overdue! Farmor's 80th Birthday

Easter weekend was quite busy.  It all culminated on Easter Monday with Farmors 80th birthday 'bash' in Sweden. Such a beautiful day, a gorgeous place and fantastic company.  Great day.  Enjoy some pics!

I held a speech for Farmor and of course I started crying pretty much as soon as the first word came out.  I don't know why I do that and why if I know I will cry that I still put myself in these positions, pfft.  Practice makes perfect, maybe?  However, it all went over well and everyone understood my Danish in the midst of tears, haha.

I was once again really struggling with extreme sunlight and the camera.  I just need to read some more and figure it out.  Again, practice makes perfect.

Overall a fantastic day, it's still all Farmor can talk about, haha.  In the process of making a book for her with all the pictures.  

Now we're looking forward to my grandparents coming to visit at the end of May.  Just hoping this ridiculously nice weather holds out.  I can't get over how nice it has been lately!

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instant average family

Loved Christian's Facebook update recently, "instant average family, two kids and a minivan."  We took care of my fav little guys for 4 nights and 5 day as a Christmas present to my awesome aunt and uncle (who so kindly hosted our wedding and so much more).

We had a blast. Check out our weekend fun photos.  We went to my other cousins' hockey game to see them play Friday night.  Deanna and Seb came down late Friday night and stayed with us and the kids until Sunday.  My dad came over to make dinner with everyone on Saturday.  We took the kids out for a 'day of fun' on Sunday including brunch and Grand Slam for mini golf, laser tag, batting cages, video games etc.

These kids are such good kids, can only hope we have kiddos half as cool someday!

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christmas came early for familien als

This past weekend was the only time we could arrange to get all of Christian's family together for all things Christmas before everyone took off for the holidays.  

We hosted the day of Christmas things at both our teeny house and Farmor's next door.  We baked cookies, made the traditional Danish Christmas dinner, played a game of 'yankee swap' (white elephant exchange, grinch exchange, whatever you call that), and opened gifts.

Christian did most of the baking - well he made all the dough and let Emma and I make the cut outs.  We made what I would kind of consider gingerbread cookies (the spicey kind), vanilla almond cookies and chocolate chip.

After cookie baking we went straight into Danish dinner making.  Danish Christmas dinner consists of a pork roast, brown sugared potatoes, regular potatoes, red cabbage (we did a salad this year with oranges and walnuts), gravy and there was sausage for Ann whose family has a tradition with it. So yummy.

Christian feels like Christmas is over now - I am still counting down the minutes to come home and hug my friends and family!!  Everyone needs to get rid of any grinchness! ;) 

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reception & cake

This post is dedicated to our reception and our CAKE. Don't read if you're hungry!

Christian's dad and grandma made our cake, once again.  They did not disappoint, once again!

Every part of this cake from the taste to the decoration was absolutely fantastic.  The cake consisted of a walnut flour cake layered with chocolate creme and white chocolate blueberry creme.  It was so absolutely delicious, I can't wait until next year to eat the top layer.

Speaking of top layer wedding anniversary cake, Christian and I ate our first wedding cake last night on our 'official'(?) first wedding anniversary.  YUM :)

Anyway, back to this recent cake.  I think the decoration is what meant the most to me.  Firstly, how Christian's dad found a plane with a bride and groom in it... is beyond me.  He found it while on vacation in Spain, too funny.  Christian is upset because I'm in the captain seat... but it's just the way the world works, babe.

So basically it's a run way coming from America (hence the American flag and Statue of Liberty) landing in Denmark (hence the Danish flag and The Little Mermaid statue).  How friggen cute?  It's little anecdotes like this that remind me of my own dad (he's one with cake creativity as well) and remind me how loved I am here!  I love it! :)

So we had what the Danes call a 'reception' after our ceremony before the dinner/party.  In Denmark it's common to invite some people just to the ceremony and the reception and then a smaller more intimate group to the dinner/party.  Of course I can't distinguish who should come to what so we had the same group the whole day.

We went to Uncle Bjarne's (flower uncle) house for wedding cake, light lunch, coffee and champagne.  

I learned the nifty trick of opening champagne with a saber.  Awesome.  It actually took several tries in two different attempts.  The first attempt lead to a pretty nasty butchering of the bottle into 5 pieces - I deemed it the viking way.  My second attempt came with some advice from Bjarne and wah-la it went perfectly.  Except for the part when Otto (their pup) chased after the broken top, haha.

The reception is also where the trampoline pictures come from.  Whyyyy not.  Someone said that if I was happy to jump on a trampoline in my wedding dress, I married into the right family.  Damn straight.

Such great weather and company.  Next post due is on the dinner/party at Christian's mom's house.

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perfect wedding #2 : The preparations!

I don't know how it's possible to have two absolutely perfect weddings but we have been blessed.  The wedding this Saturday was as breathtaking and heartfelt as our first, we loved every second of it!

As you know, we did this as a family again so we owe a HUGE thank you to every single person who helped us with our special day.  We sincerely couldn't have done it without you! 

I'm aiming to blog about the day/weekend in chunks.  First up, the preparations!

Two tents were put together in the lower garden (only one shown below) at Christian's mom's house.

Putting up curtains:

Laying the floor:

Carpet layed, tables set:

Buffet table around the apple tree:

Here's a picture from the dinner to show the table settings a little better (friends from HS):

A lounge was set up in the upper parking area at Christian's mom's house.  It is where we hosted appetizers and served as a quiet get-away during the party:

The lounge after...

There are pictures missing even from all the preparation details.  This was just Christian's mom's house - we had a reception at Uncle Bjarne's between church and Christian's mom's house that I'll share soon!

I'm hoping to collect more pictures from different sources soon but I thought I'd share these for now.  More to come! :) :)

THANK YOU EVERYONE, IT WAS SUCH AN AMAZING DAY!

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