Daytime Rain

The sky looked a bit dismal this morning, and just as Jeff, Svea, and I walked in the door from lunch, it started pouring. As Papa Randy would say, it was "raining like the Old Testament" and it was nice to be indoors looking out the windows at it. When I went to get the boys after school, they were wearing different clothes (each student has a labeled bucket over their coat hook in which are multiple pieces of extra clothing -this comes in very handy) and had a plastic bag with their wet things. Even their rain coats were soaked on the outside and the inside! Apparently the sandbox was flooding, so all the kids were outside trying to put more sand in it -or something to that effect. It may have just been an excuse to play in the rain! The teacher mentioned that the boys rain pants weren't there, so the time outside was a bit shorter than it would have been, because they were "shivering". Oops. Yes, while cleaning the house I had found their rain pants earlier in the afternoon, and realized they would be better placed at school in the bucket, than at home on the shelf. Here, they play outside no matter the weather. It's great -especially when you remember to provide them with the clothing appropriate to the weather. As soon as we got home, the rain pants went into their backpacks for the next day.

We met another neighbor today. The woman directly across the street, who said she has lived in that house for about 55 years. Later in the afternoon, she brought over some flowers for us.

We had a fun visit from Karen and Erik -Jeff's host parents from when he was a Rotary exchange student about 18 years ago. It was fun to see them, and we made plans to visit their home later this fall.

Anders was singing (as usual) during dinner, and Jeff paused to carefully listen to the words, realizing that  He was singing 'hoved, skulder, knæ og tå'. Head, shoulders, knees and toes in Danish. They have also been doing a lot of counting this week. The teachers at the school asked if we are really interested in the boys learning Danish while they are here this year (we are), or if they should speak to them primarily in English and help them learn words here and there. Today will be the first day of the teachers speaking primarily Danish, and only resorting to English if the boys seem very frustrated. We are all (parents and teachers) pretty sure they understand a lot of what is being said already so I am curious to hear the boys' perspective on how the first day went.

At pick-up time, one of the teachers was sitting on the couch, and she said "I am dining in a restaurant" -ah, Torben's favourite game! We know it well. One of the other children was also a diner in his restaurant. Anders and another little boy seemed to be having a contest to see who could spin their chairs around the fastest. It was fun to see them interacting with other kids.

Dinner was a variety of different things -some new, and some re-versions of foods we have had in the last few days. There are a couple of different types of meatballs that are fantastic. Jeff makes one of them often at home, and the other is in a yellow curry sauce and served over rice. It's not something I would consider putting together, but it sure is good! Jeff said it's one of his favourite Danish meals. There was also some pizza with eggplant on it, and mini flakey pie crusts with turkey pot-pie type of filling, along with grilled carrots and grilled green onions. We skipped the pickled herring this time.

Tuesdays are Jeff's long evening, as he and one of the other teachers are in charge of "sport" after dinner, and then also of locking up the buildings after the evening coffee hour. This week the sport was soccer. Somehow he managed to find the prickle vines on the sidelines of the field and his arm looks like he lost a fight with a cat. Nevertheless, he said it was quite fun! After Svea went to bed, the boys and I watched a few episodes of Dora the Explorer. In the Danish version, she speaks Danish and English, so we thought that might be helpful for them. They thought it was particularly fun that we'd checked the videos out from the library -even if they were Dora.

We have had the windows open a lot during the morning and evening to let the cool air in. Apparently, the flies have also decided to make the living room their home! I thought I was winning the battle with them, but there are a handful of very resilient ones that are still causing me irritation. Quite amusingly, also, a blue butterfly flew in one widow, turned right, flew about four feet, and went out the other window. Apparently it was just checking things out. I wish it had stayed just a short bit longer to teach the flies how to go out the other window.