Christmas in Texas

We finally took our first trip back home to Texas since we moved here in February. It was a whirlwind trip with so many people to see and things to do. It was so great to be home - we had a fantastic time seeing our family and friends and are so grateful to everyone that went out of their way to see us on our tight schedule!

It was so strange to actually have a car after living without one for so long. Ron and I were driving somewhere right when we arrived and it was raining and we looked at each other and said 'Wow, we are going somewhere and it's raining and it doesn't matter because we are not getting wet!' Amazing what having a car versus a bike can do! And we REALLY enjoyed all the Tex Mex. Quality, affordable food out at restaurants - what a novelty! Needless to say, we ate out daily at least once.

We all had a terrific Christmas - we were able to celebrate with full sets of our both sides of our families. All the cousins picked up right where they left off and played really well together. The kids of course got spoiled by Santa and all the family.  Amazingly we were able to get all the new toys on the airplane back to Copenhagen with us without having to ship anything. Bringing a couple empty suitcases with us certainly saved us!

Here are some pictures from our family Christmases.

At the Moore's...

 

 

  

 

 

 

At the Comer's...

 

We had a great New Years in Austin with our friends! On the way to Austin we stopped in Bastrop to stay at the Hyatt for the night...they had the outdoor pool heated to about 80 - too cold for me still but the kids enjoyed it!



The kids have gotten to be such good travelers that the flights to and from Copenhagen were just fine. Adjusting to the 7 hour jet lag was the worst part for sure. They are happily settling back into their routines here in Copenhagen - Raegan missed her friends, school and all her extra-curricular activities. Wyatt is in a state of transition - starting at a new international pre-school this coming week - we are busy in Wyatt boot camp as we speak trying to potty train him so he can start at the school! He is not nearly as easy as Raegan was!!

Christmastime in Copenhagen

Christmas month, as they call it, starts the last weekend in November. It is quite festive! The city kicks things off downtown by lighting all the outdoor lights - they put up lights that hang between buildings - they are covered with garland and have hearts hanging from them - and also lighting the main Christmas tree at city hall. Christmas markets pop up throughout the city on this day as well and are open for the month - you can buy hand made crafts, the kids can play and adults can drink mulled wine. Here we are downtown for the big kick off.

The week following, all the little main streets in the suburbs also put up Christmas trees and have lighting ceremonies. Santa and his helpers drive around one day in the afternoon and stop by all the main streets to hand out candy to all the kids. He drives in style, in a old school fire truck. Here we are at the celebration on our Charlottenlund main street.

 

Raegan's school has a big Christmas Market fundraiser that we all went to. Santa was there - after a bit of bribery we got Wyatt to sit on his lap without screaming for the first year!...this is a little surprising since this was a super creepy Santa! There was an arts and crafts kids room they both had fun in.

 

Then we got out our meager Christmas decorations a little earlier than normal since we were leaving town on Dec 12. Here is our tiny tree - the kids picked out a few of their favorite ornaments to put on. So we obviously didn't have any Christmas lights that worked here with the different voltage and all...I just want to note that this tiny tree has TWO Danish strands of lights. Haven't quite seen strands of lights so small!



And finally, we did get one night of "snow" - it was really ice pellets that lasted maybe 24 hours. Baxter really loves this kind of weather. Wyatt loves to eat snow.

Wyatt turns THREE!!

Wyatt's 3rd birthday fell on a very busy weekend this year - the day after Thanksgiving (sandwiched between our 2 Thanksgiving celebrations here!).

Wyatt had his school birthday party on Thanksgiving. It was so strange - you really need to see the video I took of it to fully appreciate it. The class did sing Happy Birthday in English and then went into the Danish traditions - which consisted of lighting 3 candles and having the candles sitting on the floor in the middle of the circle of kids (all Wyatt's age) while they sang. And then towards the end of the song they told Wyatt to stand on his chair...he looked at me like 'Mom, really? is this ok? (usually I would tell him he cannot stand on a chair in the middle of the room of course..)' But he did eventually get up on the chair only to be told to jump off the chair to the middle of the circle with the lit candles and them blow them out. Interesting! They don't worry about lawsuits the way we Americans do! At times it's refreshing, other times it's just plain interesting :-)  I think my video is too big to post here so all I have at school are these couple of photos.

 The following day, on his actual birthday, we had a small party at our house after school with only his "best friends" and their siblings. He requested a garbage truck cake that turned out really cute. I allowed Wyatt to open his gifts as his friends arrived, which turned out to be a bad idea since he proceeded to only play with the new presents and ignore all his friends the whole time!

After his party, Wyatt opened all of his gifts from his family. He had one great day!!

Thanksgiving and November in Copenhagen

I had hoped to post this one before our trip back to Texas....but there was just too much going on...so, this is a bit dated!!

Early November there is a huge event in the Deer Park a mile or so from our house translated as the "Fox Hunt". It has been taking place every Nov since 1900 and has clearly evolved as there are no longer any foxes that take part! Thousands of people go out to the very large deer park and wait at various places around the horse race route to watch the horses race by - they have to go over various obstacles like gates, ponds, etc. It is quite the party we found out actually - even though it starts at 10am - people had coolers of beer, champagne, etc. There were horse drawn carriages pulling various groups of Danes through the part to the various watch points. Here is some more history on this event if you are interested. Below are some photos. The whole time we were there both the kids kept asking where the foxes were.
http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.dk&sl=da&tl=en&u=http://www.hubertusjagt.dk/information.htmlgt.dk/information.html

In November, I was also allowed to watch one of Raegan's ballet classes - here are a couple photos from that.

Raegan's Rygaard's school class had a dinosaur making workshop as well where the parents were invited to come help build a dinosaur out of household trash items.

We also celebrated Thanksgiving in Copenhagen. The actual day of Thanksgiving was quite depressing - everyone went about their normal schedules - the kid at school, Ron at work. I worked to put a nice meal for the 4 of us on the table. We had Cornish hens...I should mention that getting a small 12 pound turkey was going to cost $150!! Needless to say we didn't think we needed one this year. :-) But then the following Saturday we also got together with several friends who decided they couldn't live without the turkey - it was a fun gathering - and I didn't realize how I could appreciate a turkey so much - it was a great meal!

Ron and I got a sitter and went out for a great 5 course meal for my birthday - the best one we've had yet in Copenhagen at a place downtown called Tight. We then went to see a show at Tivoli Gardens - the humor of the show was lost completely on us (the show was called Smarticus)  and we decided to leave halfway through to go ride a roller coaster in the park.