Blizzard Warnings

Happy Spring! I am sure all you Texans with your 80 degree shorts weather are jealous of us here in Denmark. Here is our first day of spring...

For about a week we had heard about lots of snow forecasted and blizzard warnings for early this week. It didn't end up being blizzard conditions here - we had some terrible wind followed by maybe 6-8 inches of snow over 3 days. People still go about their regular routines though and I am told school is never cancelled for these conditions.

It is clear now you have to take a windy forecast seriously. I learned my lesson the hard way to avoid Nordhavn train station located on the ocean when winds are really bad. On Monday the winds were whipping through there at 60 mph while Wyatt and I were waiting for our train. It was incredibly difficult to stay standing and make sure Wyatt was safe in his stroller as well. It was very stressful!

I also learned to watch for avalanches falling from rooftops. As we are on the 4th floor here, while I sit at my computer in the afternoons I look out onto the street and this week have occasionally heard these loud ka-booms. At first I didn't think much of it - maybe it was a truck, etc - but then realized when I saw it happen that the rooftops were heating up just enough to drop a section at a time of many inches thick snow from 5 stories up. We actually had one fall next to us (me, Wyatt, Raegan) at the bus stop...like 5 feet from us. Yes, you learn as you go!

But, the snow was really pretty. Raegan has enjoyed playing in it all week at school. Here is a photo of the park with the trampolines covered in snow, next is Raegan at her playground at school, the one on the right is our apartment neighborhood is Osterbro, and at the bottom is Raegan on our walk from the train station to school.

Speaking of school, we had a rocky start to the week at school with some tears at drop off and pick up but since Wed she has been wanting to go to school and telling us that she had a 'super duper day!'. She is learning the kids names and is getting more comfortable there and having a lot of fun. They had a parents coffee morning at school on Tues where we were invited into the classroom for an hour to see what the kids have been working on - I enjoyed meeting other parents and talking with her teachers more. Here are some photos from Tues.

We were supposed to start moving into our house on Wed but have had some delays. When our relocation person arrived to pick up the keys he found that the landlords had not done any of the things that were agreed to before move in. So we are waiting for the house to be ready for us to move in - maybe this will be Monday. Wyatt and I got to go over there for the walk-thru on Wed. I showed him which room was going to be his and he was really excited about it. Here he is playing there. I also added a photo of the backyard. This was right in the middle of the heavy snow days this week. Not sure how deep the snow is back there.

We are all very ready to be moved into our house so I hope we can next week. We are tired of being cramped in just a few rooms and having 4 floors between us and outside, not to mention having to walk Baxter all the time. Ugh!! The kids are enjoying the trains for now though which we have to do daily to get to school but will no longer have to do once we are in our house. The top one is Raegan at the train station by her school and the bottom one is Wyatt at the train station where we had terrible winds earlier this week.

Yesterday I realized that Spring is ways away and Wyatt needed more snow gear so we headed out to H&M. We were walking back to the bus station and were stopped by this. Not sure what it was!

St Patti's Day

Last weekend was sunny but cold and beyond windy. We did not do a whole lot except get together with friends in our houses.  We did venture out with the kids to Tower park at Faelledenpark near our apartment Sat morning. But it was too cold and windy for Ron and I so we cut the visit short and hit the McDonalds on the way home. Have I mentioned yet that they do in fact have a "dollar" menu here, except it's a 10 kroner menu which is about $2 (double the cost like most things here!). The food tastes the same, but they are very stingy on ketchup. An extra value meals here are 50-60 kroner, or about $10-12. You can get them on Happy Hour though (mid-afternoon) for a steal - 45 kroner ($9).

We also were excited for St Patti's Day here. We thought, well, we are much closer to Ireland than we used to be so we should be able to find some fun. We did find Copenhagen's main St. Patti's event which was downtown by this amusement park called Tivoli. There was some traditional Irish music and dancing, beer of course, and then a parade. The parade was a let down, we pictured something bigger - it was an Irish marching band leading the people at the festival to walk around the city. So, we opted not to join! And it was again super windy and cold so we decided to get inside to a pub for an early dinner. Here are a few photos of the festival:

Raegan's First Day of School

Raegan had her first day of school at Rygaard's International School yesterday. We were excited to get a phone call on Friday to let us know that a spot opened up in the Pre-K (Reception) class. We thought we were going to have to wait until the Fall to get her in.

She had a great first day and made lots of new friends. Starting at this school is a big step for her, as this school is Monday thru Friday 9 to 2:45. She has done great with the adjustment, but I can tell she is quite tired after school so we have been taking it easy. Here are some pictures of the big first day.

In our apartment getting ready.

 At the bottom of the stairs in our apartment building.

We woke up to lots and lots of snow! She is right outside our apartment building starting on our journey to school. It snowed ALL day.

Here they are outside her school building 

 In her classroom in the cloak area being dropped off.

This is the back view of her snow covered school. Kids were sledding in this field this morning while waiting for class to start.

On the playground this morning

It is quite a commute for us to get back and forth to her school on public transportation while we are in our apartment. Fortunately this should just be for another week. Snow on the first day didn't make it any easier but we managed! We started on the first day by taking a bus to a train station by the school and then walking the rest of the way to Raegan's school. But the bus ride took forever and it was stressfully crowded. So I decided it was time to get out of my comfort zone with the bus system and try out taking a train for part of the trip. And wow I wish there was a train station that Raegan could walk to from our apartment because it is so much better and of course faster. A 4 min ride on the train is a 25 min ride on the crowded bus.

Wyatt loves train stations and riding the trains so this is working so far to get him excited to take and pick up Raegan (since this is now a big part of our day!). Here he is waiting for our first train ride.

Wyatt and I are enjoying our 1x1 time. I was worried about him missing his playmate sister but so far so good. Today, we went to this free indoor playground called the Remisen. On Tues/Thurs it's specifically open to kids under age 3 so we decided to try it out today. This place was a hit for him so we will do this often on cold or wet days.

 This is an entire room loaded with Legos, Wyatt was in heaven finding all the trucks and trains and planes.

Spring?

Well, it is certainly not spring here, by any definition. Our weekend plans were interrupted by the cold weather. We have adjusted to being able to go out and do things when it's freezing out. However, we have to draw the line at subfreezing with winds around 30 mph.

So, last weekend we didn't do too much. We did head out to the Round Tower. It's very Rapunzel, so Raegan enjoyed it. You walk up a winding slanted ramp in the tower (below) to the top where you get fantastic vews of the city.  

Ron and I are also on a mission to try any restaurant claiming to be Mexican. We were really excited about trying the one we went to on Sat, given reviews of how authentic it was. We ordered the recommended burritos. They were good but it was basically a (small) Chipolte burrito, which is good, but not what we really were after. No chips and salsa, etc. We did order some plantains as an appetizer and got about 6 little plantains for $10. We ordered the kids each a taco and I'm not kidding you they were so small, before folding them in half they fit in the palm of my hand (I think they were like $8 each). Ha. So, while the burritos we got were pretty good, we probably won't frequent there and will continue our search.

So, back to the cold weather. I will now get to enjoy watching the ice melt on the duck ponds again. It has been below freezing since Fri or Sat I think so things are re-frozen. As I said the winds were terrible, until about Tuesday. I woke up Monday to run and looked on my phone and it was 21 degrees, wind chill of 5. I was thinking about curling back up to bed but then heard the kids stirring and realized that the 30-45 min to myself in the mornings is very valuable to me and I was willing to put on an extra thermal and brave the weather. It wasn't too bad, I was only half frozen when I got back. At least the wind is gone. Today I woke up and it was 25 degrees and a wind chill of 20. Since it's been several days of super cold, I actually thought - Well, that's not too bad today. ...I guess you have to adapt!  We woke to lots of snow yesterday - I would say probably 3 inches. This was exciting for us (and Baxter). This is what the duck ponds look like as of this morning:

Ship Wreck Park

This is the park that is at the end of our block. I'm sure it has a real name, but we call it ship wreck park, given that there is a gigantic Santa Maria ship wrecked in the middle of it and the overall theme is the bottom of the ocean. The playgrounds we have found here are really creative.

 Raegan made the mistake of going down this big slide on her stomach. She flew right off the end and landed on her stomach knocking the wind out of her. I don't think I have to worry about her doing that again...

Mornings

I am enjoying the more relaxed pace in the mornings here - I'm able to get out for a jog while Ron stays home getting ready for work and making the kids breakfast. Much improved to him starting on calls at 7am in his previous career!

I like to jog around these duck ponds and have been watching the ice slowly melt.

We were hearing last week with all the sun that Spring is here! I was quite excited about this until I realized that my definition of spring is much different than here. To me, I think of sunny weather, bluebonnets and highs in the 60s and 70s. Here, it simply means that the sun is coming out and it's warm enough for the remaining snow and ice to melt. I'm still working on adjusting to this. :-) We did luck out with a nice "warm" day in the 40s last week but we are back to high temps hovering around or below freezing and wind chills in the low 20s. At least the sun is sitll out - today anyways - forecasting snow for tomorrow.

Busy Week

It's been a week full of activity...

Monday we went to an international parents playgroup at the school Raegan will be attending in the fall, called Rygaards International School. We are excited for next year, but were dissappointed to find that their Pre-K equivalent class is full for this year. I don't want her out of school for the next few months so we are working on enrolling her in the Rygaards recommended pre-school to finish out this year.

Raegan is very excited about going the new "big girl" school and can't wait! Here she is in front of Ryggards. It's a beautiful campus.

Tuesday we went to the Experimentarium. This is very close to where we will be living in our house so we got annual passes. It's like a children's museum with things to do for kids of all ages. They have a great big area for smaller kids and Raegan and Wyatt had a blast for hours.

Wednesday we enjoyed the sunny, warm (ha, it was 45!) weather and had a picnic at the park.

Ron left work early and we all went to an outdoor bar/cafe in Nyhavn to enjoy the "warm" weather (we didn't have to wear gloves and hats most of the day :-) ).

Today we went to the Post and Tele Museum. They have this great free indoor play area with great slides and a little "town" where the kids can pretend they are mailmen - dress up and deliver mail around this little town. We will definitely go back here a lot too when it's cold or rainy.