Catching Up: The Rest of 2014

This was supposed to be “4Q2014,” but I broke off the previous post without quite having wrapped up the third quarter. So we’re starting in August of 2014 and barrelling through to the end of the year in this post.

On Nana’s birthday Cirkus Arena was in town, as it is every summer, and for the first time ever we actually attended.

It was a one-tent circus in a big open meadow in the less populated part of town, but it was surrounded by little tents and stands — carnival games, pony rides, a big inflatable slide, food concessions, the usual.

Maddie went for a pony ride:

And Maddie had a nice chat with Harlequin.

Molli Malou didn’t go for the pony or the clown: she just wanted to do the big slide over and over, so we let her. And all the photos stunk.

Inside the tent, with the circus underway, there was just rapture.

Well, rapture from Molli Malou and something more like — I don’t know, terror? from Maddie.

And about this time Maddie dropped one of her front lower teeth. She says she “dropped” a tooth because that’s what you do in Danish: you don’t lose a tooth, you drop it. And I keep telling her that in English we “lose” teeth rather than dropping them, but she will have none of it. She insists on dropping her teeth. (Funny to be writing this right now, just days after she “dropped” both her front upper teeth in a period of a couple of days.)

And of course the long romps with Didi continued — these shots are from Rostadion in Bagsværd.

And now, finally, all the previews are over: it is really and truly and finally Maddie’s first day of school in the 0th grade, or “kindergarten class.”

With school back in session, we had to make sure we had squeezed our summer staycation dry, and we found that we had overlooked a groupon we’d bought for bowling but had never used. So for the first time ever one weekend in August we had a lovely time bowling without its being anyone’s birthday or anything.

I think I posted the below on Facebook. It appears here only because I couldn’t let it slide and this is where it belongs in chronological order. I don’t know who drew it (I’m hoping Maddie, now that I notice the Zs), or why, or what it’s supposed to mean that the hippo is wondering whether to have milk, Pizza, or Fanta, but finding such drawings lying around the house is truly one of the great joys of parenting.

Another Didi romp at Rostadion, this time not long after a big rowing meet had been completed. (Rostadion literally translates as “Rowing Stadium.”)

Oh! And back at the parking lot, what do we find? A hot air balloon landing right in front of us!

They’ve modernized the school picture process at Søndersøskolen now: instead of being overcharged for a bunch of different-sized copies of a single portrait, we’re overcharged for a USB stick of multiple pictures in multiple poses.

A little trivia: some friends of mine, a couple, came from California to visit me in while we still lived in Tidecrest in 1987. While they were visiting we came up with the idea of video yearbooks and school “videos” instead of photos. We were very excited about developing the business and it was one of the reasons — really the main reason — that I moved from Marblehead to California in December of that year. We invested in a bunch of professional (analog) video equipment and got a few clients before different callings pulled each of the three of us in different directions. The business fell apart and my friends broke up.

A few months later I married one of them — Allison — and although that marriage didn’t quite work out, it was the necessary prerequisite for my meeting Trine, so consider: the following school pictures are of two girls who wouldn’t even exist if I hadn’t once tried to start a school picture business!

The younger first:

Along with her class:

And now the oldest:

And her class:

Besides the “bodyflight” at AirExperience Copenhagen, Trine had also given me a certificate for a whiskey tasting at Braunstein Distillery for my birthday. We finally got around to that trip!

And the uneasy peace continued.

For efterårferie, we took the girls to Lalandia, a cottage resort built around a waterpark and activity center way down in Rødby, on the island of Lolland way down under Sjælland.

I was actually startled just now to see the picture below because I see it about 150 times a day: it’s the lock screen on my iPhone, and for obvious reasons.

(You see the dog’s car crate because we brought Didi with us and learned very, very quickly — in ways I don’t want to set down in writing — that she could not be left alone in the cottage when we were not there.)

So… really? This is my only picture from Trine’s birthday?

As autumn declared itself more and more intractably, there came an evening where everyone had gone to bed but me, and Didi, the fire, and the scotch. Sitting in my own house, warmed by my own fire, my own dog snuggled comfortably by the hearth, a healthy pour of scotch before me, I think I finally realized there were up sides to being an adult.

One morning at work it was announced that a bunch of old computers (in a digital business, “old” is about 18-24 months) were up for sale, and the first three people to express interest could have one for 700 kroner, or about 120 bucks. I was lucky enough to be one of the first three respondents, and suddenly Trine and I had the oldest, slowest, clunkiest computers in the household.

Gymnastics: out. Ballet: in.

Theatre: out. Handball: in.

(I’m laughing because, dear sweet future Molli Malou, although we knew you would be a handball superstar one day, you were so awful in your first few games! I have a video from the match depicted above where an opponent is charging you while you’re on defense and you kind of hold up a hand as if to say, “please stop,” and she blows right by you and scores. It’s funny because you are an amazing handball player, you have already won your first award, and we always knew you would be a natural at this sport — I mean, come on, remember the rules they made in your class iin grades 1-3 where in co-ed games all the boys had to throw with their left hands… all the boys and Molli? — and I would never laugh about how awful you were in this match if I didn’t know you would be laughing right along with me. Thank God Nana and Pop-Pop have no videos of any of my baseball games!)

And now we’re already up to Halloween Tivoli!

And Halloween prep at home!

…and more Halloween Tivoli!

I can’t recall what Trine and I had been up to, but one day Mormor and Jørgen babysat Molli and Maddie and when we swung by to pick the girls up, all four where snug and hygge in bed watching Frozen.

Halloween draws even closer!

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was the most destruction Didi ever wreaked on our home as a puppy. So we got off easy, I think.

You’ll notice fewer shorts and bathing suits in the pictures of our romps with Didi from this point forward…

I believe this made it onto Facebook also: after a long walk from home through the school property all the way to the “old golf course” (which was never actually a golf course, but was apparently planned to be one at one point in the 1970s), Maddie was sick and tired of walking. She was still 5 at this point, but she carved into the dirt path “are we home yet?”

…which was only natural for a girl who was suddenly consumed by a passion for reading and writing, even if her subject matter was often disturbing.

Speaking of disturbing, Halloween was finally upon us and everyone got into the act!

And the Didi romps got chillier, and foggier, but no less lovely for all that. (And I should point out here that to Molli Malou and Maddie there is no such place as “Rostadion.” It is simply “Puppy Lake” to them.)

Bodil, the female member of the Søren and Bodil couple, turned forty in Novemeber and they threw a wonderful party. This is a terrible picture of their “spotlight dance,” which I include only because they’re such good friends and it was such a nice party and hey, even though it’s a horrible picture they look pretty sharp.

One of the “Miller’s Crossing” series of Didi romp photos from Hareskov:

The girls at a museum with Mormor.

Didi being Didi:

Into November now, we have Maddie’s first independently developed birthday wish list, a surreal melange of Danish, English, and 5-turning-6 desires and imagination.

Meanwhile, the theatrical gene is beginning to assert itself in Maddie, who hires Molli Malou as her choreographer.

In 2013 we had planned to have Steve & Elisabeth (and Becca and Sebastian) and Søren and Bodil (and Holger and Dagmar and Harald) over for Thanksgiving, only to have to cancel at the last minute on account of our house being torn apart due to leaks, mold, et cetera. In 2014 we tried to make it up to them. Søren & Bodil and Co. couldn’t make it, but Steve & Elisabeth could — and curiously enough, the only good photo I have of the otherwise lovely Thanksgiving is this shot of Maddie and Sebastian conked out at the end of the night. Unless that’s Becca and Sebastian. I honestly can’t tell.

In the great green fields of Værløse, nothing gives Didi greater pleasure than chasing a low-flying bird.

In the great living room of Værløse, nothing gives Maddie greater pleasure than popping out of a box.

Look how big Didi is getting at seven months!

As usual, the transition from November to December is a busy time: Thanksgiving, Mormor’s birthday, Maddie’s birthday, the start of the Christmas Calendar shows on television, and the first Advent of the season always seem to slam into each other and get the holiday season off to an appropriately stressful start.

We begin with Mormor’s birthday:

jump right into first Advent…

…and blam! Maddie Marie is… well, wait, which birthday is it, honey?

(Pro tip: don’t miss out on Didi’s indifference in the photo above.)

And what do you know? She actually got the Elsa dress she had wanted “her whole life!”

Here things are prepared for a party with the girls of Søndersøskolens 0.b class:

And the cake is ready to go:

And blam! Mormor and Trine and I (and Didi) usher the class from the school to our house.

I am so damned proud of the Olaf I drew for the “Pin the Carrot on Olaf” game!

Bedtime already? And how old are you again, Sweetie?

So… we’re kind of done with the whole ThanksgivingMormorsBirthdayFirstAdventMaddiesBirthday thing, just in time for Maddie’s big ballet recital. And what number do you think they did? Why, yes. The obscure Renaissance number, Let It Go.

Christmas Tivoli!

And now we’re up to second Christmas Advent…

Wandering through the shopping center at Farum Bymidten, Maddie finds a cool new sled she suddenly must have for Christmas. But Mor and Daddy have already done all the shopping for once, and Santa’s already dealt with his list, so nothing will come of this sudden infatuation. But I present this picture anyway because (a) dammit, Maddie, you’re adorable, and (b) Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod! How cool are those sleds? I wish I could have one too!

Didi.

Didi and Maddie/Elsa.

Our first gingebread cookies!

Meanwhile, Maddie is spending suspicious amounts of time alone in her room with her door closed. Eventualy I am told she has started a school: she is teaching all her dolls and stuffed animals how to read and write.

Fourth Advent!

Unfortunately, word got out that Maddie was conducting classes without proper certification and the police raided our house. Here’s her mugshot.

No, no, no: we had to renew her passport, and on the way to get the photo we were caught in a horrible windy rainstorm. And Maddie was tired. So we got the worst passport photo ever. And there it is.

Christmas is by now totally in our faces.

(Yeah, that was a bowling picture. Not sure why it’s here. Did we bowl during Christmas vacation? I don’t remember.)

AND SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS!

(The girls put on a concert for us in the middle of the evening’s program.)

It’s always bothered me that in Denmark we celebrate the holiday of Christmas on the evening of Christmas Eve. In 2014 it was acutely painful, because had we only been patient enough to wait until Christmas Day itself, as all right-thinking people should, then we would have had this outside our windows, instead of the snowless black of the Christmas Eve we actually had. Yes, indeed, it snowed on the morning of December 25, and we woke up to this:

I took Didi out to Hareskov for a romp Christmas morning, and it was just stunning.

On “Second Christmas Day” we had the biannual Hagemeister Julefrokost, where we allowed Molli Malou a taste of Julebryg:

You like the smell Molli Malou? Go ahead! Take a good long chug!

Psych!

Chronologically I cannot account for the next two pictures, except to say that they are probably datestamped here because I first downloaded them from somewhere at this time. But I believe these are pictures from the fall of Molli Malou and Maddie at some tour of some dairy farm.

And — blam! Back into our previous context! The snow kept falling and the next time I took Didi for a Hareskov romp I was sure to bring Maddie along… with her sled.

And by now it’s New Year’s Eve.

I told the girls: you’re always so goofy in our pictures! Look thoughtful! Look serious!

…but no one said anything remotely like that to me.

I told Maddie we had bought so many fireworks that if you stacked them all up they’d be taller than her. She called me on it. I lost.

Having succeeded so brilliantly with beer, as you saw several pictures previously, we felt it only right to give Molli some champagne on New Year’s Eve.

It wasn’t appreciated.

So we took a bunch of selfies, fired off our fireworks, and that was it.

(One firework package in particular blew us away, and we agreed to keep this picture handy so we could be sure to avoid all other fireworks next year and buy a bunch of these.)