Thanksgiving

We have had a change of plans.  Our wonderful tradition of having 2 Thanksgiving meals each year has been destroyed by snow! Yes, Denmark has been hit by a crazy snowstorm and has left us stranded with a double batch of stuffing and no Watermark Americans to share it with!  The traditional 3 hour journey to Northern Jutland this weekend after Thanksgiving to have a true American celebration, would have taken over 5 hours, so we decided to stay home. So now I have time to fill you all in on our 1st Thanksgiving celebration of the year.
On Thanksgiving Day we had some friends over for a Thanksgiving dinner.  With Auntie Anne's excellent recipies I was able to make a succesful feast again! One of my friends from MN had sent us some pumpkin in a can and some cute Turkey napkins, so the table was definitely festive.  Our tradition of saying what we are thankful for is my favorite part of the evening! Søren and I definitely have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.. :)

Thanksgiving Buffet

Eating

Watching football!

Otherwise things have been looking up for me, pregnancy wise.  My morning sickness had decided to only visit in the afternoon and evening...and just yesterday I felt great until about 7pm...so I am very optimistic.  They only thing is that as soon as I started to not feel nauseous, I got a really bad head cold and actually had to stay home from work one day because of it. I am still struggling to breath through my nose and to taste my food, but the headache is gone and my energy is up, so I am happy!
Here your first look at how I am looking now-a-days. You get a before, 10 weeks and NOW (15 weeks)  picture!

Week 5 ("before")

10 weeks

15 weeks

Søren is done with school-school until February.  He starts a 7 week student teaching adventure on Monday.  He is excited to get to teach all the 3 classes he is interested in: Social Studies, Math and Music.  He will actually be at the school when they have their musical, so he will be helping with the band there!
Now today because of our change in plans we are going to have our first Christmas celebration with our friends from our small group at church.  Good food, Christmas clipping, and HYGGE! We are glad we can do something today now that our Thankgiving fun is spoiled! Hope you all have had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

It's (a) Spring Baby

We are very happy and feel very blessed to say that we are going to have a baby! We just had our first ultrasound yesterday and it was amazing! The minute she put the little thingy on my stomach our baby just popped up on a screen in front of us! The technician said right away..."wow, we have a little lively one" and you could see him/her hop like a magic jumping bean on the screen.  The technician also showed us all the parts of our little one: brain, heart, legs, arms, and we could even see a close up of one hand and all 5 fingers! It was truly incredible!!!! Our baby was really flailing it's arms too, so we think it's going to be a little drummerboy or girl! It just seems so real after seeing him/her move!

Baby Madsen -12 weeks


 As for myself, I have not been having the easiest 1st trimester.  I have had a lot of nausea, pretty much 24 hours a day, and that has made it hard to function at times.  But now I am officially in week 12, as my due date is May 20th, so I'm hoping for some relief soon.  Søren has been incredibly helpful with many things, but especially with cooking and meals as I am having a diversion to the smell of our refrigerator. We are really excited about this new adventure in our lives (and maybe a little nervous too).

Otherwise we have had a week full of playing music for 2 different  Praise and Worship events in neighboring towns.  We love that we get to go out and play music together and share our talents for the glory of God. 

Some other really exciting news is that we have bought 2 plane tickets to MN for DECEMBER! So we will be celebrating Christmas in Minnesota this year! I am flying in the 13th of December and Søren is coming the 19th after he is done with his student teaching for the year.  We are really looking forward to freezing our butts off this Christmas!  :)

2 Americans with their pumpkins (Søren carved one too)

Søren and his Dad golfing in Skanderborg (a very beautiful course)

Our House!

It's official, we are now house owners!

For the past year we have been looking at houses.  In the beginning we looked on the internet to see what kind of house we would like and what things were important to us.  Then just before Summer vacation we went and looked at some houses that we knew were in our price range in a small town called Lyne.  It ended up that the house we were interested in got sold right under our noses so we put the process on hold.  But as our God only knows best, not getting that house was the best thing that could ever happen to us!  In the months since Søren and I have talked a lot about WHERE we would want to buy a house and agreed that we didn't want to live in Lyne and put ourselves in between our two worlds of work and friends, but rather that we wanted to move to Skjern a much bigger town where we have quite a few friends already.  So our search was broadened to the Skjern area and we immediately found a house that we really liked....at least from the pictures.  The next step was going to the bank to see if we could afford this house, and after a lot of budget and loan talk we found out that we definitely could!

So yeah, we decided on a Friday that we would call on Monday to book a viewing of the house. That Sunday Søren was looking at the house again on the Internet and saw that the sellers had lowered the price! And it was quite significant drop! We were so excited, it was the perfect timing!

To get to the point, we went and looked at the house and loved it! We both pretty much knew that this was the house we wanted! A week later Søren and a friend of ours who knows a lot about building houses went to look at it again and examine some things in more detail.  Our friend thought everything looked good, so we decided to make an offer.  They didn't accept our first offer, so we had to think about how much we were willing to pay for this house....we thought about it over the weekend, made a counter offer and they accepted!  So yeah, we went to the bank again just to make sure everything was in place and signed the papers yesterday!  We are very excited and will be moving in April! It's all so crazy but very very exciting. I will post some photos from the Relators website.

From the front

From the back

Kitchen

Entry

Living room

Victorious again!



Yes its true, once again we were victorious in the annual Andersen/Madsen Cup.  This year we went to the Activity Center in Esbjerg and competed in various disciplines: Minigolf, Sumo-wrestling, Car racing and Bicycle racing.  So that makes it two years in a row that we have our name on the cup! 



Jette and I Sumo-Wrestling





Carl and Søren Sumo-Wrestling



Bike racing



This past week we have had fall break!  We decided that we needed a little get-a-way so Søren and I booked a trip to Luedersburg, Germany.  We found a nice hotel with some fantastic Golf packages and took the 4½ hour drive south to our destination.  After getting stuck in crazy traffic going around Hamburg, we arrived at our hotel and it was absolutely spectacular.  The sun was shining and made everything seem so peaceful.  The building where we slept was actually an old stable that was now made into a small hotel. The surrounding buildings were also very beautiful and historical looking.  There were restaurants and a smaller castle all in the middle of a very small and quaint town.  The hotel also had a wellness area with a few saunas and a relaxation room! After getting over the initial dissapointment that there wasn't a hot tub we looked around the rest of the area and got ready for dinner.  We went to a cute little Italian restuarant and had wonderful food. Afterwards we went down to the sauna with all the naked Germans and then back up to our room and played games until we were so tired that we had to sleep.

Our room










Our room




Inside the stable hotel





Castle

 The next day was golfing day, we had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel and headed out for an 18-hole round at the Lakes Course.  The name says it all, there were really a lot of lakes and water everywhere.  Søren and I counted and combined we lost about 20 balls that day! But we had beautiful weather and the course was gorgeous so we couldn't complain too much.  After golf we had made massage appointments and each had a 30minute massage to relax our tired muscles!! It was wonderful and all part of our package! For dinner we went to the "fancy" restaurant and had a 3-course meal (again part of the package) It was delicious! 

Lakes Course





Tuesday came and it was time to go home already, but not before another round of Golf on the "Old Course." This course was also gorgeous with lots of old trees that were changing colors and combined with the crisp fall air, it was a great experience.  The special thing about this round was that there was another woman who was given the same tee time as us, so we played the 5 hour round with us!  She was such a sweet and adorable German woman who had played golf for only 2 years but was pretty good! She had a very cute accent and laughed and made jokes with us all day! We were a little skeptical in the beginning of having to play with someone else, but it turned out to be very enjoyable! 



Old Course




Betina the German and I



After this round, and the loss of another 12-15 balls we headed home.  We stopped at the border shops and bought some cheap candy and pop before entering Denmark again! We had an amazing trip!!



The rest of the break we have been relaxing, visiting friends and getting to some projects that have needed our attention for awhile... (the shelves in the office!)  It's nice to have a whole week free together, one of the perks we will always have as teachers!!









Swing back into things

Not much has been going on since last time.  We have just been getting back into the swing of things. Søren started school again and now has officially less than 1 year left! He is studying Music this year so he is having a lot of fun playing music in class and having to practice piano as "homework".  What a nice way to end this 4 year journey!

We held a bachelor/bachelorette party for our friends Janni and Thorkild a few weekends back. Søren was in charge of planning Thorkild's party and it all went so well.  It was a whole day event where the men and women were split up.  Us girls, started out waking Janni up and putting her on a motorcycle ride, then we had brunch and got ready for a dance class - Zumba!  Afterwards we went to a practice area for drivers-ed.  Janni then drove us all around in a big bus through slippery water and had to practice breaking.  It was pretty scary, the whole bus spun around one time and at that point I had had enough and watched the rest of the time! Finally we ended up back with the boys and had a lesson in performing stunts.  The whole room was filled with couples yelling and pretending to hit each other, it was a riot! In the end we shot a video of a litttle story where Thorkild got shot by Janni in the end! The boys also had a fun day BMX bike racing and playing Soccer Golf where Søren was the overall winner!!!  A great day!

Sliding out into the ditch..agh!Søren kicking me to the floor











Søren kicking me to the ground!





We also had a very fun day at work 2 weeks ago.  We had an entire day where all the students learned and sang Gospel songs! We had hired a man from Copenhagen to come and direct them for the day.  We would say it was a success, even if there were some boys who looked BORED + BORED.  In the end they learned 5 songs which they performed for their parents and Family Day the following weekend!

I have also gotten into the full swing of things again with Show Choir.  Singing or dancing twice a week keeps me preoccupied from stressing out at school and that is wonderful!  We are working towards a big show in January and I can't wait.  I already know I have quite a few lines and at least 1 solo!  Also I started taking voice lessons this year, for myself.  Personally I've always wanted to continue developing my voice, and now that I am directing choir and teaching voice lessons myself, I decided it was the perfect time. The school is paying for the lessons so I just have to use my time and a little gas money, not a bad deal!

This past weekend Thorkild and Janni got married and we had a wonderful day with them. We were able to sit at their table so we really felt like we were a part of their big day! Congratulations!

Thorkild driving away in an "American" mustang





Sorry not many pictures this time...for some reason we didn't take many!

Back to business

We have now been back from the US for 3 weeks and I can't believe it! Time is really going by fast. 

We had about 4 days when we got back before we really got back into the swing of things.  We used to time to relax, prepare a little bit and to see friends.  We went to a 25th Wedding Anniversary party with one of our colleagues and that was a lot of fun, folk dancing and eating a lot of food.

Then school started up! We had 3 days of meetings before the students arrived. By thursday there were 121 students filling the school and it was awesome.  Thursday-Saturday were quite fun and tiring as we were working around the clock.  I have a really sweet family group this year with 6 quite different but very nice girls.  Saturday we had auditions for the choirs and bands and had even a larger turnout than last year.  We are totally pumped with the interest for music this year!! 

Last week was the first official week of school and things went very well! I have been very happy with all my classes so far. (especially English!!) It's going to be a good year.

Søren and I also got back out on the golf course again this past week.  We both played okay but definitely felt a bit rusty after all the golfing in the States!

The most recent news is that I just celebrated my 27th birthday! Søren suprised me with a special weekend birthday trip to Gothenburg, Sweden!  We woke up on the 20th, opened presents, had a nice breakfast and hit the road! We drove a few hours to the ferry where we rode for another 3 hours before arriving in Sweden.  We found our hotel and headed off to find some dinner.  We ended up going to the Hard Rock Café and had some great food.  We walked around the city for awhile, but it was raining so we went home and just hung out.  The next morning we woke up, had an incredible continental breakfast and hit the town.  We saw the harbor, a huge Viking ship, lots of beautiful shops and buildings, the "famous" Ullevi Stadium (where the Danish Soccer team won the European championship), and took a boat ride through the canals of Gothenburg.  It was a great 24 hours in the city and then it was time to head back to Denmark again!  It was such a fun birthday present and we both had a wonderful weekend!!

Last 4 weeks in USA

After visiting my Grandparents in Florida, Søren and I headed to eastwards towards Cocoa Beach.  We stopped along the way in Orlando and visited Mickey and the gang in Magic Kingdom.  It was a very hot day, but we had a great time being kids for a day.  We were able to go onto rides often enough to cool down and there were a few water rides.  That evening for dinner we went to the Hoop-de-doo dinner show.  It was great fun where we got to eat real Southern American food and listen to some fun songs! The highlight for me was watching the fireworks over Cinderellas castle.  There were amazing combinations and it was all timed just right to Disney music!  Really beautiful!

Disney show in front of the Castle

Hoop-dee-doo Dinner show

Søren playing along at the dinner show

Fireworks!

After Disney World we spent 2½ days on the beach.  The condo where we stayed was right down to the ocean so we could just go down whenever we felt like it.  One day we spent a few hours at Kennedy Space Center.  Here we saw different rockets and satellites and even got to touch a piece of the moon! It was pretty cool to see that type of history.  We also visited Ron Jons Surf shop, had horrible service at a restaurant and watched the World Cup Soccer Final.   All in all very relaxing!

Launch pad (probably the one where the rocket that first landed on the moon took off)

Minigolfing in Cocoa Beach

We arrived back in Minneapolis and started off this part of our trip with a bang!! A day at Valleyfair (a local amusement park) with my Aunt Ellen and her two wonderful kids.  The day started off a bit wet...well actually very wet, but the sun came out not long after arriving and we had a wonderful day with no lines.  I guess the rain scared away the other guests cause we didn't have to wait at all, we could just go on ride after ride!!

X-treme Swing!

The next day we headed off to Sonshine Music Festival.  A lot of bands that we really like were playing.  The top of the list was New World Son, 10th Avenue North, Sanctus Real, Casting Crowns and Newboys.  Just like last year there were over 20,000 people and lots of great music!

The rest of our time was spent visiting family and friends.  We ate a lot of ice cream and had some wonderful meals.  It was good to see so many of our family members and friends again.

2nd year anniversary--Back at Millenum Park where we got married!

Having huge drinks with Ladder and Schader

Following tradition and wearing hats at Anna and Jason's house!

Mary, Emily and Ella

Playing Rock Band with Josh and Julie!

On the lake with Schader, Ladder and Holly

Getting tractor rides at Schader and Ladder's party