How time flies

Time has certainly flown since Christmas.  I personally had a very crazy 6 weeks with all the big events going on.

On January 27th we were finished with our performances with show choir and it went extremely well. There were more tickets sold then anyone could have hoped for and well the highlight for me was having 43 of our students come and see our final performance. It was so fun to hear them cheering and talk to them a bit afterwards. They had so many sweet comments…it reminds me why I like working with teenagers!

Work, work...

Singing solo - On My Own

Curtain call

The day immediately following our final performance I went to work writing songs and choir arrangements for the Musical we were to perform at work.  It was a lot of work writing 8 of the 10 songs down as notes with lyrics, chords, etc.  Then when I could see an end to that, I had to make choir arrangements for all of the songs! It is really fun work and I can tell I am getting better at it every year, but man it took all of my spare time! Finally the day before we started I finished all the arrangements and had them printed out, ready for the students to learn. 

The entire Musical week and a half went extremely well. I was in charge of the choir and they did a magnificent job learning all the songs and sung quite well. Søren was in charge of the band and they were also amazing…we really have some talented musicians at the school. It was fun to get to conduct side by side again this year.

As the Musical was over, so was the long string of crazy events and projects in my life. Both Søren and I had really been looking forward to a little break after that project.  Søren had been busy student teaching since before Christmas while he still had the Musical at work to think of and writing projects at school as well. So we agreed that a week long vacation was well deserved by this point.

We decided that we would rent a little cabin for a few days during our winter break.  Going away for a few days would give us the chance to really get away from everything that has to do with work, cleaning, whatever. We spent the first few days of vacation visiting with friends and getting a little work done, then on Wednesday we drove 3 hours north to a nice cabin in an area called Djursland. It had snowed the day before, and well since not very many people go to cabins during the winter, the small cottage roads were not exactly plowed.  Luckily our Yaris could just make it and we found our destination.

Cabin from the back

Cabin from the front

Inside

Inside

When we arrived we immediately turned up the heat, unpacked the food and decided to go out in the snow again to buy some firewood for the wood burning stove! We fired up the stove and had some hot chocolate before going for a brisk walk in the near by area. We had a  very relaxing afternoon and evening reading, doing a puzzle and spending some time in the outdoor hot tub!!

Hot cocoa!

Steamy hot tub on a cold day!

The next day we drove to a nearby town and took a little day trip. ON the way we stopped at the “mountainous” area of Denmark (more like small hills ) and walked around. It was beautiful in the woods and we had fun plowing through the snow by foot. Then we headed for town.  The town, Ebeltoft, is right near the sea so we bundled up and walked down by the harbor before walking down the shopping street and ending at a café for a warm cup of cocoa. In the evening we continued relaxing, what a hard life!

Danish "mountain" Mols Bjerg

Scenic drive near Ebeltoft

Famous ship

It was already Friday then, and we only had one day left at the cabin. We slept in and made an American style brunch! Later in the day we went to a different town and took a walk on some hiking paths. We ended the day eating at a Mongolian Barbecue before heading home for the last visit in the hot tub!

Making brunch

Saturday morning it was time to pack up and go. We headed to Viborg to say goodbye to our friend Jenny who is moving back the United States. We also got to say hi to 2 of our friends from Watermark, Jim and Maria. It was fun to see them all again, and Jim and Maria lent us a lot of baby and maternity clothes, so that was nice!

On the way back from Viborg we stopped at Søren’s sister’s house and had dinner and a nice evening with them. It was great to see them and our nephews again. Lukas and Nikolaj had to show off their Fastelavn costumes (a celebration for lent where the children dress up and have little parties at school, church, etc.) Nikolaj is going to be Pooh and Lukas is going to be Batman!" They were so cute.

So yeah, now we are just enjoying a relaxing weekend after starting up at work again this week. I only have 6 weeks left of work before going on maternity leave, crazy!  We have been slowly buying things for our new home, which we just found out that we can move into April 1st already, instead of the 20th as previously agreed upon. And well, now we are only 12 weeks away from when the baby comes. It’s a fun process and we are really looking forward to the coming months!!

PS: Mom and baby are doing well. I visited the midwife this week and everything looks great. Søren came with and got to hear the heartbeat this time. It is truly amazing!

A bit of life

We have had a fabulous week+ ! It all started with an exciting New Years Concert that Søren and I arranged with/for our students! Our school has never had such an event before so it was exciting to be the ones starting a new tradition!  Just 1½ years ago we sat at home dreaming up future plans for music at our school, including putting on a huge concert, and last Friday our vision became a reality! The concert lasted about 1½ hours and included songs from the last 3 decades.  There were around 60 different students involced including two students who acted as radio hosts leading us through the evening with funny comments and information.  We had two stages so the bands could quickly switch and keep a flow to it all.  Being the first time, we didn't know exactly what to expect but everything went so well and there were a lot of happy parents, etc.  We were tired after a long Friday of setting up, a rehearsal run through of the whole concert and then the actual concert at night, but we went home around 10:30pm and spent the next hour or so on a puffy cloud talking about everything, before we finally crashed.

Conducting the big choir

My voice students

Søren directing the band!

Me with the flowers our students gave us on stage after the concert!

We had been looking forward to the New Years Concert for quite some time, but I personally was happy when it was over as well.  The day after the concert I had a weekend full of rehearsing for the Show Choir show that  I am in.  It was a long a productive weekend and things were looking good for opening night the coming Friday.  We practiced every night that week and when Friday finally came around we all felt ready and excited! Opening night went very well.  We were all boosted form the energy of the audience and put on great performances.  I also got to experience improvising lines, in Danish, as one of the others actresses said the wrong line during one of our dialogs. We did just fine covering it up, but we were both a little nervous up there on stage for a second or two! 

The show is quite different from the other shows we have done as a Show choir.  This time there are a lot of popular songs that are connected with a little story.  The story happens to take place at a factory that makes costumes and props for theaters.  I happen to be a ditzy blonde who doesn’t even know that she is pregnant (the part was specially written in for my “circumstances”) I have 3 solo songs and am pretty much on stage throughout the entire show! I am having a lot of fun and as always enjoying being on stage.

Me singing "I'm So Excited."

So that is what has been keeping me/us busy.  Søren has one week left of student teaching and then we start up with our musical at school in a week and a half.

Today, Sunday, we have had the most wonderful and relaxing day. We started with breakfast in bed and just stayed in bed all morning/early afternoon looking at the house plans for our new house and deciding how we’re going to set things up. It was really fun to get an idea of how we want things.  It’s still 3 months away, but it’ll probably go really fast!! Then we went for a long walk in the beautiful, crisp January weather. Now we are just relaxing and waiting to watch the Danish men play in the World Cup Handball tournament tonight.  A much deserved relaxing weekend!!

23 weeks.

It’s a….

We had the fantastic experience of getting to see our baby live on camera again this week.  Yes the 20 week Ultrasound! At this ultrasound the technician checks for any deformities or illnesses in case we would have to give birth at a specific hospital. So you can say we were a bit nervous about it, but at the same time tried to think positively and assume for the best.  We had decided just before Christmas that we would like to find out the sex of the baby so this was also the time to do so.

As for the results, we found out that are baby looks completely healthy and as it should.  The baby is following the curve for size in all areas, so we are very very happy….. And well, we also found out that it is a BOY!  (Although the technician said that they have been known to be wrong before, she was still willing to bet a Snickers bar on it being a little boy!) It feels nice being able to say he, and begin to dream of all the fun experiences we are going to have with him in the near future!

Otherwise we are doing well. We survived the first week back after vacation and are both taking each day as it comes until February 11th where we get a weeks vacation again. January is busy with a big New Years concert at work, Søren finishing student teaching, me with my Show choir show and both of us working on a musical at work, so the one day at a time motto really keeps us going!

21 weeks



It's a boy (21 weeks)



Christmas in Minnesota

We were so lucky to be able to come to Minnesota for Christmas this year. I came already the 13th of December as I was coincidentally free from work that week already, and Søren came on the 19th.
While Søren was still in Denmark I had a lot of fun visiting girlfriends! It was fun to have some girl time with old friends. I have two friends who are also pregnant so that was fun to share stories. One day I met my friend Julie for a Expectant Mother’s Yoga class. It was physically challenging but felt really nice as well. Otherwise I had some lunch/dinner dates with friends Maureen and Andrea and friend/cousin Sarah!  Friday the 16th we had a college girl’s night where there were 5 of us from St. Bens who got together for some quality girl time. We ordered pizza, chatted and saw a few Christmas movies before turning in quite late. It was a bit embarrassing though because apparently it was our friend Holly’s birthday and we didn’t even know it until her husband blurted it out to us right as he was leaving to give us girl time…we ended up putting some things together and singing for her to make up for our forgetfulness, but we were still very embarrassed!

Andrea and I

CSB girls

Finally after a week of girl and family time (and a lot of  Christmas shopping) Søren arrived. There were horrible snow storms in Europe including Amsterdam so it was very exciting to see if he was even going to make it, but he did with only a 15 minutes delay! We felt very blessed. The day after he arrived we had a huge snow storm adding to the almost meter of snow we already had so it was incredible.

The first full day Søren was in town we went shopping for the last Christmas gifts and visited our friends Dan and Tara and their new baby Charlie.  Søren and Dan spent most of the time in the basement recording some drumbeats for Dan’s new album. They had a lot of fun, while us girls chatted and I got to cuddle with the baby!

Dan and Søren recording

Cuddling with Charle

Finally Christmas Eve arrived and we headed to my Uncle Mike and Aunt Maggie’s house for a big celebration. All 28 of my aunts, uncles and cousins got together to chat, eat and play a little dice game! It was so wonderful to see everyone again and for Christmas!! In the middle of festivities my whole family gathered everyone and they had a little “baby shower” for us! We were totally shocked and received many wonderful gifts for our baby to come! It was fantastic.

A real Christmas feast

A collaboration cake!

Baby Shower for us

The dice game

For Christmas my Dad and his wife gave us tickets to the Minnesota Wild hockey game.  We had incredible seats – 3rd row – and we could really see all of the action (well the Wild action was not so great, but it was still a blast to see live hockey!) It was Søren’s first game and we all had a great time.



See how close we were!



By this time our trip to MN was almost over and we just had 2 days left. We spent a good part of the last days returning and exchanging gifts and shopping for what we wanted and needed in Denmark. The weirdest part was buying baby things.  We had gotten a car seat at the baby shower and wanted to exchange it for a seat the we could use longer. It felt so strange looking for all those things. We also bought at diaper bag and had gotten a lot of clothers, blankets etc, so we could fill a small suitcase with stuff for OUR baby….so exciting and WEIRD!

We made it home safely on the 30th of December just in time to celebrate New Years with our friends Thorkild and Janni.  We went to bed at 3am and slept until 12.30pm!! We were both so shocked when we looked at the clock! Oh well, I guess we needed the sleep on top of jet lag!!



Happy New Year everyone…we look forward to updating you all about the exciting things coming in 2011!

Christmas in Denmark

The Christmas festivities started early this year due to our early leave for the USA!  We started already the 5th of December makign delicious confections with Søren’s Mom, Sister and family. We thought we’d cut back on the different kinds this year but by the time we were done we had many tasty treats.

Ulla, Peter, Søren and I "baking" away

The following weekend we celebrated Søren’s birthday! We had a relaxing day at home and visiting his Mom, and then went to a friends birthday party that evening. Easy planning for me, and we enjoyed having a day together relaxing.
Then the 12th of December we had a little early Christmas celebration opening his Dad and Hanne’s presents. We justified it cause we needed to know if there were duplicate presents so we could possibly return them in the US. His sister and Mom had taken pictures of our presents for us to take with and unwrap in MN so we didn’t get to open those that day too…

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.