The Rasmussens now with......

....a new washing machine!!!

So just over a week after it broke, the insurance company sent a man out to look at the machine. He decided that it wasn´t worth fixing and we were given the money to go buy a new one, which we did. A Samsung - it cost exactly the amount that we received from the insurance company. It is sooo great to have a washing machine again!!

The Rasmussen household has also now got a mother and wife with pierced ears! 

For years I have wanted pierced ears but I just never dared - was afraid it would hurt too much! Well that all changed yesterday (Saturday). 

My friend Audry and I have a tradition. We go Christmas shopping every year together and have done so for the last 7 years. We pick a shopping centre and go there from they open till they close. Yesterday was no different. We were there for the shops opening at 10am and we left again at 6pm, only stopping for an hour lunch. We literally did shop till we dropped! 

So it was while out shopping yesterday that I decided to win over my fear (with a lot of help from Audry) and I got them pierced!! I like them. It´s another thing to tick of my bucket list! (Next is the tattoo!! - ONLY JOKING!!)

Thursday was Thanksgiving in the USA. Since my good friend and neighbour is American, we were invited to Thanksgiving dinner with some other neighbours and friends. It was such a wonderful evening. The food was sooo delicious and since we all love hanging out together the evening was a great success!! We truly have sooo much to be Thankful for. I am blessed.

Friday at school we started the Christmas decorating!

The kids had a great time making decorations to hang up in their classroom. It suddenly started to feel a lot like Christmas.....

 Everyone was in on the fun of making decorations for the tables....we made one for the room where we sit and have our break.

 The 8th year students served Æbleskiver (directly translatedit´s apple slices but as you can see from the photo they are round! they are delicious, taste a little like warm donuts) and chocolate milk to everyone.

We also got a massage chair at work. It is WONDERFUL. I LOVE it!!  I had a 15 minute massage before I went home on Friday and it made me feel so great!! Why did we not get one of these a long time ago?!!!!! 

Today is the first Sunday in advent. A time when the Danes start to decorate their homes for Christmas, so later our Christmas decorating will begin! 

We also have a bit of packing to do. Kristian and I are off to Berlin next week for a few days! We can hardly wait!! We are going to a Bryan Adams concert, which was one of his silver envelope gifts from a few months back. 

Andrew is in charge here at home. He will be the man of the house while we are gone, something he is happy about as he gets to use my car the whole time I`m away! 

Nothing much to report.....

......Oh except a broken washing machine!! 

Last Saturday our washing machine broke! I did a wash last Friday evening when the machine suddenly started to make the most horrendous noise. I thought that maybe the clothes were just lying off balance (or something like that) and that it would be ok. 

Saturday morning I put another wash on, forgot all about the noises from the night before, and then went into the shower. When I was finished showering and  went to step out of the shower,  I stepped into a pool of water. There was water all over the bathroom floor!!! (Thank goodness we have a tiled floor and a drain in the floor. The water could be swepted away.) I realised something was seriously wrong with the washing machine!! (Our washing machine and drier are in the bathroom.) It turns out that a metal wire from Leah´s bra had come out and gone down one of the small holes. It had made a hole in the drum of the machine and the water was coming out from there. (This was all discovered by Kristian! the clever man! haha)

Thankfully we have insurance but a man can first come out and look at the machine this week to see if it can be fixed or if we should get some money to replace it. 

Meanwhile we have been without a washing machine here at home for a week, however I have been able to take things to work and use the machine there. It has been great!! My washing basket is empty!! Kristian had to laugh at that, because my washing basket is NEVER empty! Yet the week you´d think that it would be full and overflowing because of a broken machine, it is actually empty! Taking the washing to work is sooo much easier!! 

We have also visited Kristian mum a few times over the last few weeks. Kristian pops by after work as he works so close to where she lives. Then I was down visiting her one evening and bought some ice cream sundaes from McDonalds. We made hot chocolate and had a lovely cosy evening together. I really have a wonderful mother-in-law that I get on with sooo well.

 Her back is improving. She is going to rehabilitation and has now started swimming again every other day. Her energy level is not the same as before the fall but it is slowly returning. It´s great to see her improve from week to week.

Last weekend my neighbour was in Scotland on a course with her work. She arrived home on the Sunday afternoon. I had made a huge Sunday dinner with a roast and all the trimmings, more than we could eat so we invited her and Mia, her daughter, over for dinner and had a cosy evening with them. 

Thursday afternoon after work, I headed to Copenhagen. I wanted to do a bit of Christmas shopping. It was sooo cosy in the city. The lights were up and there was a real Christimas feel around. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I got some Christmas shopping done and arrived home at 8.30pm totally exhausted but happy!! 

Friday at lunchtime I got a text from my hubby. He wanted to know if I wanted to go on a date with him that evening. Now there was an offer I couldn´t say no too! 

So Friday afternoon found us heading out for some fun. We started by driving by to say hello to his mum, it had been a week since I last saw her so I  wanted to say hello and check out how she was feeling. We had a lovely chat with her and some hot chocolate and cake!! Hanne, Kristian´s sister, also popped in so we had a cosy time with her too.

Then we headed out to eat dinner. We were in the mood for chinese, so we headed to this lovely restaurant with the best chinese buffet you could ask for! We stuffed our faces! 

Kristian had booked for us to see the new Danish film that was out - "Stille Hjerte" (Silent/Quiet Heart) but the film first started at 9.15pm. We had nearly 2 hours to put in before the film so we decided to head to one of our favourite shops - Elgigant which is an electronic shop with everything from computers, TV´s, and telephones to washing machines!  We both love shops like that and we wandered around there until it was closing. I ended up buying a new iron! Got a great bargin!

Then we headed to my favourite shop - IKEA. It was open till 9pm so we could stay the rest of the time there. Talk about a great date night!! It was the best - I really get sooo happy being in ikea! haha

Then we went to see the film. What a brilliant film it was! It was about a woman who was really ill and so she had arranged for her whole family (her two daughters, their partners, her grandson and her best friend) to come back home for their last weekend together. They would hold Christmas and then when they left her husband would give her pills to end it all. The acting was fantastic. You felt the pain, the confusion, the doubts, all the emotions everyone went through in trying to come to trems with the mums decision. I had a good cry through it all. It was a film that gave you a lot to think about and Kristian and I had a load to discuss on the way home. 

It was a really great evening out. Thanks Kris!

Saturday evening we went to visit our friends Jette and Filip. We were invited for dinner and had a lovely evening with them and their two kids Josefine and Jonathan.

Since it´s soon Christmas, I decided to make a Christmas Calendar for the whole family. Throughout December they take turns opening a small gift from us. On 1st December Josefine will open the first gift, then on the 2nd Jonathan will open his, 3rd Jette and the 4th Filip and so on it goes. I had sooo much fun making it all. When the kids went to bed last night Josefine was counting how many sleeps she had to have before she could open the first present. Sooo sweet!! 

 Years ago, when our kids were small Jette made one of those calendars for us as a family and we had great fun taking turns to open the small presents. I have never forgotten that gesture so I hope our calendar brings as much joy to her family as hers did to ours! 

Phew!! That was a long update! A lot can happen in a two week period - and when I started this I didn´t thing I had much to report! Well that´s all for now :-)

No Silver Envelope this week.....

...but lots of other things have been going on.

Last Saturday we spent the whole day with Kristian´s mum. She fell a few weeks back, she was starting to recover and was doing well, when she fell again. She ended up in hospital for a few days but was sent home. At home she was in terrible pain and so she was sent for an x-ray, it was then they discovered that she had a broken bone in her lower back along with 3 slipped discs. She is home but still in pain and can´t do too much. 

We were her hands and feet last Saturday. We cleaned, dusted and shopped for her. Whatever she told us to do we did. We off course also had time to eat cake and chat. We always have time to eat cake and chat!! :-)  We had a lovely day with her.

Before long it was Monday and a new week had begun. It´s been a busy week but a good week. 

Tuesday evening we had our neighbour down for dinner. He lives above us, however he is so quiet that we often forget there is someone living above us. I made a delicious lasagne (even if I say so myself!) and served it with a salad . We had a really good evening chatting with him.


I love to read and am forever downloading books to my Kindle!! Over the last few weeks I have been reading and studying about the second coming of Christ....the blood moons etc. All very exciting and interesting. I also started a fiction book by JoJo Meyers which I am really enjoying. 

However on Wednesday at work I saw a book in the library that caught my attention. It´a Danish book, the title is De Sidste Timer, which translates The Last Hours. It is a collection of letters written by Danish Freedom Fighters of World War II hours before they died. It is their last letters home to their family and friends before their execution. Each of them knew they were going to die. Many knew the exact time. They all only had a few hours left on this earth. 

Even though I have enough books to read I couldn´t resist borrowing this and taking it home to have a read. 

Oh my what a book!!! I thought it would be a good idea to read a few of the letters at the end of dinner to Kristian and the kids. I told them about the book during dinner and as soon as we were finished eating I started to read the first letter from one of the men to his mother. I only read about 3 lines and I couldnt read on! I was sobbing my heart out! Andrew had to take over. It was soooo sad!! 

The next letter was a man writing to his wife and son, and so it went on. 

The others cleared the table and left but I couldn´t put the book down. I was transported back in time to the 1940s. I sat at the table by candle light, tears rolling down my cheeks and got to know these young men. These were real men, many of them only 20 or 21 years old and because of what they did I have the privilege to live freely today. It really touched my heart. After about 45 minutes I couldn´t read anymore. I was exhausted from crying. My eyes were burning and my head was aching. I needed to get to bed!

Thursday my crazy friend Anne came by with her wee son. I arrived home from work and Anne shorty after me. We ate some cake and had a good chat. Then Kristian arrived home and Ann´s husband Peter came from work. We ordered chinese food and had a cosy evening chatting and catching up. Peter and Kristian talk even more than Anne and I do!!! It was a great evening. They left around 8.15pm so their wee son could get to bed, he still had school on Friday.

Today we were at a funeral. When I came to Denmark almost 25 years ago there was a wonderful man leading our church at that time, his name was Hauge. He was a warm, kind man that was on fire for God and it was his funeral we attended today. He was 83 years old and had had a great life. He touched so many lives and you could see evidence of that today. There must have been at least 300 people at the funeral. It was a beautiful service, a real celebration of this life. It was really special for Kristian and I to see sooo many people that we haven´t seen in 15 or 20 years. There was a lot of talking and catching up. 

Kristian´s sister Hanne and her husband Flemming were at the funeral too. When it was finished it was near dinner time so we invited them back to share some of ours. They said yes and so we, once again had guests for dinner. It was sooo cosy and we just enjoyed the evening together on the sofa watching TV.

Envelope number 4!!

So on Friday Kristian got silver envelope number 4. {If you´re wondering what on earth silver envelope number 4 is, you will need to check out the post before this "Silver hair and romance"}

I had the date idea planned for a few weeks. I just needed to get all the stuff in. The idea was to go back in time and have a 1920´s night at home.

 I love dancing and I love all the old dances...waltz, foxtrot, jive, swing etc...not that I can dance any of them. For years I have been asking Kristian to go to dance lessons to learn to ballroom dance. He has totally refused because he can´t seem to co-ordinate his feet, hands and all the other things you are meant to be doing. I had thought about booking a private lesson with a dance teacher but knew he would hate that. So I decided our date night would be a night at home, learning from youtube, to dance one of the dances from the 1920s. This I knew he wouldn´t mind and would think was fun!

So I was waiting to see which evening the kids would be out and we would have the house to ourselves so we could act like a couple of idots! That night came Friday evening (31st October) - no kids were home and I could put my plan into action.....

Kristian got his envelope which explained what was going to be happening, that we were going back in time in my time machine and he would find out what year when he got here (I know I should be locked up!!) 

Before Krisitan arrived home from work I had a lot to do!!!  I left work, a woman on a mission. First thing was to get the food in. Our butcher does these delicious ready made meals (just to be heated in the oven) so I went by there and got our main course. Then I went to the supermarket to buy stuff to make the starter and a quick visit to the bakery had the dessert sorted!

Then I needed to get our costumes ready. I drove to the outskirts of Copenhagen to a fancy dress shop but half way there realised that it was a bad idea to do that on a Friday afternoon. It was rush hour and the traffic was totally wild! Anyway I got the costumes and got home, just 20 minutes later than I had hoped.

Then there was the decorating of the living room. I got down our Christmas boxes and got all the lights we had to put around the dining room. What a job!! Why do I never pack the lights down properly??!! They were a mess, totally tangled in each other so by this time I was getting a little stressed. I rang Kristian to tell him the time machine was playing up and he first had to come home at 7pm!!

This gave me a little extra time and was just what I needed. I got the house ready, the dinner sorted and even had time for a shower! It was then into my costume to look the part....a woman from the 1920s. I was having a blast!

When Kristian came home I welcomed him at the door looking nothing like I usually do. He had such a laugh and totally got into the fun of it too. I had all his clothes ready in the bathroom so he could look the part of a 1920 gangster.

We had a delicious meal together and loads of time to talk. Then after the main course it was time to learn to dance. I found the videos that would teach us to dance like professionals! haha It was a lot harder than we thought but it gave us both such a laugh. In the end we gave up and just spent some time dancing around the diningroom like a couple of idots! But we sure had fun!

The evening ended with a film which we fell asleep to on the sofa! haha We are not as young as we used to be! But we had a great evening and another great memory was made!! 

(Kristian made some short video clips throughout the evening which he put together to a short film......)