I went out to eat at a restaurant for the first time since being in Denmark. Six women went to a Running Sushi place about a half-hour from here. I'm not a huge fish person, though I do eat it, so I was a bit nervous about going for sushi. But, it seemed like an excellent idea to accept the invitation to go with some others my age and have a fun mom's night out. It really was! The advantage of "running sushi" is that you sit next to a conveyor belt that brings a train of small bowls around the restaurant -hot dishes on the top rail, cold dishes on the bottom- and you just open the little window and take what you want as it passes your table. So, you get to pick and choose, and if something isn't quite what you hoped for, it's a small serving and you can pick something else next. Also, another benefit is that they take away the empty bowls that you stack at the end of your table, so no one really knows how much you're eating. There were six of us, so there were many many bowls all over the table all the time. Most of it was very delicious! I ate until I was full, but not stuffed, and that seemed like a good option. There were typical sushi dishes with rice and fish wrapped with seaweed, small skewers of teriyaki vegetables, many sorts of fried egg-roll or won-ton type dishes, fruits, fried rice, spicy soups, skewers of cooked meats wrapped in bacon, edamame, crusted and fried shrimp and prawns, octopus, and several desserts -our favourites were the chocolate pudding, cheesecake, and tiramisu. We tried not to keep count of how many of these we ate...but there were more than 20 eaten by the table. So. It was a fantastic time of being together with new friends, laughing and telling stories. Approximately half of the conversation was in English, and I could follow some of what was in Danish as well. One of them is an English teacher, so she was doing her best trying to help me learn some Danish while we were there. They were all impressed when I laughed appropriately at an ironic statement made in Danish "see? you understood that even though it was all in Danish!" -yes, context is everything.
Before we left home, I bought the kids new colouring books to bring with us, and decided to buy myself a grownup one too. I finally -6 weeks in to our adventure- finished the first mandala in the book!
At this rate, I will get through about 1/3 of the book before we go home! It's fun, though. The boys each decided that they want to choose the colours for the next ones I do, and tell me which spaces in the picture to colour with which colours. They aren't allowed to colour in my book, but, they think it's fun to get to pick the colours. And they often say "Mommy, work on mine next!"
They also have started saying "Mommy, can I watch you knit my scarf?" I think that is kind of fun too. They are learning some of the fine arts -or at least they are learning to appreciate them. There are several sets of knitting needles at the recycle shop...I'm not sure if they are old enough yet to learn how to do it, but maybe I will see if they want to try it out. When we buy the materials at the recycle shop, it's a pretty inexpensive hobby!
After lunch, Svea's new friend Mira came over to play for a couple of hours. She is not quite 1 yet, and the two girls had a lot of fun playing together. For a while, they just sat and giggled back and forth, and then decided it would be fun to stand up holding on to the radiator (it wasn't on) and jump up and down while giggling. They had a great time! They pulled out all of the small-child toys, too, and made a complete disaster of the living room.
It is getting colder out, now, so Svea isn't quite so averse to wearing socks and shoes. Today she tried out her new boots to go with her outfit. It was pretty funny watching her walk and march around, getting the feel of walking in them.
When I arrived to pick the boys up from school, they were again dressed head-to-toe in their rain suits covered in mud. It just looks like they are having such a great time when they are that dirty! Like kids are supposed to be. Anders asked me to take a video of him going down the slide, and also to take some photos of him swinging on the swing in a circle.
Torben was having fun playing with some other children in the dirt and rocks with trucks. It was about ten minutes before he acknowledged that I was there -he was having such a fun time.
It's getting darker much earlier now, and getting light later in the morning. Already we are finding it hard to get out of bed to get ready for school. I know we've got a long way to go until Spring comes again, so we're going to need to figure out some ways to get up and moving! Even though I love the rain and the cool weather, it's hard sometimes to get up knowing that in not too many minutes we have a wet and chilly walk ahead of us!
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