A weekend of firsts

The irony of this...as I am writing this, it is just pouring rain in Nivaa. Like my post from yesterday made the sky change in mind and all go to gray. Oh well, Monday morning weather it is, and regardless I am just enjoying listening to the rain drops tapping on the roof of the house.

So, with our very first real summer weekend of the year, came a lot of firsts - especially for our little Olivia.

First "dip" in the Baltic sea. We're not quite sure what she thought of it, her face was saying "Dude, guys! You never told me that water could be so cold!". Time to raise her the viking way!

Hanging out with girlfriends and going to the beach. Pia and Clothilde joined us, first hanging out at the house.

Look at them, almost independent! Hardly needing their mammas....soon they will be learning to drive and going to the disco. Hehe. Sigh :)

And then, because, why not....a quick escape to Nivaa beach.


It just never gets old.

The only thing that we were missing really were Pina Coladas! Not sure the girls would have appreciated the Pina Coladas in their mamma's milk though ;)

First trip on Far Far's boat. Steffen and Hanne took us on a quick boat ride on Saturday, and it was just lovely to hang out on the water.

On another note, with all that sun - my freckles are coming out. Mmm. Never know what to think of that. But hey, here they are, don't have a choice, so here I give you the freckles in the picture below :D

And it looks like Olivia enjoyed the trip as well ! Look at these little chubby cheeks sticking out of her life jacket.

Haaa I am going to eat her alive this little cutiepie.

The boys played with a toy submarine that Troels had been eager to try for a looooong time. They were just like children! Steffen, all dedicated to boats that he is, even jumped in the water so that he could better supervise the operations :D

And I, for the first time, drove a boat!!!! I almost felt like the captain of the Love Boat :D

It was, needless to say it, a good weekend, a very good first summer weekend.

Sweet Sweet Summer

Woooohhoooo!!!!!!

It is here! It is finally here!!!

S.U.M.M.E.R.

And after such a long and cold winter, let me tell you that it is more than appreciated. Summer arrived this last week, and we kisses it hello on both chicks, hugged it really really hard like an old friend we had not seen in a long time, and well, just started hanging out like we ought to do when good friends come back from a long trip :)

The air smells like freshly cut grass and apple blossom everywhere we go.

Miss nature is celebrating the arrival of summer all she can.

The strawberriesare getting bigger by the day in the garden, and the lilac bushes are blooming all over the countryside, putting dots of bright purple and white all over the place. Denmark just looks like a million bucks, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now. No lies!

Olivia is with me on that. We take little trips in the garden in the morning when everything is calm and just waking up to look at things, and she pays so much attention.

It's our thing, we love it.



Summer wasnt' the only friend to visit us this week.

The Millers also came all the way from Arizona and spent a few days with us here in Nivaa.

I had such a hard time recognizing the kids when they got out of the car. They are getting so big so fast!!!! I kept looking at Cal, who is know 12, and in my head all I could really think about was that little 4 year-old boy walking towards me in the kitchen of his parents house the first time I met him...and Nico, who was a baby no bigger than Olivia back then...

And now, look at them....


It was great to have them over, them and all of their overflowing contagious energy!

With the Millers here we tried to also officially kick start the grilling season with a nice evening dinner in our garden.

Full of good intentions right? A homemade dinner, a quiet evening under the scandinavian summer lights with our guests?

hahaha. So much for that one. We lasted a whole 5 minutes outside before running in, followed by an army of giant mosquitos attacking us left and right. Turns out our garden is infested by them, and it's not getting any better! !

Smits:0 - Mosquitos:1

Damn little ones, we want our garden back!! Hehe. This makes for some fun memories though :)

However, we've been much more successful on the "Operation Beach" front!

There is nothing like a handful of friends and hanging out under the sun on a beach to make everything better, especially after the weird couple of weeks since my seizure.

We had our first taste of that with Yoav, Yif and their kids last week.

Pure bliss.

....and we don't intend to stop our trips to the beach anytime soon! Since we are only 5 minutes from the sea now, it would really be a shame not to.

Ha sweet sweet summer. I am so happy to see you!

Now, this post was only for last week.....weekend days not included!More pictures of our "start-of-the-summer" adventures coming tomorrow. Stay tuned :)

Swimming like a French frog in a Danish pool?

Lately Troels and I have had a lot of discussions about cultural differences between all of the various places where we have lived, and them fitting our personalities. For me, after so many years spent in the US, the feeling of being a foreigner had slowly faded away, and I was comfortable there, I have to admit.

Then we moved to Denmark. I know that this wouldn't be all smooth sailing since I was again going to face a culture I knew little about, and expected to find myself in cultural "faux-pas" again...but not always where I thought I was going to make mistakes! Take going to the pool for example. Fairly simple business right? Or so you would think :)

Danish people seem to love things being done a certain way, and going to the pool is no exception. From how you should change, when to take off what, when to wash what, j'en passe et des meilleurs....and me, poor little unorganized French frog that I am, I ended up quite stressed out the first time I had to go to the pool for Tinymus' first Swimmix class!!

Excusez-moi while I make a fool of myself out there :) Thankfully, my new friend Pia, who lived in France for a few years, is with me every time and walk with me through all of it. Pfewwwwwwwwwwwww that isn't so bad after all, thanks Pia:)

Pia is married to a French man, Didier, and has a gorgeous little girl named Clothilde. We met during one of our trips to France, and have been hanging out ever since, including going to baby swimming classes.

Olivia and Clothilde are best pals now, and we have fun fun playdates together....maybe even more fun for the mamans than for the girls :)

I wonder how Olivia is going to grow-up in the midst of all these cultures. Is she going to feel more French? More Danish? Or more of wherever-it-is-we-are-living? Or just a plain mess of it all? Surely her idea of what her "roots" are is going to be very different from what Troels and I both experienced growing up since we were both raised mainly knowing one culture.

I guess we will find out soon enough. In the meantime, our little Olivia seems to be "swimming" quite perfectly -both in the pool of cultures we are giving her and the actual Swimmix pool :) Go go go Tinymus, go go go little frog!