Calling it "home"

I walked to the store today. And the entire time I shopped, I had to fight my Costco-consumer habits and remember that I would be carrying home everything I bought. I did pretty well. I spent 230DKK and it almost all fit in my backpack. (Divide the Danish Kroner [DKK] amount by 5 and you've basically got the US dollar equivalent.) As I walked home with a heavy backpack and a few boxes in my arms, I realized I should write a little about our day to day life in Denmark.

Our Denmark home

Trav's Sunday morning pancakes got even
better once we figured out how to find
baking powder at the store.

Our home here is wonderful! We're so grateful for it and so pleased by how quickly it felt homey. We live at the end of a quiet, little street but with a trampoline in the yard and a bunch of rowdy American kids, we've quickly changed that. We love having a yard flat enough for a trampoline and swing set, and big enough for a small soccer game. We were surprised to find blackberries, an apple tree, and an Italian plum tree all in the yard! The weather and climate here remind us a lot of when we lived in Oregon. I suppose it makes sense because we're surrounded by the sea so it's humid, and it rains off and on. There's also tons of slugs and snails. I didn't realize Ben had an issue with being totally grossed out by slugs. (Thank heavens snails don't seem to bother him!) He came inside the other day and announced to me that a slug was "charging" him. I laughed and laughed while I tried picturing what that would even look like! We also have lots of red squirrels here--something I've never seen before, and owls and doves that sound so pretty.The rental company made the inside of our house fun by giving it some personal touches, like the American pillow on the couch, and by making the kids' bedding and decoration colors unique in each bedroom.The style of                                                                           everything is very Scandinavian-like, so it's kindof a fun change.

I love these straw roofs on some
of the neighboring houses.

One particularly photogenic snail :)

I

Denmark is a trail runner's dream! This beautiful trail is right across the street from our neighborhood. I run here often to offset my visits to the bakery, and Maurie takes this trail to soccer practice.  Trails are everywhere here and used regularly both for exercise and bike transportation.

Some things never change :)

The kids are having a blast with the trampoline!
Who knew having a yard could be so much fun!

A little chill time.

Finding a yummy pre-church snack at the blackberry bushes.

Maurie at Birkerod Gymnasium

The kids are into their third week of school now. Maurie goes to a public high school ("gymnasium") in a nearby city called Birkerod. I think she's so brave. Her school has over 1,000 students from the ages of 15 to 20. She's the only American and the only one who doesn't speak more than one language. Her's is an International Baccelaureate school so everything is taught in English, and she is in the pre-IB year--which means she's like a freshman, again. :) The school is run more like a college than a high school in the US. The kids have a LOT more freedom. Maurie's class schedule changes every day and when she starts late, ends early, or has no class in the middle she can just leave. She loves that aspect and will probably feel smothered when she goes back to Timberlake High School. Getting to and from school is a combination of walking and riding two city buses. It takes her about 50 minutes each way. A little irony with her history class...she expected to study European history and thought that sounded nice, something different. The first day of class, however, the teacher announced that she had a nice surprise for everyone. She explained that they would get to study a historical topic that most have never learned: the American Revolution. (haha!) Her history book is titled "England and the Colonies," so class discussion should give a new perspective on the entire event. The teacher asked if anyone had ever learned about this before and only Maurie raised her hand. Poor Maurie! She got it in Civics class, now this year in Denmark, and her Junior year in the US will require US history again. She should be quite an expert on all perspectives of the subject. Besides history, Maurie has classes of English, math, biology and chemistry, art, PE, natural sciences, and Danish. Overall, Maurie likes school but deeply misses her friends, a smoke-free school environment, and what is comfortable--we all do.

Grant in front of school

Jared, Grant, and Ben all attend the same school in a nearby city called Horsholm. Theirs' is an international school, so also full of students from all over the world. To get to and from school, they walk about 10 minutes to a bus stop, ride a city bus for 15 minutes, then walk another five minutes to the school. They're managing very well and love having their own very official-looking bus passes. Adults in Denmark are called by their first names, so the kids' teachers are Pete, Leva, and Derek. They have classes in math, English, science, art, music, PE, French, and Danish. Their school takes the students on a lot of trips that correlate with topics they're studying, so it will be fun to see where they go and what they learn throughout the year. (Jared's class already took a class trip to Tivoli, which is an amusement park in the middle of Copenhagen. I'm pretty sure it served no academic purpose but Jared, being the amusement park lover that he is, had no complaints.) I'm actually excited for the kids to have this international school experience. Playing on the playground with kids from Russia, Lithuania, Argentina, South Africa, and etc., and having class discussions on cultures and other global topics will be so educational for them! Besides, Jared enjoys the attention when the girls ask him to say something in his 'American accent.'

Ben and Grant love the school playground. There isn't much of a grassy area, but they love the creative slides, rope ladders, and other play structures built from logs. Jared has breaks outside, too, and usually plays "Cheese," a game like 4-square but played with a soccer ball and only your feet and head. 

Travis is enjoying his new position. Unlike his Post Falls position where he was the Director of Production and so managed teams within the production department, he is now a Senior Project Manager in the Supply Chain department. This means he only manages himself and his own projects. He says he'll enjoy the differences for the year, but misses some of what he was doing before. Specifically, he was brought here to help streamline the three phases of production (Post Falls, Copenhagen, and London). He will also be working as a point of contact with Merck, who is distributing their product in the US. He misses his private, quiet office space in Post Falls, but is getting used to tuning out the extra noises in the shared work space in his "office" here. Four people use a shared office here but he says the talking doesn't distract him because it's pretty easy to tune out Danish. :) Two highlights of his job here compared to that in Post Falls: 1. he rides the same bus as the boys every morning and loves the extra hangout time with them, and 2. the company provides a really nice onsite lunch every day.

Inspired by Studio C's "Grocery Bag:"
'I don't do more than one trip.'

Keeping food in the house has continued to be a project but is getting much better! I have found a few more familiar items in the stores and have gotten a few more meals figured out. I even had a break through this week and made oatmeal cookies! We've also discovered some delicious granola cereals and, of course, the bakery breads and pasteries are fantastic! The foods we can't get here are probably less food and more comfort (like White Cheddar Cheeze-Its, for example, which Maurie's not sure she can live without) so I think we'll be just fine.

We tried this picture five times but it was too bright out to ever get all our eyes opened at the same time!

Going to church is always a highlight of the week. Our ward members are so welcoming and work so hard to translate for us and help us feel comfortable. The church building is about 20 minutes away. (Interesting information: there are 2 stakes in Denmark and all of Denmark is about the population of Seattle, WA.) We, along with a handful of other non-Danes, wear headsets during sacrament meeting while one of the ward members translates into the headsets via a microphone. For the most part, this works well and we feel like we're getting everything. Last week, however, the translator had to pass the microphone to another lady because the speaker was Swedish and using too many Swedish words intermixed with the Danish for the first translator to understand. (I'll never stop being intrigued by the languages we're surrounded by here.) After sacrament meeting, Grant and Ben go together to Primary classes where one of the six missionaries in the ward translates for them. It's fun to have them learning songs in Danish, though! During Sunday School, Maurie, Jared, Travis, and I attend an English gospel doctrine class together.The mission president's family, another American couple, and the occasional visitor also attend this class with us. It's really neat to be in a small group gospel discussion with my bigger kids. Trav and I are enjoying it a lot! During the third hour, we separate into our different classes and some kind Dane sits next to us and translates the lesson for each of us. The ward members have really been so accommodating and outgoing toward us. It's been a big part of our feeling comfortable here. In fact, in and out of church we have met so many kind, good people. Another testament that there are wonderful people all over the world, in every land and in every culture.

Time with Kyle

We drove Kyle to the airport this morning for an early flight to Paris and then on to Salt Lake City. I can hardly believe this moment finally came! I miss him already. He's been a fun part of our getting settled into Denmark. He's been eager for every new "foreign" experience, and really made the most of his few weeks here. He's been to the Temple twice, explored multiple running trails around our house, gotten involved with the young single adult group from church, gone to mutual activities, explored Copenhagen, played some soccer with the locals, and probably learned more Danish than the rest of us put together! I'm sure he will just as eagerly grab onto his BYU experience. I'm thrilled for him to be going and can't wait to exchange adventure stories with him. But he will be missed here in Denmark.

Roskilde Domkirke

Kyle has also been a really fun traveling buddy for me when Trav and the other kids have been busy at work and school. Last week he and I went to the nearby city, Roskilde, which was once the capital of Denmark and a huge Viking city before that. We went to the Roskilde Domkirke, which is an enormous brick church built around 1250. It was impressive for its size and gothic architecture. I'm not sure if it's still used as a church or not, though, as it has now been turned into a museum of the ornate coffins of 38 monarchs. (Thought we were visitng a church, not a morgue, so not exactly what we expected.) Interesting to note that one section was blocked off for construction--they are building the coffin room for the current queen of Denmark.

Streets of Roskilde

Outside the bakery

After touring the Domkirke, Kyle and I lightened the mood with a walk through a charming street of shops...and a treat from the local bakery. (The street signs that have the symbol of a pretzel with a crown on top--meaning 'bakery'--have become a bit of a beacon to me.)







The highlight of Roskilde was our visit to the Viking Ship Museum and our walk around the nearby park. It was really interesting to learn some of the local history about the vikings. I realized that I had known very little about them and the era of the vikings in general. The museum houses remains of five actual viking ships. They were discovered at the bottom of the sea in the 1950s. They date back to around 800-1000 a.d. Experts figure the ships were filled with rocks and intentionally sunk at the mouth of the bay into Roskilde. It must have been an attempt to defend against viking attacks from more northern tribes.

A reconstructed viking ship complete with comfy benches. This was a battle ship for the vikings and used to pillage ports throughout the North Sea. The Vikings were known as the pirates of their time.

This ship is the real deal. Pretty good condition for being under water for 900 years! This is a smaller ship than those used as a model for the reconstruction in the above photo.

By the end of our day, we had walked a lot and read a lot of plaques. We were tired. A history buff and a goof, however, Kyle turned proved to keep things exciting.

Like a cherry on top of our fun day, Trav, Kyle, and I went to the Copenhagen Temple together. It was wonderful! The session was in English, so it felt like home in more ways than one. It was such a blessing to be there together! Maurie, Kyle, and Jared were also able to go the previous week for their first mutual activity. It's so great to have the Temple only 25 minutes from our house!

The adventure has begun!

All buckled in for 9 hours to Amsterdam!

On the 8^th of August, 2014, we made a spectacle of ourselves as we left our home in Rathdrum, Idaho, bound for Copenhagen, Denmark with 27 bags and 7 people. We flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where we spent our last American money on Subway sandwiches and boarded a flight to Amsterdam. Exhausted when we got off the plane, we sat at tables set inside of HUGE Holland-style teacups at “The Dutch Kitchen,” eating half-dollar sized pancakes (LOTS of them) and listening to people walk by speaking languages from all around the world. Two hours later, we landed in the Copenhagen airport and managed to find our way to our new home in Trørød, Denmark (just North of Copenhagen).

At the shore 4 km from our home

The first week after arriving was like living in a fog of jetlag and wondering what on earth we'd gotten ourselves into. There was so much to figure out--residence cards at government agencies, bus passes and bus navigation (Kyle made an adventurous solo trip into the center of Copenhagen and actually returned alive!), the first days of school for the kids, how to pay for parking, how to get to church, getting cell phones with Danish SIM cards, and how to find recognizable food. Figuring out what to eat has been a BIG deal! I have been to a grocery store everyday except Sunday and we still have an almost empty pantry! I thought poor Grant was going to pack up and go home after one particularly hard to swallow breakfast of something like raw oatmeal mixed with dried fruit and nuts. Our storage room full of Honey Bunches of Oats, Life, and Lucky Charms is a distant memory for my poor cold cereal-loving boys! We're finally getting to know our way around the food stores, though. The translation app on my phone has saved me! And I now know how to make about 4 dinners successfully. Maybe eventually I'll work my way up to making a different meal each day of the week. :) I think it's funny I brought my recipe binder full of recipes requiring ingredients like Cream of Mushroom Soup, Chicken Broth, and etc...when none of those exist in Denmark! However, for those of you who made fun of my packing tons of ziploc bags, I couldn't be happier with that decision. Now, if only I'd brought more peanut butter, mac & cheese, etc.

The people we've met here have such international backgrounds it's crazy! We've met people from Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Poland, Austria, France, London, and Argentina--to name a few. Most people speak several languages and have lived in multiple countries. In fact, I've met people from so many different countries that when I recently met our next door neighbor I felt the need to ask her if she is Danish! What a ridiculous question when living in Denmark! But I promise it made sense based on all the people I've met. On the first day of school for Grant, his teacher--from Lithuania--asked each student to tell where they visited this summer. Grant reported to me, "Some kids went to Berlin and Paris. Another went to London. Everybody said these really cool places, and I don't think they were kidding!" I asked him what he said. He told me, "I said I went to California for two days, and I went camping for a week." Then he added, "I think they were a little disappointed." This international community has been eye-opening for all of us. Ben's teacher is from London so now Ben often says things are 'spot on,' with a lovely British accent. Jared's class field trip this year is to London. Maurie just returned from a class trip to Sweden. I should mention, too, that Maurie is the only American at her school and the only student who only speaks one language.The boys have two other Americans at their school--both from Kansas, of all places. 

Streets of Helsingor

We've managed to go out on our first field trip. Last Saturday we visited the city of Helsingor, which is the main city on the most northern shore of our island. (Who knew Copenhagen is on an island? It's called Sjealland) We enjoyed wandering through the shops and seeing the unique architecture of the buildings. Of course, we found our way to a bakery for delicious strawberry treats! We also found a cheese shop, with less delicious results. You'd think that in a shop entirely dedicated to cheese we could find a little cheddar or mozerella. No. We tasted a few cheeses bitter enough to immediately need something else to mask the taste, and then found some yummy gouda. It's all part of the experience.

Cheese Shop