Morten's Summer Project

Here are some pictures from the start of Morten's summer project: working on his parents backyard. Their fence was completely rotten, so Morten tore the whole mess down, built a new one, and painted it. (Finished product in background of picture with Max).

In the process, he discovered that the shed was also rotten, so he tore that down, too, and built a little deck instead so that his folks could enjoy both sun and shade in two different locations in the backyard. The Danes are mega-sun-worshippers. You live here about 20 minutes and you'll understand why.... So, being able to suck every drop out of the long summer evenings is a huge benefit. They bought all new lawn furniture and really dolled up the joint.

Then Morten built a new, smaller shed in the other corner of the yard that won't take up as much room and looks much more integrated into the new wooden fence. He also painted his parents bedroom, which needed it badly.
He also painted all the wood on the house (it's a brick house, but there are wooden planks here and there), and organized it with his uncle Olav (who owns a metalworking firm) to make zink details for the doors and windows.

Morten is also painting his parents living room this weekend, and they will be getting new wood floors soon after, as well as new fancy-pants bookshelves. They have had to live with the basics for 30 years, and have finally decided to enjoy their own money. (Morten says he will be mad at them if they die with a full bank account. ) It looks great!

New "Stuff"

As our summer winds down, thought we'd update our blog with all the cool newness we got this summer (or around that time).

First and most important is, of course, little brother. We found out at the scanning that Max will be big brother to a little boy! Max tells everyone that he is getting a little sister, but we don't know if that is because he is confused or because he is 2 and likes to do and say the opposite of what we tell him. Either way, he seems clear that there is a baby in my belly (and milk in the other two bumps he has also become increasingly aware of).

The hair is new, too. Mommy needed something a little less heavy and a lot easier. So, yep... it's shorter.

Next on the list is Max's new room! Morten has been a busy, busy bee all summer. As you can see from the other posts, he has been working non-stop on his parents garden, fence, terrace and shed. When I wrangled him here at home, I had him working as well. And this is the lovely product - a cool new Lightning McQueen room in Dinaco Blue with Lightning, Sally and Mater decals and borders. (What, you don't know who I'm talking about? Seriously? I've seen Cars appx. 138,583,479,383,793 times.... I could quote it line for line). Morten painted the changing table, built a bed for Max and we got a new dresser to put all the baby stuff so there is room for the two boys. Max loves it and stands on his bed to "pet" Lightning. Mommy loves that it is clean and color coordinated!

Hoping to upload a picture of our new car (with us in it, as proof that we actually own it). But until then, will have to suffice with an online pic of, what Max calls "min blå bil" (Danish - MY blue car)

Leg 3 of Vacation - Aunt Ruth

The final leg of our journey took us back to Copenhagen where Moster Ruth (Mother's sister Ruth) lives. The weather began to cool off a bit and we got poured on with rain - which was most welcome for me. After having been outside in the glorious sunshine for almost 2 weeks straight, our skin needed the moisture. Think the farmers were glad for it, too... So we stayed indoors and took Max on a trip to Denmarks Aquarium. It's an older aquarium, but is well laid-out with lots of info about the local sea life, as well as some pretty tropical aquariums, sharks, and rays. They also had a pretty decent touch pool for the kiddos. Max is used to picking up just about everything at the beach, (that's his biology minor mommy's fault), so he found it difficult to keep all the starfish, urchins, shrimp, snails and baby flounders in the water, but was just as careful as he could be with them. He also has a pretty good idea about which critters you can eat (which is actually alot!) and those you can't. Here he is touching a big crab - an event he still likes to talk about.

We took a drive along the coast one day as well, and stopped along a remote little bird sanctuary to fish for burning jelly fish. Max now knows that the red ones are not for touching since Mommy and Daddy must have told him 1000 times. So when he sees them now in books, he says "Those red ones burn!" Good boy.

And the last pic is of Max, just crashed out on Aunt Ruth's dining room chair. At this time, it was about 5 pm and he hadn't wanted to take a nap earlier in the day, so we thought we'd let him try and hang on until 7ish. Didn't work - but it made a good picture, for sure.

Leg 2 of Vacation - Summer Camp

After our lovely visit with Inge, we drove out to Calvary Chapel's Summer Camp on the island of Sjælland. We had a wonderful time visiting with old friends and making new ones, as well as hearing some great teaching from the Bible. We can definetely recommend the camp and look forward to it every year now as a well-needed retreat.
There were many other kids, several of whom Max knows from Aarhus, like Jasmine and Jonas, so he got to play all day, every day in the wonderful weather. And of course, all the grown-ups who know Max covered him with hugs and kisses, kicked the ball around with him and generally took turns looking out for him. Here he is with Theis' sister, Sarah, who just seemed to be in her element around the kids or generally doing anything fun or silly.
There were also 3 women who drove all the way up from Germany just to take care of kids for the week, so Max had his own personal nanny - Wendy. She was a mix of Scottish and German, but spoke American English as she had lived in the States for awhile. Wendy made it possible for us to be a part of the meetings and relax. We LOVE Wendy! Here is a picture of her with all the daycare workers and the older kids (the little guys were sleeping, I think). She is the one to the far right in the light blue zip-up sweatshirt. Sorry, Wendy, that I chose that picture... it was just too cute.

If you're interested to see more pictures from our fun trip, or to read about the conference, check out their website at http://www.calvaryscandinavia.blogspot.com/.

Leg 1 of Vacation - Aunt Inge

We've all just gotten home from 2 weeks of travel, visiting family all around in Denmark in our new car. First stop: Faster Inge (Father's sister Inge). She lives on an island located right under Sjælland called Falster. This island is connected by bridge to another large island called Lolland, so the two are often considered as one: Lolland-Falster. On the island of Lolland, there is a large animal safari park called Knutenborg, where you can drive through with your car and see lots of African and Asian animals. The zebras were one of the highlights of our trip, as they led an entire caravan of giraffes, gazelles and long-horned african cows right in front of our car. We had gorgeous weather, so Max really got to get a great glimpse of the animals. They also had an amusement park, with a train and ice-cream booths. So, we all had a wonderful time with Inge.

We also got to see Inge's new apartment and took a daytrip into town for a new pair of clogs (see picture for explanation) and (again...)ice-cream.

Before we drove out of town, we took flowers to Morten's grandparents gravesite. (Father's side). Max wanted to know who lived in these odd little enclosures and immediately took to playing cars on grandma and grandpa's plot. Daddy showed him how to water the plants and told him a little bit about "Oldemor og Oldefar" - Great gramma and grampa Mølgaard.