Fun in the sun

Life is quite different since Copenhagen defrosted back in April/May - - people are happily out everywhere, strolling, walking their dogs, biking, sitting and eating ice cream (a Denmark favorite any time of the year). It's very green and there are flowers everywhere - its really beautiful. People even sun bathe at the beach AND swim (not us, we aren't quite ready for that when its in the 60s/70s). Anyway...we are all loving living here now.

Fortunately we like an active lifestyle so the culture here suits us - I like our routines of biking or jogging to and from school everyday. The kids don't even mind when it rains - less face it rain is a novelty after the Austin drought that's been going on since they've been born! The kids just suit up in their rain suits and boots and splash away. Most days after school we take our time getting home - Raegan plays with her friends on the playground and I chat with the other moms.

Raegan's last day of school is June 27 and she is signed up for 2 summer camps - a pony riding camp and a soccer one - the community subsidizes these so they only cost equiv $20 for each. Needless to say, we sign up for all these perks when we can! They will be taught in Danish but she is signed up with a couple English speaking friends at school so that should help her feel comfortable (not that I really think that's an issue for her).

We try to make it out to Bakken whenever we can...

We decided to host a Cinco de Mayo party at our house - we made our own salsa (because you cannot buy good stuff here), Chuy's creamy jalapeno dip, chicken chile rellenos, homemade refried beans, pork tacos, and we were able to pull off frozen margaritas to top it all off. It was delicious!!

Ron also decided that a Cinco de Mayo party would not be complete without a pinata. However, he didn't put in the effort required to make a proper one, so the kids got a deformed pinata that wasn't painted or decorated to swing at. He was at a loss for what to hang it from and decided 'well, why  not a hoe?' So one person had to stand on the handle of the hoe while the kids swung at the sad pinata. It was a mess (very entertaining though!...luckily no one was hurt :-) ) I do wish I had a good photo of it...

Also in May the Amazing Baldoni Circus came to town!! We saw the flyers on the light posts and could not resist. This was definitely your traveling mom and pop circus. We all walked down the road to a park in Ordrup that the circus was held in and we were in for a real treat. It was all in Danish of course and was very quirky - there were several skits I didn't quite get! And there were trained dogs, goats, acrobats, etc. The kids enjoyed it...they will tell you their favorite part was when Mr. Ryan was called onstage to hula hoop (I wish I had a good photo of that too!)!

 

Here's Raegan in her new rain gear (minus the jacket).

 

Some photos at the parks.

 This is a new one in Ordrup, I need to go back with Raegan because they have a zip line she would love.

 

We re-visited the great park Faelledenpark that was right by our old apartment on a random school holiday.

 

Here we are at Charlottenlund beach down the road from us after school one sunny day, enjoying ice cream and playing with bubbles.

 

Raegan's school Spring Fair was in early June - she loved getting her face painted.

 

In Denmark the way they teach their kids to ride a bike - at a VERY young age - is with these little bikes without pedals. I don't think I have seen anyone else besides Raegan here with training wheels. The kids are probably Wyatt's age when they can ride real bikes without training wheels, it's rather amazing! Anyway, we picked up a little bike without pedals for Wyatt - he is very excited for his "big boy bike". Here they are riding to Bernstoff park around the corner from our house the other day.

 

Our community 'kultur and festage' days were held last weekend (mid June) - over 4 days there were tons of free activities to participate in. Wyatt and I went to a (Danish) puppet show at a library on Friday - interesting!

 

Friday and Saturday they closed down the downtown main street - flea market tables were set up, stores had merchandise on sale outside, there was a music stage, and a scavenger hunt.

 

The kids playing with bubbles

 

watching the music performance (in English!)

 Ron and I took the kids to this marionette puppet show

 Wyatt and Raegan loved it

 They set up an area where the kids could experience toys from a long time ago - here are the stilts

 ...and Ron trying them out

 And wooden shoes they got a kick out of. They also had metal hula hoops which were rather hazardous!

 

 Raegan has had a few end of the school year events recently - 2 coffee mornings and a Sports Day.

 

This is the first coffee morning - each child was dressed like a train conductor and they passed out train tickets to the parents as we came inside - and sang songs with that theme. Each child had a line to recite.

 

Here is Sports Day - each child participated in 2 events - Raegan was in the sack race and the relay.

 There were 4 teams competing - she was on the red team.

 And here's Wyatt on the side lines zooming his trucks with the other little sibling boys.

Raegan also got to dress up for school for the second coffee morning as what what she wants to be when she grows up (they had been talking about professions). Thankfully we convinced her that dressing as a princess was not the best option so she chose to dress as a horse rider.

The theme was 'excellence'

Here they are singing to Queen's 'we are the champions', the reason you can't hear the class is because Raegan  had been practicing at home so Wyatt learned it and is next to me singing louder than the whole bunch!

 

One thing that is still hard to get used to is the sun setting around 11pm and then starting to rise before 4am. It's hard to wind down and go to bed at a decent hour! We have learned to live on less sleep and take in all the sun while we can, as the winters will be equally as dark!





The Greek Isles!

We took Raegan out of school and snuck off to a pre-peak season trip to Crete, Greece the last week of May. It was just as fantastic as I had hoped it would be. I've wanted to go to the Greek Isles for as long as I can remember - how nice that is just a 3 1/2 hr direct flight away!

Crete is fairly large - at about 60 km wide and is full of large mountains and a mix rocky beaches and sandy ones. The water is beautiful - crystal clear. Too bad the water was a bit cold for me (and Ron)...the kids still enjoyed playing in it. I think we were just a bit early for warm water...but the upside to this was that the weather was just perfect for sitting outside on the beach - sunny, warm but not hot. Ahhh, it was so great to wear bathing suits and shorts and feel real warmth for the first time in months!!

We stayed in a very laid back (and clean and safe) old fishing village called Almyrida. We could walk 5 min from our apartment to the main strip with all the tavernas (restaurant/bars) which were all open air and on the beach. The beaches were right on the main strip as well. Here is a picture looking back on Almyrida

Our apartment worked out great - we rented directly from the owner. At first when we realized we didn't have a TV or WIFI we were a little nervous but actually being forced to disconnect from everything was definitely a good thing. We certainly didn't need TV and were just fine without the internet. Here are some pictures of the kids playing on the playground and pool right outside the apartment. (like Raegan's swimsuit? - Go USA!)

So Raegan is little miss outgoing. She made 3 friends. The amazing part about this was not that she made friends but none of them spoke English or even the same language (one Norweigan, one Russian, one Greek). I guess being in Denmark with all the Danish kids her age not speaking English has helped her deal with this and it doesn't seem to matter one bit. It was funny though, I heard her tell the kids she didn't speak Danish. :-)

Here she is with her new friends.

We loved the laid back vibe of the village. We didn't have any agenda on this week long trip so we were very slow to get moving in the mornings and then would let the kids play in the pool and head to the beach for a bit then to a taverna for lunch, then back to the apartment to let Wyatt nap and then more beach and pool and yet another taverna for dinner. Raegan did get to celebrate her actual 5th birthday there - lucky her!

Here are some photos of the beach area we went to daily in Almyrida.

 They loved making sandcastles with Dad. And even more,Wyatt loved to demolish any sandcastle that he found on the beach.

 I brought a kite with us that they kids enjoyed (for about a minute :-) )

 

 The big thing for all the kids were to have these fishing nets to play with. The kids enjoyed them, but it was definitely a gimmick since there were no fish or sea life to speak of, except the occasional minnow.

 They loved collecting shells as well. 

Thankfully Wyatt stopped eating sand after Day 1. He has resumed eating sand here again at home at the parks with sand.  ....why?????? I honestly thought I would let him eat sand a couple times and this would correct itself. Nope.

Here's Wyatt on a day he played too hard. Yes, he is watching TV (Dora to be exact) on the beach. Spoiled kids! 

 

We tried out pretty much all the tavernas in town. You can't beat sitting in an open air restaurant right on the beach.

 All the tavernas serve a little dessert for everyone and shots of this nasty clear alcohol for the adults at the end of the meal. Ron enjoyed watching me try it.

 

One of the tavernas had a room with a bunch of hats the kids could put on (hmmm, maybe this is why Raegan's school class had a recent break-out of lice...haha, so far we are clean!)

 

Here are some photos from morning jogs. Almyrida is situated at the base of mountains on the coast but if you run up the hill about a mile there is a very nice little mountain town called Plaka that overlooks the ocean from above. We went into the town for dinner one night with our new Norweigan friends.

 



We took 2 day trips - the first one was an excursion that took you on a large ferry boat on the other side of the island from us to Balos Lagoon. Unfortunately this was the one day with not the best weather - it was a wind storm - apparently until October all their storms are dry and they just produce ridiculous winds. It was really beautiful, but would have been more fun if the weather would have been better.

 

First the ferry boat stopped at an island with a 15th century castle perched on a cliff - only reachable by a 15 min walk straight up stairs without hand rails. Wyatt was in dire need of a nap and had just fallen asleep when we got there so I let him sleep while Raegan and Ron went up the trail. Wyatt could not have gone anyways once we saw the trail... Ron said he was quite stressed just making sure Raegan stayed safe.

 

Here is Raegan just off the boat

Climbing up 

 



 There's the boat we came on

They made it!!

By the time they got back down Wyatt and I were busy looking for seashells.

 

A quick boat ride takes to the final stop at Balos Lagoon - this is a giant warm lagoon you can walk all the way across- if only there wasn't a cold wind!! Our pictures do not do this place justice - it was really beautiful and very unique.

The boat ride back

The second day trip we rented a car for the day and drove through very steep, winding roads that at times really were not wide enough for 2 tiny European cars going opposite directions to pass each other. Ron enjoyed the challenge of driving a stick through the steep mountains. I tried to ignore the cliffs and just enjoy the views! Our destination was Elafonisi Island - an amazingly beautiful place with crystal clear turquoise water and white sand - at this location they are famous for pink sand which made Raegan very happy.

Views from the drive over to Elafonisi Island



 

We arrive and its amazing...

 Ron built them a ramp for the boat to go down into the ocean

 The water was so shallow you could walk over to the island, even Raegan walked by herself

 The pink sand...

 Raegan kept burying my feet and making pink "slippers" out of the sand

 I really loved Crete and would love to go back. If only it is a 3 1/2 hr flight from the US!!

 

Time to head back home and get ready for Raegan's school birthday party at our house a few days later...