making everything homemade from scratch.  I'd never done my own stuffing or cranberry sauce, but everything seemed to turn out well.  It was a fun day with good friends.

Only pictures I took were a couple of all the kids sitting on the couch, making faces.  Olivia is our friend's little girl and all our kids just adore here.

So, that's really about all that happened in November.  Too bad I didn't write about things as they happened. Something I need to work on!

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!

Noah Turns 3!

On August 28th, we celebrated Noah's 3rd Birthday!  I love watching my children grow and learn, but at the same time, it's a little painful seeing them grow up so fast.  Noah is definitely my little Momma's Boy and I LOVE IT!  Ok, most of the time.  There are certainly times I wish he weren't so clingy, but I love that he always wants me to hold and cuddle with him.  He is such a sweet little boy.  I just adore him!  Leading up to his birthday, Myra and Lexi were so excited.  We went shopping for him and it was all I could do to stop them from giving him his presents right away.  On his birthday morning, he was so delighted to come out and see the decorations and presents.  Chad had had to go to work early, so we let him open just a couple of presents and wait until Chad got home that evening to open the rest.  All day, you could tell that he was just delighted with all the attention.  The girls even were hoping on skipping out on school so that they could spend the day celebrating with him. We Chad got home, Noah opened up the rest of his gifts.  He got a little circus tent and train set, along with clothes and games from Grandma & Grandpa and a Batman & Prince costume from Grammy & Grandad.  He was just the happiest little boy.  We had his favorite, Spaghetti for dinner and then cake for dessert.  It was such a fun day and I loved seeing my little guy so happy.