May 2011

Play date

Thomas' friend Matias joined us for a few hours one Bank Holiday Friday; having had Thomas over to play at his house several times over the past months, it was our turn to host.  The weather was gorgeous so we hopped on the local "waterbus", which now stops just outside our place and functions as part of the local public transport network.

               

After a pleasant outing to Nyhavn and back, Thomas introduced Matias to one of his favourite local playgrounds, which includes a wobbly bridge and a rolling log.  They also tried out a game of velcro ball darts, then back to our place where the Geo-trax train set was put to good use.  Good thing our Canadian friend David had brought a third train for the set as a birthday present to James!

               

               

James turns two!

Naturally James had no idea what was going on, but he was delighted to discover a new hula hoop and toy sand table (minus sand until we got it out onto the balcony) when he got up on his birthday morning.  The balloons were another source of excitement, almost more so than the remaining presents which Thomas had to help him open.

               

He could not have been happier with his gifts: more balls, sand and water toys, a book which makes a bus motor noise, and another train for the Geo-Trax set (brought by special request from California by Cindy's old college friend David, who happened to be in town for the occasion!)

               

Given James' fondness for his noisy blue car, he should have loved his birthday cake - but to be honest he hardly noticed it, and Thomas had to step in to blow out the candles and distribute the Oreo cookie wheels.  No substitute for the real thing, and besides, James had just discovered pretzel sticks...

               

Once again, Thomas created feats of engineering only for kamikaze James to come along and destroy them - only now James seems to want to roll around in the debris afterwards, cackling maniacally... David caught the events on camera, including James' relaxing after his hard work, still with blue car in hand.

               

More snaps from the day: Thomas and Cindy up on the roof, boys on the swings, and James with the perpetual trouser leg pushed up.

               

Thanks to David Jedeikin, now a successful published author, for taking some of these great photos.  Last time David was here he was travelling the world, and kept a blog which can still be viewed here.  The blog became a book, which has been out for about a year now, and can be previewed here.  Go David!

Party!

Another lovely May weekend, and we finally got together with friends Carl, Bodil, Matt, Gitte and families, for a long overdue combination Christmas party / Easter egg hunt / Sunday dinner / BBQ (as you can imagine, we've had a few postponements!)

Carl and family were kind enough to host, so we could take advantage of their backyard for the Easter egg hunt.  James got a hold of some more toy cars, while the big kids played the traditional Christmas "package game" (involving rolling dice to win / steal presents from each other within a limited time).  We still had the larger "mandelgave" to dispatch, normally won by finding the whole almond in your rice desert, but since we didn't have the ris a l'amande, the kids competed by pinning the wheel on the tractor which Marvin still had from his previous birthday party.  Talk about a celebration!

               

Sunny balcony

Our balcony gets lots of morning sun, so we got our little garden underway with the usual herbs, peas, and also this year some snow peas and possibly cucumbers.

           

Updated 22.05.2011