Summer Wrapup

Once again, it's been a while. Now, with a few minutes to kill (Alexa's at a choir rehearsal and Anya is asleep) I can update the blog. Since last time, we've had a visit from Alexa's aunt and uncle, met some friends from Houston, "discovered" a Mexican restaurant, and enjoyed being with Anya - the happy 19+ month old!

With Alexa's aunt and uncle we spent a week at the end of August at a summer home in Marielyst on the island of Falster two hours drive south of Copenhagen. As before, a vacation with Anya seems to fill up the car and then some, so we loaded the car and Alexa, Anya and Alexa's aunt caught a train while Alexa's uncle and I drove down separately with the loaded car. The weather during our week there ranged from terrific to marginal, luckily no days were complete washouts. We stayed close to the beach, so we spent some time enjoying the Baltic sea breeze, playing in the sand and wading in the "it's not THAT cold---" water. Some long early morning walks through the neighborhood and along the beach (thanks to Anya's enhanced vacation early wakeup schedule) gave us the opportunity to see hares and pheasants and not least to get some exercise to burn off the calories from the improvised s'mores. The week away was a nice chance to visit and relax and see a new part of Denmark.

Alexa's aunt and uncle were kind enough to cheer me on in the DHL relay (på dansk her) which takes place every year and can be considered the world's largest running event with over 100,000 participants this year (20,000+ teams of five, each runner runs 5 km) in an event spread over five days. I managed to finish in just under 24 minutes which I hope to improve on next year. Our team was in the top 10 percent of finishers - a surprising result for any team that will take me as a member...

The following week we had a nice, but short, visit from friends from the church we attended in Houston. They were in town visiting relatives and took a couple of hours to visit with us and meet Anya. It was nice to get caught up on news from Houston and to pass along our greetings and good wishes to everyone there.

One of our happiest stories of the past month is that we found a passable Mexican takeaway restaurant. It's not that close (probably a good thing), but for taste and authenticity it's equivalent to an average place in Houston which is good enough for us. A disclaimer - after three years here our standards may have eroded, but it was still good enough for Alexa to want to go a second time.

Some recent changes in the neighborhood are worth noting. First, a statue of Victor Borge was erected and dedicated earlier this year. Since it's appearance in the square named for Mr. Borge, it has become a work of interactive art with people dressing him up or adorning him with accessories. The picture shows him as he was a couple of weeks ago. Not long after we saw him in the middle of a conversation with two older gentlemen (though not older than Mr. Borge) holding two ski poles. We look forward to other whimsical efforts and we can't help but think Mr. Borge would have a good chuckle. In other neighborhood news, an international incident has resulted in the Taiwan Restaurant being taken over. It is now under new ownership as a Chinese restaurant renamed "New Shanghai Restaurant". No word yet on whether this is a prelude to a wider attempt to reunite Taiwan with the mainland.

And (for anyone still reading...) we've enjoyed seeing Anya grow over the last months. She is learning new words (both Danish and English) and has started saying the names of some of her classmates. Her favorite animal sound is a toss-up between "arf, arf" and the new contender "caw, caw" that she learned from the hooded crows in Marielyst. She loves her books (pictured with "Daddad" reading Are You My Mother?) and is really taking a liking to our cat, Kevin. Early morning wake-ups are the norm, so bedtime for mommy & daddy has moved up accordingly. For that reason, and to further encourage our Danish efforts, we took the leap and dropped the "medium" cable package. So, no more CNN international. We still get all the main Danish and Swedish channels, including late runs of many American series, but since we're not watching much TV anyway, we can use the $200/year we save on something else. Speaking of Danish - the Talent 2009 program which last year featured the Robot Boys is running again. Sad to say, but the talent level is a little thin. That said, we enjoyed the efforts of Celine with the uncanny animal impersonations. Anya will have to practice a lot to reach that level.