Week 13

Well, friends and family, we did it. Three months! That means this will be my last "What we did this week" post. I don't want you to get bored, and I don't want to post just for the sake of posting something. From this point on, the kids and I will just post little one-offs to keep you updated about things that are exciting or cute, or maybe just to say "hey." Don't worry, it will probably still be on a weekly basis. :)

Friday

If you missed my amazing news last week (OK, Lindsey, chill. Amazing is a strong word...), it was my week to bring morgenbrød for the department. I got the card!

This is what "the card" looks like, if you were wondering.

I went to the bakery, Farumhus, before work, stepped up to the counter, and then I just kind of froze. I don't know what kind of bread most people normally bring, I just know it's delicious! Finally, I asked the girl behind the counter what she would bring if she had to supply the morgenbrød. She kindly suggested three loaves for me. I took them all, and then she offered to cut them. Great! I accepted and expected she would just start slicing it manually with a fancy bread knife.

I was wrong.

There is a whole giant precision machine for that job, and it made the most perfect bread slices just like that! So cool. I also spied my favorite wienerstang, and there was only one left, so I quickly asked her to box that one up before anyone else got up to order.

When I got to work, I laid out the table like a pro (although I had to ask someone tall to get the bread baskets down for me).

Yes, Prince and Elvis are in the background. They live in our multi-purpose room by the window.

The wienerstang was amazing (I used a strong word appropriately here) and everyone was pleased with my offering.

At morgenbrød, we got on the subject of using TV shows to learn a language. One of my colleagues suggested that our family watch the old Danish 24-episode series Matador since it's a big part of Danish culture the actors speak very clearly. I asked how I might go about watching it, and another colleague showed me a free TV app, DRTV, that has Danish TV shows on it. The kids section has Bluey and Peppa Pig and Curious George!

I downloaded the app and tried to show the kids later in the evening, but they seemed unimpressed. I ended up watching an episode of Curious George (who is called Peter Pedal in Denmark) pretty much alone. In watching my episode, I did learn that the Danish word for snail (which I knew - snegl) is the same word they use for slug! Also, its worth noting that the only reason I know the word for snail is because Zac loves the kanelsnegl ("cinnamon snail") pastries, which are coiled like a snail shell.

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I got a message from the volleyball coach at the kids' school asking if Khloe would play in the tournament against the other international schools on Saturday. It was pretty short notice, but she wanted to play and there wasn't a spot on the team for her previously. She had fun during their volleyball unit in P.E. and decided she was pretty good at serving for an amateur. Zac was not pleased that I was going to wake him up early on a Saturday and make him drive her to Copenhagen, but Khloe was excited, and Zac didn't grumble too much.

Saturday

We woke up and brushed teeth and loaded Khloe and her sack lunch into the car. The drive to Copenhagen International School was pretty straightforward and uneventful. She saw a friend and ran inside and we barely heard from her the rest of the day! She had a lot of fun and they came in third.

The North Zealand International School volleyball team - Year 8, Team 2

The rest of us had a dinner date at Lene's house in Birkerød. She and her husband wanted to make us a traditional Danish holiday meal. Harrison and Lene's daughter hit it off right away, and even though she's a little older than him, they had a great time playing together. Her English is very good for being so young, and that was very helpful.

Kaden and Lene's son are around the same age, and they played video games and chatted in his room while Zac and I drank beer with our hosts and learned about their home and garden and life in Denmark. Lene's kids played piano for us and we tried different beers and talked about all kinds of things. (Including why Curious George is called Peter Pedal here - "Curious George" doesn't translate cutely into Danish. It sounds lame. In the first book, Curious George rides a tricycle, hence Peter Pedal.)

Before dinner, Khloe's friend's mother drove Khloe to Lene's so she could join us after volleyball. I was so glad she didn't miss it! Dinner was fantastic. We had flæskesteg, a kind of pork roast with a perfectly thick, crispy layer of skin and fat that they pick up and eat like bacon, potatoes (kartofler) with brun sauce (like a gravy), and red cabbage (rødkål), shredded and cooked with honey and vinegar.

There was a homemade ice cream cake for dessert, with a chocolate ice cream layer on the bottom, a raspberry ice cream layer (made with raspberries from their garden) on top, and a chocolate and salted caramel sauce on top.

It was a really delicious meal and we all cleaned our plates. The kids took turn trying out the piano as the adults sat and visited. We talked about travel and art and Danish culture, and when we saw Harrison's eyes drooping, we said our goodbyes. It was a lovely evening.

On the way home, Khloe told us how cool Copenhagen International School was. I told her I had considered sending them to that school when I first started researching the move to Denmark. She was amazed but before she got too carried away, I explained that tuition for three kids there would be around half of our take-home income and there was no way we could afford it. Haha. I was glad she got to go spend some time in the fancy school though.

Sunday

We woke up feeling a little weird, like time wasn't right. Zac asked if it was daylight savings time or something and I just shrugged. We saw that the time our phones didn't match the time on the other clocks, so we Googled it and learned that Daylight Savings Time actually had ended while we slept!

Fun fact: Daylight Savings Time ends earlier in Europe than in the U.S. That's because the U.S. delayed the end of DST by a week in 2007 (and they start it a few weeks earlier). George W. Bush signed the legislation to help with the energy crisis, I guess. There's a rumor that politicians just wanted some extra daylight for Halloween in the U.S. Anyway, it used to screw us up at ALK when sometimes, there is a 9-hour time difference between Post Falls and Hørsholm and sometimes, there is an 8-hour time difference. We always had to be careful scheduling meetings during those weird off-weeks.

Anyway, we fixed our clocks and got on with our Sunday.

The only thing we hadn't unpacked at this point was our books. We had boxes of them just sitting in the basement because we don't have a bookshelf. Well, I did keep my nice office bookshelf, but it's in Kaden's room because it didn't fit in the living room here and he needed some furniture. Anyway, I've been on the lookout for a free or cheap bookshelf that we could stick in the little recess near the fireplace. We actually looked for a nice one at several furniture stores to no avail as well.

Finally, I decided to just go pick up one of the used IKEA shelves people post all the time for free. I found one, measured the space, measured the capabilities of the Passat, messaged the owner, and got the OK to come right away. Khloe and I went out (in the rain, of course, because it's Denmark) and picked it up. Boom. Bookshelf.

I am happy to report that we are now unpacked. Yay!

Harrison was the most pleased. He got several new Lamborghinis when I unpacked.

The parking garage.

Bathrooms, laundry...you know how the rest of Sunday went. Same old song.

Monday

Zac was pleased that, for the first time in many years, he didn't have to go into work and adjust all the clocks for the end of daylight savings time - that's not his job anymore!

Khloe had theater a little earlier than normal and I literally have no idea what else happened Monday.

Tuesday

I think it's kind of cool that Halloween fell into my Week 13 post...spoooooky!

I've been fielding a lot of questions about Danish Halloween, actually, so here's the scoop!

1. The Danes have not always celebrated Halloween. They picked it up from American culture. About 25 years ago, they held some smaller community events and it grew slowly. Word on the street is that they have really only been trick-or-treating and dressing up and stuff for the last 10-15 years, so it's fairly new still and a lot of people don't celebrate it.

2. There are specific rules, and EVERYONE will make sure you know them. It's similar to the U.S., I guess, but I feel like in the U.S., the rules are unwritten and we kind of use them as loose guidelines instead of recognizing that they exist so everyone is respected.

• Rule 1: You trick-or-treat between the hours of 17:30 and 21:00.
• Rule 2: You may only trick-or-treat at someone's house if they have a lit jack-o-lantern (or similar glowing decoration) at the end of their driveway. Porch lights do not mean you're welcome to stop by.
• Rule 3: Drive safely and watch for children in the streets.
• Rule 4: You only knock or ring once. If they don't answer the door, move along.

3. Halloween in Denmark is a scary, horror-filled holiday. You don't dress up like a squirrel or a princess or a doctor. You dress up like a decapitated squirrel that got hit by a car, or a zombie princess, or a skeleton doctor. When you walk up someone's driveway, you are not greeted with cutesy little pumpkins or smiling black kittens wearing witch hats. The decorations are creepy. There are severed limbs sticking out of dirt piles in the torn-up walkways, terrifying dolls slowly rocking on swings hanging from the trees all around you, ghosts blowing in the wind, scary clowns laughing in the distance, graveyards for days...it's all just awesome.

4. The kids are allowed to really dress up at school here. They can wear masks and have face paint and carry plastic weapons. Harrison walked into school with a giant axe sticking out of his little backpack.

5. The candy is unwrapped. Well, not all of it, but greater than 50% of it. There aren't any Costcos here that sell a 20-pound bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Twix bars, just the little plastic bags of gummy candies in the grocery store aisles. Picture those 99-cent bags of peach rings that you'd get at a gas station, but with smaller candies from Germany. Anyway, they just open a bunch of them and dump them into a big bowl. They tell kids to pick out two or three pieces (to eller tre stykker) and they just reach right in. It's actually kind of neat because then they can snack on little pieces of candy as they go and saved the wrapped ones for later.

Harrison had a Halloween party at school. He wore the "Devil Guard" costume he got from Vibe's son, Arthur, when they left the U.S. to move back to Denmark. It has glowing eyes that you can wear beneath the shroud.

Just heading to school. NBD.

He brought home some candy and a cupcake and said, "These are my SWEETS I got at school." Then all afternoon, he found any excuse to work that word into a sentence.

"Kaden, don't touch my sweets."

"I can't wait to eat my sweets later."

"I got so many sweets at school today."

"Mom, I put my sweets up here on the counter."

Later, he said, "Mom. Did you know that's what they call all the candy and cupcakes and stuff here? Sweets? I just love that word. I just want to keep saying it." It was adorable.

Khloe chose to be a sort-of-scary-but-totally-cute clown, so she put on rainbow suspenders and a rainbow bowtie with her clothes and had me paint her face in a way that was not too annoying to have on all day.

Little clown in the rain waiting to cross the road to the bus stop!

Zac and I left work early so we could take the dog to the vet and get his nails trimmed. (I don't want you all to have any delusions about the glamorous European life we lead.) I worked for another couple of hours once we got home because none of the kids seemed to need anything from me...

....until suddenly, they all did.

Kaden decided at the last minute he actually did want to dress up and he wanted me to find a costume for him. You'll all be very proud of me for putting that responsibility back on him. He also wanted to go to Kokkedal to trick-or-treat with his friends from school. He asked for a ride and I directed him to the bus schedule. When he saw how long it would take, he asked to ride his bike, and after he showed us the route, I waffled and Zac gave permission. It was projected to be a 33-minute bike ride. In the dark. In the cold. On a route he's never traveled before. Of course I knew it was good for him and that I should just let him go, but it's hard to unlearn a lifetime of fear that something bad will happen if you let your kid go somewhere alone in the dark.

I painted half of his face to look kind of skeletal and he dressed up like a snowboarder. Skeleton snowboarder? Anyway, he pulled his bike from the shed and I yelled at him to come in and have a picture taken. He complied but really half-assed the pose. :)

His ride was fine, if not a little cold, and he made it in the projected amount of time. He did confess that a crashing ocean wave scared him since he didn't realize he was actually riding along the coast. Haha!

Khloe changed her makeup, this time opting for her own kind of half-dead Hufflepuff look. She put on her Hufflepuff robes and scarf and grabbed a wand and she was all set.

Harrison stayed true to his costume and looked very frightening running around in the dark under the sporadic street lights.

Zac and I threw on some stuff from Halloweens past at the last minute, too. I shaded out my jawline and cheekbones to appear more gaunt and Zac requested some blacked-out eyes and lip lines.

We walked the neighborhood with Khloe and Harrison. The driveways here are long and take you back behind hedges and stuff, so I see why you need to put a lit pumpkin down at the end of them to signify your participation. It also makes every house that much more spooky! Zac was complimented a lot on his costume, whatever it was (half King Diamond, half skeletal undertaker?). We trick-or-treated at a couple of houses with some native English-speakers and saw lots of the neighbors we know.

We had a really fun time in our own neighborhood. We stayed out until we got cold and then headed back in to pass out our own candy. I went to multiple stores just trying to find some in the wrappers, which I now know is not a big deal to people here. I found four little bags, including some Fun Size Snickers. Good thing we didn't get many trick-or-treaters because we didn't have very much candy in our cackling, hollowed-out spell book!

The kids ate most of the unwrapped stuff as we walked, but they had a little haul still when we returned.

Khloe found one of her Danish favorites!

Kaden made the frigid ride home and arrived around 21:45. He and his friends had trick-or-treated in Rungsted at the big fancy houses on the harbor! He took a couple of quick videos to show the cool lighting and fancy cars he saw, and he had a really fun time.

Kaden does a brief narration in which he incorrectly said "Rolls Royce" instead of "Bentley" and would like to apologize for his error.

Of course, at the end of the night, even the creepy folk need to tidy the house...

Fluff that skull pillow, man.

Glædelig Halloween, everyone!

Wednesday

Harrison had a field trip to visit a mosque. He was supposed to go the same day he went to visit the church a couple weeks ago because they were learning about different religions, but it got rescheduled. He said he'll finish his post about the previous trip and then add information about this trip to that same post. Keep waiting. Haha.

Thursday

I had to take Harrison to school in the morning. There was a very big misunderstanding between Kaden and I about his French study group, so he and Khloe left early and I got to hold Harrison's little hand and ride the bus to school with him.

We tried to go to McDonald's to kill time before he is allowed to be at the school on his own without my supervision. I wanted to buy us a hashbrown to share, but the kiosk only showed cheeseburgers and other stuff. So either the McDonald's here doesn't serve breakfast or I got a defective kiosk. The school was calling me about Khloe being tardy though, so I didn't look into it very thoroughly and we just walked out.

Instead, Harrison and I just went to a common area at the school and sat down together. As I walked toward the big project wall, I saw a girl in a portrait and thought, "That kind of looks like Khloe!" I snapped a picture and asked her if it was her self-portrait and she said yes!

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I left work a little bit earlier than I wanted to Thursday because I had signed up for another costuming shift for the theater group. I came home, ate a bowl of cereal, and drove into town. I went to the room where we were supposed to meet and no one was there. None of their stuff was there either, so I decided to walk over to the other building where the basement storage room is located to see if they were just rounding up supplies. Nope.

It was clear to me that either the time or location had changed, or that they had canceled the event for the night and no one told me. I emailed the woman in charge since I didn't have her phone number and sat in the dark on the steps outside waiting for a response. After about 20 minutes, I decided to just leave. On my walk back to the car, she emailed me back and said they were not meeting and she would have told me but she thought I had only been able to participate that one time previously. I emailed her back and said it was fine, but somewhat passive-aggressively added that I was signed up for this night on the Doodle calendar that she asked me to fill out. I haven't heard back.

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OK, that's it for now! We hope everyone had a fun Halloween, whatever you did, and that it's not too frosty where you're at these days. We appreciated all the Halloween cards and it was fun getting to chat with some of you this past week!