Our BIG boy!

It's undeniable now. Our baby isn't a baby anymore. Max will be 3 years old in 4 short months, and a big brother to boot. He's talking like a waterfall, both English and Danish...often mixed. For example, factory smokestacks and old cars "smoker" (which is the Danish ending for "-ing" added to the English verb, smoke). This he does alot. And he also likes to educate his friends at daycare and the daycare workers how to say things in English. He asked one what she was eating, and she replied in Danish "You know what it is. What is it?" To this, Max replied, "Gulerødder. In English, that's carrots."
Max's new capacities also opens up a whole new world of toys, like this Silly Puddy he received from Grandma in America. This has been loads of fun, and wonderful for mommy to know that he won't eat it all of a sudden.
The biggest news of all is that Max has given up his sut (pacifier). Here in Denmark, many people hang them on trees, and so that is what we decided to do. Max was brave and hung it up without a problem, confident that he was a big boy now. Later that night was a different story, but it only took a couple of nights before he was used to it. Harder on mommy than on him, to be sure. We are very proud of our little "quitter", and he got McDonalds for lunch that day with Max's favorite - "nuggets, french fries and cola" he asks for everytime. And just to really smear it on thick, an ice cream afterwards.
Max is about 3 foot tall now (100 cm), which has meant that his baby car chair was a bit too little. Daddy is a sucker for quality when it comes to Maximus, so he got a cool, new "race chair" to go in "Max's blue car".
The final pics are of Max being just the little sweetie that he is: he likes to help mommy vacuum or mop (just wish he was better at it! He'd be "helping" alot more...), or just about any other odd job we throw at him: like help daddy build or saw or hammer or chop carrots... you name it.
The last picture I couldn't resist. My two men with their umbrellas. "Tut, tut! It looks like rain!"

Tivoli with Tommy and Ulf

We're officially on vacation! And to kick off Max's summer break, we took him to Tivoli (the local amusement park) with his friend from church, Ulf, and his daddy, Tommy. It was a bit cloudy, so people stayed home, which meant that the lines were non-existent. But sunny enough that we didn't need more than our windbreakers. Max and Ulf burned up their little armbands and rode the cars and the motorcycles again and again, and again (and again....) Daddy tried the bumper cars together with Max - "a little scared" was Max's conclusion when he got off those. Mommy tried the balloons with Max - "high up!" he replied, proud of himself for trying. We also got to try the spinning teacups, but only after the encouragement of seeing 6 month older Ulf try them out first with his daddy. We grilled, we boated, we played on the playground and a good time was had by all!

Summerhouse with Simon, Pia and Gustav

We were invited to our friends Simon and Pia's rented summerhouse in the northern part of Denmark (Hals) for a few days in July. We drove our NEW CAR (pictures to follow) and enjoyed a very relaxing couple of days. Thanks, you guys!

Simon and Pia are the proud parents of the very beautiful, Scandanavian prince Gustav and to chocholate lab, Simba. Gustav was interesting to Max, but Simba was prime time all weekend long. When Max woke up from his nap, he'd ask for Simba. When Max went to bed, Simba went to bed. When Max went out to play, Simba followed. When Simba tried to go lay down, exhausted from chasing balls into stinging nettle and muddy ditches, Max tracked her down and tried to convince her to come back out and play. Max talked to Simba: "Oh, there you are!" he'd say, if she'd gone around the corner for a drink of water. If there was ever a doubt that little boys are made of puppy dog tails, here's proof that the two are indeed one. Simbas parents have taught her well, and she is great at the Danish command for drop - "Aflevere", even when given by 2 year olds. Max practiced that command ad nauseum, and Simba obeyed like a good little soldier, as you can see in the film. Simba was our faithful baby sitter for two days straight. We like Simba. But Max LOVES her.

We also had some great time at the beach. The summerhouse backed up to the sea called the Kattegat, which is Old Danish for "The Cat's Back", since it was apperently so dangerous for the viking sailors to get across. But it was incredibly shallow at our end and we could walk a long way into the waves before the water even came up above our knees.

There were lots of crabs, jellyfish and coolest of all, starfish to collect and inspect, as the pictures show. Simba loved chasing sticks in the water and Gustav loved the fresh air. Max got to build "spider man" (he doesn't know The Spiderman - never seen him. But I made a spider once at the beach with seaweed and shells and now we must always make a spiderman when we get to sand) and juleman, which is Santa Claus, in Danish. Don't ask me why - it was his art.

(Pia says in the background in Danish "What are you guys doing?" and when Max replies "making Santa Claus" she says "There sure is a Christmas theme going on here...." which there had been. Max had been giving us gifts all weekend and looking out for Santa Claus in the North Pole, which was apparently located in the shed in the backyard of the summerhouse.)

Fanø with Farmor and Farfar

Anni and Jens treated us to a lovely weekend on one of the beautiful Danish islands, called Fanø. (Ø means "island"). It is just off the west coast town of Esbjerg where Anni spent her teenage years, and she often visited the island with friends. We were blessed with gorgeous weather and our hotel room was less than a 2 minute walk to the beach - which is one of the widest in Denmark. Seriously, you have to drive across the beach to get to the water - it's that wide.

We took lots of trips to the waterpark that was also included in the summerhouse price, as well as to the water's edge, though we left our camera at home for those trips. Much splashing, waterslide sliding and sand castle building was had by all. Here's a shot of the sun going slowly down. It's about 7pm in that picture, but the sun will stay at that position for about an hour. It doesn't go down these days until around 11 pm. "Ohhhh, those suh-hu-mer NI-hights!" Best part of Denmark.

Here is also a picture of Anni, Jens, me and Morten enjoying the great weather at a little cafe Anni and Jens took us to. I had cool, smoked salmon and the others enjoyed two local specialities: one is called The Shooting Star which is a fried cod filet served over fresh shrimp (Jens' default), and the other was smoked herring with rye bread. (That one is Anni showing her west coast roots...)

And the last is a video of Max. He has for sure Danish blood in him - hot dogs (Dk: pølser) have always been a favorite. But the other half of him is for sure American, as he knows exactly how to say French Fries in English.

(Anni says in the background: "Vi har det godt" which means, "Life is Good".)

Summertime!

It's finally summertime for all of us here in the pink box. Morten finished up early this semester since he finished a project last year that gave him credit for a course (the Alzheimers project) and I turned in my 3rd semester nursing exam at the end of June, which means time to relax!
Summertime in Denmark is strawberry season and everyone makes themselves sick on them until the end of August, only our little mouse is allergic to strawberries and doesn't need to eat many before he barfs. But he loves them none the less. So here is a picture of the crime scene: "Max, In the kitchen, with the Strawberry tray." All that remains of the brutally devoured strawberries are their little green heads.

The other two pictures are of a little trip that Max got to take with just daddy to the forrest for one of the days when I was working on my exam. You can see how beautiful Denmark is when the sun is shining and there are leaves on the trees. Here is Max, traipsing through the rough.