Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Company for Dinner

Today seemed to be all about company. At the boys' school, it is Grandparents' week. On two different days this week, some of the grandparents are coming to visit. They even had pancakes as part of the celebration! This was the highlight that the boys made sure to tell me about. And, they got to eat lunch outside at the picnic tables in the courtyard -they were pretty excited about that as well. They made art work out of boards, nails and string. Torben made a boat, and Anders made a bunch of diamonds connected together. He wants to add more string, though, so it's not just two colours.



Today was the birthday of one of the teachers at the folkschool, so two of the other teachers wrote a birthday song. We all learned it at lunch time. Those whose birthday it is have to stand up on a chair to be sung to. One of the students had a birthday last weekend, so he got to stand up on the chair too.

I am getting to where I can pronounce most of the words I see written -though there are definitely some that I look at say "there is no way that those letters should make the sound you say they make". I have even learned the sound of the three extra vowels, so that helps a lot too.

The kids are having a fun time playing with all the new toys here at Jens and Signe's home. They all three seem to love the "speed racer" helmet!


There are lots of Lego and Duplo for them to build with as well, and the my little ponies show stable that is the same as I had when I was a little girl. A couple of the ponies are also 1984-era, and are the same ones I had, so it's fun for me to see the kids playing with the same toys I enjoyed.
I need to get some pictures of the boys playing too, it looks like! They are having fun trying to build the various castles that are pictured on the Duplo box. It's a great learning experience for them, as they are just going by what the finished product looks like and trying to figure out what has to be done to make theirs look the same.

For dinner, we had several of the students from the folkschool come to our home. We were told there were four coming, and, as it turns out, by "four" they meant "seven" so we were cozy at the table. We had made some of the "cowboy caviar" to have as an appetizer with our tacos -some things get lost in translation so the recipe was a bit different, but we ended up with a terrific salsa of kidney beans, black-eyed peas, bell peppers, red onions, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, cider vinegar, avocado, and cilantro. The cilantro especially took a while to figure out, as here it's koriander. When I say coriander, I am thinking of something very different from cilantro! But, we got it sorted out and it was a terrific addition to our meal. The students worked together to make the tacos. As it turns out, we got the music group, so they were singing while working. It really made for a fun atmosphere.

They also spied the trampoline out in the back yard, and it was amusing to see the line of them waiting for a turn to jump. A couple different times, Svea had a turn out on the trampoline as well -happy as could be.

We learned today that our bank account was finally approved, so that is good. We had to have that set up in order to get a phone number here. I believe that's all of the official things we need in order to be settled for the year. We are waiting for the Dankort -akin to an ATM card- but that should be along shortly now that the account it set up.

The walk to school is starting to get chilly -about 16 degrees (60s ish) and the boys aren't quite ready for it. They have gotten dressed in shorts and t-shirts, which is perfect for the afternoon when it's 28 (balmy 80s) but moan a bit about "why do we have to walk in this weather!" -they don't have any idea what's coming when the fall/winter gets here. They do keep extra clothes at school, so right now there are shorts, pants, and shirts as well as jackets and boots. You never know what the weather is going to do it seems. A few minutes ago the skies were cloudy and dark, and now it's bright and sunny. We got a thunderstorm over night, but so far have not seen a lot of rain during the day.

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