Week Five

The weeks are getting a little bit more routine now with school and work, but we are still experiencing a lot of "firsts" and exploring new things.

Friday

I was pleasantly surprised to walk out of the canteen at work and see a table full of cupcakes. They called them vanilla muffins, I think, but they looked delicious. I bought two chocolate, two citron, and one...strawberry? I thought it would be a nice treat for everyone at the end of the week, and they were happy that I brought them home.

I didn't arrange them in a very picture-worthy way, but I'm no pro.

On the first Friday of every month, the DTU Science Park where ALK is located hosts a kind of pop-up bar for the employees of the different businesses. I got an invitation to go with some colleagues to this Fredagsøl (Friday beers), and I decided to join since Vibe was going. It ended up being a really nice time! One of our colleagues, Lotte, offered me a ride, so we had a nice chat on our way over and got to know each other a little better. Vibe rode her bike from work to meet us. We bought beers at the counter, MobilePayed, and carried them outside to find a table. We picked a nice one outside in the sun - the weather was beautiful! We all thought the beer was good (a little warm) and we enjoyed the free crispy snack foods they left out on the tables for us. They had music and yard games, and several people cycled through after their work day for a beer. Caroline joined us for a beer (and a group selfie), too! 

(Left to right) Lotte, Lindsey, Vibe, and Caroline

My officemate, Thomas, has been offering to lend us his smaller car since I arrived because he likes to bike to work. We still had Jacob and Christina's VW, but since we were going to give that back over the weekend, Thomas very kindly drove his car to work so he could drop it off at our house on the way home - we were a two-car family for two days!

After-school activities are starting up at the kids' school, and one of the popular things is Friday Football (or "soccer" to us Americans). Khloe and Harrison both wanted to give it a try, so they stayed after school to join other kids from their grade levels in a soccer practice. Khloe enjoyed herself a lot and decided she wants me to sign her up. Harrison was a little on the fence.

In the evening, Zac came up with a fun time-trial loop for him and Kaden to compete on using the mountain bike. They took off from the back terrace, rode straight down the steps from the terrace along the back of the house, made the righthand switchback at the fence line, rode hard across the garden, out the side gate, up the neighbors' driveway, then took the road in front of our house to the stone steps in front, took a right at the bottom of the steps to head back to the neighbors' driveway, repeated the track on the road down the front steps, took a left to go around the side of the house, then rode down the rock steps that lead from the back of the house into the garden, and stopped when they passed the big chestnut tree.

They each got three tries, and they took their best out of three. Zac won by 2.3 seconds, and they both had a good time.

Later, when we were calming down for bedtime, I heard Harrison (very sweetly) lecture Khloe about a reaction she had to something. He told her she should try to react in a more positive way. This was a very strange thing to hear from Harrison given his propensity for tantrums, so I asked him about it. He said:

"My teacher taught me not to react negatively. We're supposed to react in a positive way. So like, if someone pushed you on the playground, how would you react? Negatively, or positively?"

I'm actually really impressed with the kids' school. Every day, they have a period of social/health/emotional education, and I think that's wonderful. The younger kids are learning to have more positive reactions to situations, and the older kids are learning about dealing with romantic relationships, digital citizenship, and entering the workforce.

After the kids were in bed, Zac and I had to sit down and DocuSign a bunch of documents related to the sale of our house. We try to fly through it, but it's still a lot of work. We also try not to think about it, because we loved our home so much, and living in someone else's home without all of our things is just not the same. I know we'll be more comfortable when our shipping container arrives, but it's a big adjustment.

Oh, Zac learned the Danish word for cucumber (agurk) and he thinks it's just the best. He has imagined an entire Instagram page filled with the adventures of Agurk the Cucumber in Denmark. He sent me this "artsy" picture of Agurk laying on the floor of the kitchen.

Saturday

We took everyone into Birkerød Bymidte (city center) so we could get Zac and Kaden haircuts and buy some bike accessories. Bikes are an incredibly popular way to get around in Denmark, and we were fortunate to have Jacob round up some second-hand bikes from colleagues at work. He fixed them up and has delivered four of the five so far. You are required to have a bell (which you ring to alert other bikers or pedestrians that you're passing on the left...or to tell foreigners to look out because they're standing cluelessly in the bike lane...) and lights on the front and back if you ride between dusk and dawn. We were missing a bell and a couple of lights, but we have two bike shops in town and it was easy to find what we needed. We also got Harrison a helmet - his was pretty beat up in the U.S. and we just got rid of it instead of shipping it here with everyone else's.

As I mentioned, one of our main objectives was to get haircuts for Zac and Kaden. They had gone a few weeks ago, but since the barber only accepted kroner or MobilePay, Zac was out of luck. With me and my MobilePay capabilities, they were finally able to get trimmed up.

Look at that handsome guy!

While Zac and Kaden were at the barber, I took Harrison and Khloe to buy a few school supplies the kids were still missing and browse the secondhand stores. We didn't find much, but Harrison saw a bin of Hot Wheels and I could tell how much he's been missing his toys. They're coming, I swear!!

Since we didn't find anything to keep us engaged in the secondhand stores too long, we just started wandering around the outdoor activity areas. Every town center has various things to keep kids busy and active. Harrison enjoyed this twisty memory game and running around on the balance beams for a bit.

When Zac and Kaden were all finished, we walked to the park nearby. It's so great!

There are irregular climbing walls, balance beams, and ropes to walk across. There's a big swing and all these "training" activities you can do to get a good cardio workout. You don't need to join a gym here...just go to the playground!

Zac and Kaden had a pull-up contest. Kaden always wins those.

Khloe has been asking me to take her to a mall to shop for some clothes, so we went home to drop off the guys and then I took her into Hørsholm Midtpunkt so she could shop at H&M. She found some clothes and makeup, we browsed a few other stores for fun, and then we started making our way to the bus stop. We were surprised to find that an entire community event had sprung up while we were in the mall!

We could hear a band playing "Hey Jude" as we walked toward the Hørsholm town center and Danish flags were strung up between the buildings. Food vendors and a beer cart were set up across from the stage, and everyone was singing and waving their cups in the air. It was so fun to see! They had floor hockey rinks set up for the kids, craft booths, and fun activities outside some of the stores. Saturday community gatherings seem super fun around here.

Zac made Tuscan chicken pasta for dinner with some bread that I picked up at Farumhus (the bakery). Right before we ate, Khoe was outside petting Marabel and found a tick embedded behind her ear. Dang these animals and their blood-sucking parasites!

Amanda had arrived in Copenhagen earlier in the day and Vibe picked her up at the train station. They went to dinner with Vibe's kids, so we invited them over for a bonfire and s'mores. They ended up getting delayed and didn't show up until after 21:00, but Zac expertly kept the fire going until they arrived.

Zac took a break from tending his fire to relax on the big swing.

While we waited for everyone to show up, Khloe and Harrison drew with the chalk Zac bought them at the store - Khloe has been working on perfecting her sea creatures.

Amanda, Vibe, Malte (Vibe's middle son), Lukas (Vibe's oldest son), and Malte's girlfriend, Isabella (sp?) came to hang out by the fire and chat for a couple of hours. It was a good fire and it was a fun group. Zac talked to Lukas about his upcoming driver's test, I chatted with Malte and Isabella about music and unicycles. The kids played, and Amanda and Vibe and I just sat around the fire enjoying the evening.

Blaze (Vibe's dog) and Han wouldn't leave the bushes alone so we guessed there was an animal along the hedges. Vibe went to investigate and found a hedgehog!

A little garden friend.

Sunday

Amanda had brought a couple boxes of raspberry Pop Tarts with her from the U.S. for the kids, and Harrison was excited to eat them for breakfast. He's assimilating though...he ate them with a fork! We've been trying to teach the kids good etiquette, as people in Europe usually eat with a knife and a fork. Hamburgers, sandwiches, etc. are all eaten politely with a knife and fork, and we've been working with the kids. I'm glad they're listening, but I think Pop Tarts will always be a finger food.

We had to return Jacob and Christina's car now that they were back from Italy, so we stopped by a fueling station to see if we could figure out how to put gas in a Danish car.

Spoiler: It's not super different.

We did make an Important note that the green handle indicates gasoline and the black handle indicates diesel, which is opposite the fuel color scheme used in the U.S. We'll need to be careful until we get used to that!

Fuel pump handles - green is NOT diesel.

The fuel pumps are basically set up the same as they are in the U.S., but they don't have payment kiosks at each individual pump - the payment center is at the end of the bank, so you have to enter your card info and select the pump you're on. Not too difficult, but it's just kind of intimidating when you do something in a different country for the first time.

Fuel pump with a yellow payment kiosk at the end of the bank of pumps.

We paid 472 kroner (about $68 USD) for 32.38 L (8.55 gallons) of fuel. So almost $8/gallon. Good thing the cars are so fuel efficient here!

Zac did great on his first driving trip into Copenhagen (he had a respectable co-pilot). Jacob and Christina invited us into their home to visit and see the new office/workspace they've been remodeling and hear all about their trip to Italy. They are such warm and welcoming people. We are always grateful for our visits with them. Khloe likes to take pictures of their art pieces as inspiration for her own art.

On our way home, we got a picture from Kaden of Marabel. She had caught a mouse outside and brought it in to kill.

Marabel's catch of the day.

We asked him to put the dead mouse in a plastic bag and throw it out in the trash, but by the time we finished typing our request to him, he reported back that she had eaten the entire thing in front of him, crunching up the bones and leaving a bloody smear on the floor. Why do we have pets again?

All gone!

Poor Kaden was left to disinfect the floor and throw the cat outside to clean herself up. Animals are gross. I guess at least she's controlling the rodent population around the house, right?

Back at home, we decided to order pizza for dinner from a pizza place in town. We have to try them all to find our favorite! I figured out we could order online, but it was kind of weird because they didn't just have a few specialties and then a build-your-own option, they had about 70 different combinations of toppings (in Danish) for me to read through.

I used it as an opportunity to learn some food-related vocabulary words. I read every list of ingredients aloud, then looked up the words I didn't know, then repeated them with every subsequent pizza description to solidify them a little more. I can't say them all, and I probably couldn't recall them all if you asked me, but I have much better recognition for things like cheese, mussels, prawns, meatballs, onions, green peppers, garlic oil, and more. Progress.

The pizza was only OK...Vibe had warned us, but we needed to know for ourselves. And now we do!

Signing Zac and I up for Danish lessons is something that's been on my to-do list since we got here, but it always kind of gets down-graded since it's not critical. People ask every day at work when we are going to start though, so I looked into it. A colleague had suggested private lessons through a company called KISS because they focus a lot on proper pronunciation and formation of the sounds, plus the lessons are completed in about half the time as the government lessons take. I got a quote and found out it would be like 75,000 kroner for each of us (that's over $10K USD!), so I checked out the government lessons, too.

Both private and government lessons require attendance in Copenhagen two days a week. The government lessons are about 2 hours each and the private ones are about 3.5 hours each. The commute to Copenhagen is about an hour each way, so either way we go, it's a ton of our time, and it means that for 1-2 years, the kids are basically on their own for dinner and bedtime two nights a week. Not great options. TBD.

Monday

It was Kaden's 14th birthday! In the United States, Monday was the Labor Day holiday, so we would've been off work and the kids would not have started school yet. Unfortunately, in Denmark, Monday was just another normal day.

We still tried to make it special, so Khloe, Harrison, and I woke Kaden up with a heartfelt Happy Birthday song. The nice thing was that we did it together and joyfully. The bummer was that we got the time wrong and Kaden didn't actually have to wake up for like another 30-45 minutes. When he came upstairs, I washed a plate (we don't have very many right since our things aren't here yet), put two Pop Tarts on it, and stuck a Danish flag in the top. Birthday breakfast!

He was a good sport and ate his sub-par breakfast happily. He even let me take a birthday photo.

Kaden is 14!

Kaden had a good day at school, and in the evening, Zac prepared some chicken nuggets and made homemade mac and cheese with salad for our dinner (Kaden's request). He wanted to go in with us on a nice mountain bike for his birthday, and we had looked at a few, but the right one hadn't materialized, so it felt like kind of a bummer to not have a gift for him. A friend at school had given him some super-strong mints in a cool dispenser and some birthday money, so that was really nice and we made our peace with no gift-opening at home.

Zac bought him a chokoladekage (chocolate cake) at the local bakery (we don't have the right baking supplies until our shipping container arrives, and the flour and everything is different here, so baking isn't really happening at this point) and we served it up after dinner with some sød mælk (sweet milk).

Our plan was to let Kaden pick a movie on Netflix after cake time and then we would stay up late and watch it as a family. The wi-fi wouldn't connect on the TV though, so we had to come up with a Plan B.

We don't have any games or cards or anything yet (shipping container...), so I downloaded Heads Up! on my phone in an attempt to kind of rescue the day. It's a game that can be like Taboo or charades, depending on which card pack you select. Harrison chose the miming one, so things or actions would pop up on the screen, the guesser would hold the screen facing outward on their forehead so everyone else could see, and one of us would act out the thing on the screen. You have a minute to get as many as you can.

I couldn't take pictures of our game because my phone was both the game and my camera.

We didn't really keep score or keep track of whose turn it was to do which thing, but we had a blast. Everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves, and that's all you can really hope for on a birthday.

That morning, I rode the bus up to the school with the kids so I could sign up Harrison for after school care on Mondays and sign Khloe up for Friday Football. I ended up being there waaaaaaay longer than I expected and was pretty late for work. Fortunately, at this point, I still have a lot of flexibility in my hours, so I don't think it was a big deal. I used the time to finish binging the book I was reading.

In Post Falls, my director was Travis, and several years ago, he had come to work in Denmark for a year on an outplacement. He brought his family and most of his kids (one went to college...he didn't, like, abandon one of them in the U.S. or anything). His wife, Kim, has been writing a book about their time in Denmark, and I was able to download it with a Kindle app on my phone.

It was so fun to read.

Kim kept really good track of the experiences they had, the struggles, the moments that stood out, and all kinds of great details about their time in Denmark. She organized it in to a really engaging book. I really enjoyed seeing that we had so many shared experiences already, and it was good to see how much it helped her kids grow and become the capable humans they are today. I started it maybe Friday and finished it as I walked from the bus stop into work. I highly recommend it if you're looking for an easy, heartfelt, non-fiction book to devour.

Tuesday

Do you know what makes parents happy AF? Getting a glowing review from your kid's teacher after weeks of struggling with behavioral issues. I'm sure I mentioned it in a previous post, but Kaden didn't get off to a great start in a couple of his classes. He was being disruptive and disrespectful to the teachers, and it was a lot to handle on top of the other moving logistics.

I had several phone calls with the school, meetings with teachers and staff, and talks with Kaden himself. After running through some root-cause analysis Keppner-Tragoe-style, we at least learned that he struggles to focus through classes that don't have a tactile learning aspect. Beyond that, I think it was just an attitude or self-confidence issue that only he could overcome.

Another excellent thing about the kids' school is that they have restorative process for behavior modification. They don't punish the kids, they work with them to figure out what's going on and then work together with the kid and the parents to turn it around. Everyone is always in the loop, and it's all designed to keep the kid in class where they belong - no expulsion or detention or suspension. Just love and problem-solving.

So anyway, his math teacher sent me an email and it was positive. She talked about how she had seen an improvement in his focus, he's no longer being distracting or disrespectful or talking out of turn, and she's very pleased with his work. PHEW!!

Amanda came to work, so I got to see her. I tried to help her find her scheduled meeting room and only made one navigational error. We found it on the second try.

In the evening, Zac and I went for a walk up Høsterkøbvej (it's the namesake of our bus stop and Zac drove up there the other day and said it was cool). The street is across from our house and it goes up a hill so you can't see too much of it from below. When Zac and I started walking up the road, we noticed a parking lot, but there was no trail or attraction or storefront or anything associated with it, just a few benches and picnic tables. We saw all kinds of cars driving up and just parking. We were confused until we turned around and saw the view. It's a really great place to watch the sun set over the lake and the forest.

We continued on up the road. It narrows to a single lane with pull-outs so two cars can pass each other slowly. There are also a lot of speed humps in the road to keep traffic from moving too fast in that area. We saw amazing old thatched-roof houses, beautiful gardens, and picturesque ponds. Zac found an entire hedgerow of hops!

There was a beautiful monastery and some fancy horse stables. These horses have a nicer house than some people!

The walk was one of my favorite things we've done here so far. There was always something incredible to look at. I loved the old, moss-covered rock walls lining the edge of the forest, and across from the stables, there is even an entrance to a public forest trail that goes all the way to Holte. We'll have to go hike that one of these days soon, too.

There are so many indescribable places here. It's so fun exploring on foot and stopping to admire architecture, natural formations, and foliage.

Wednesday

Amanda and Peter had been staying at Vibe's and a hotel for the first few nights they were around, but on Wednesday, they came to stay with us for three nights!

Vibe dropped off Peter and the luggage Wednesday morning after taking Amanda to work. He and Zac spent the day together hanging out and grocery shopping. Zac worked from home after that and Peter went out photographing insects.

At work, I bought a loaf of delicious bread for dinner - Zac made a Bolognese pasta and I made a salad and baked up the bread with garlic butter. We also went into town and picked up our first Too Good to Go order at the bakery - the app is designed to reduce food waste, so you can sign up at restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, etc. to get a mystery bag of things that they can't keep to sell but aren't really garbage. The bakery is the best place to make use of this service, in my opinion, but that's because I love bread. :)

Our bag contained a loaf of rye bread with seeds and grains on top, some kind of other Italian seeded loaf, 3 raisin buns (we thought they were chocolate chip and were kind of disappointed), a normal bun, a flaky bun with a glaze inside, and a mini twisted poppyseed/sesame seed flaky pastry. It was pretty much what I had hoped for, since I had really just wanted to score some kind of breakfast-y rolls, buns, or pastries for us to share with our guests in the morning. Once we finish all of this bread, I'll definitely get another bag. It was only like $7 USD for all of that!

Thursday

I got to ride the bus to work with Amanda! That was fun. She was here taking an allergy course, so we didn't really get to see each other during the day. When we got done with work, she wanted to walk home, and I was happy to join her. It was a little dicey crossing the round-about at rush hour, but other than that, the walk was really pleasant.

Peter had a good day wandering around and taking pictures again, and Zac got his residence/work visa and yellow health card in the mail, which is great news. We are now both covered under Danish public healthcare. Sorry kids. You're not. (Don't worry - they still have insurance through Zac with ALK-PF for a while.)

We all went to dinner at Cafe Alex in Birkerød. Even though we have a car right now, we had to take the bus because there was no way we were all fitting in that vehicle. We didn't get to sit outside, but It was still a pretty nice place to have a draft beer and eat a burger. We mostly all tried something different and left full.

* * *

It was a fun week with lots of good walks and good company! Positive changes at school, moving forward with immigration stuff, and figure out more and more all the time. We still aren't speaking Danish, but maybe we'll at least be signed up for classes soon. We miss you all!!!