Sara is 19 years old....

It was her birthday yesterday - 19 years old! Only 1 year left as an official teenager!! (Depressing or what?!!)

So Sara wanted a new room for her birthday. (And believe me, she didn´t have too much bother talking me into getting her that present!!) So last Thursday we headed off to the one and only.... IKEA!! Then it was off to the paint shop to get some paint and new wall paper. She wanted one wall done black with silver flowers (I know it sounds disgusting but it looks really well!)

So all day Saturday was spent painting and decorating her room.

Now how many hours can it take to wallpaper a tiny wall that has a big window in it? Well for Laura and Kristian it takes 4 hours!! (3hours spent arguing about how to do it and 1 hour doing it! haha) It really did take us 4 hours to paper it, we had no idea what we were doing! And with the wall paper having a pattern, we had to get it matched - what a nightmare!! and with a window to paper around too!! It was more than our wee brains could manage!

We finally got the paper on and it looks pretty good! Only a couple of places had to be patched together!! haha Sara was a happy girl!

She also wanted a thing to hang her clothes on (can´t think of the English name for it at this moment). She didn´t want an extra wardrobe, but wanted her clothes to be seen on this stand. It looks ok , wouldn´t be my choice, but she loves it!!

I couldn´t let her birthday go by without a wee present to open, so she got a tray/desk thing, from us all. She can use it to put her laptop on while she is in bed. She was over the moon!

Kristian woke up sick on her birthday. He was meant to be teaching at some course but woke up with absolutely no voice - although now and again there was a wee croak from him!! He also had a bit of a fever.....so off to bed he went again. That meant that last night it was just the kids and I that went out celebrating. We headed out to the local Chinese for a buffet. It was a lovely evening. We were all home by 8pm as Sara had loads of homework to do!!

Now all the birthdays are over for another year!! Phew - we survived again!

Cultural Evening

Yesterday was "Cultural Evening" in one of the nearby towns. Leah and Kristian were involved. Leah´s choir was singing and Kristian was playing his sax. They were giving a 45 minute concert in the big shopping centre. There was a really good turn out to hear them. They did a good job, even though it was a hard place to sing, due to the size and acoustics of the shopping centre.

The town was buzzing with life. There were all sorts of things happening. After Leah´s choir there was line dancing, folk dancing, and lots of art exhibitions. Unfortunately we didn´t have time to stay and see all the other things as we were heading out to our church. They were also involved in the cultural evening.

On the way out to the church we cut through the castle grounds and came across these two fellas. They were getting ready to play but I was able to get a quick picture. (to the embrassment of Leah and her two friends!)

So we got out to church to find that it had been changed into a café/music house/ art exhibition for the evening. It was so cosy. Young people from the church entertained us with their singing. There was delicious things to buy, my favourite being the Oreo milkshake!! However the best thing of the evening was that Anne was there!!! It was so good to see her again and have a chat.

A few people in the church had their paintings and photographs on exhibition. Mine were among them.

It was such a nice evening. We finally got home at 12.40 in the morning!! Needless to say, we had a lie in this morning!!

For those interested the video below is from the shopping centre where Leah was singing with her choir:

The video below is from the church cafè:

I am blessed....

...I am blessed to have married into such a wonderful family!

On Saturday the family were gathered together to celebrate Hanne´s 50th birthday. Kristian was at a go-kart race and Leah was at a church camp, so they were missing from the celebrations! However, Sara, Andrew and I went to the party. Hanne had arranged a "music-café" at her church. There were loads of cakes and snacks and loads of people to enjoy them!!

Sara and her cousin sang a song for Hanne. Sara unfortunately had a really sore throat and had nearly lost her voice, so she struggled through it! It was a lovely song. I heard them practise on Thursday evening and they sounded soooo good. It was a shame Sara was sick on the day. But they did do a good job, even with the sickness!

Signe kept us all entertained with her singing and playing.

Andrew played waiter and kept our cups overflowing with hot chocolate or coffee and our plates overflowing with cake!

I got to spend time with my nieces. They are a wonderful bunch of girls. I love them all!!

The best part was when all the guests went and we were just the family together, clearing up. We did more singing than clearing up!! Those nieces are soooo musical - they can sing and so we enjoyed listening to them and sometimes joining it.

After all the clearing up was done, the cousins all headed out to McDonalds for burgers and we mums and dads headed home to Hanne for soup. It was a really special family time. I sat there in the middle of them all and was thankful for the wonderful family that I had married into. We all get on so well!

Only teenagers in house nr. 5

...that´s what we have now! A house full of teenagers!

Today was Leah´s 13th birthday. It was a quiet birthday, but one I think she really enjoyed.

The day started with the opening of presents.

Leah wanted to have a day out with her good friend Cecilie. A real girls day out (without mum or the rest of the family tagging along.) So after school both girls went to the cinema. Afterwards it was out to eat together in a "real" restaurant...just the two of them. They thought it was great being allowed to do this.

Then it was home to hot chocolate, whipped cream and some muffins. Now the muffins have a story behind them....

I bought one of those quick packs from the supermarket, the ones you just add water and oil. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate cream topping, however I couldn´t find my cake tin so the cake turned into muffins.

Well, after I had made them and had eaten one, we turned on the TV to hear the news. There was a report telling us that the cake company AMO was calling back 10 of its cake/tart mixes. People had been having serious allergic reactions after eating their cakes/tarts.

Well the cake I bought was an AMO cake mixture. So we went onto the website to check it out and into the bin to find the empty box of cake mixture with the code number on it. The numbers on the website matched the number on our box. They recommended that we throw the cake mixture out.

Aarghhhhh - I had arranged with Leah that we would have the cake, and hot chocolate when she and Cecilie got home. Then we could spend the evening being cosy here at home. Now there was no cake!

Well I decided to keep the muffins so we could put the candles on them. I didn´t let the girls eat any, just in case. However, Kristian, Sara, and Andrew ate a muffin each. It´s hours since I ate mine and they ate theirs, we are all still alive and with no allergic reaction to anything. It´s probably a storm in a tea cup.

Well now for something else....

Today I went to the dentist to get my toothache seen to.I was in fear and trembling,but it turned out to be a really good experience. The people were lovely. The receptionist was so friendly. The dentist was wonderful, so understanding.

She said I had a huge hole in my wisdom tooth and that it was in really bad condition, she didn´t think it was worth saving, so she wanted to take it out. I also had a hole in my bottom tooth, but she didn´t think that was the problem at the minute.

When I heard that she wanted to take my wisdom tooth out I thought "OH NO!!" I have heard soooo many terrible stories about people getting their wisdom teeth out. So I took a deep breath and said "OK - do it, you pull and I´ll pray!" So I lay their praying and asking God to help her get it out. It must have taken 2 minutes at the most! Then she said - "oh it´s out! " I could hardly believe it - so easy and so quick. It was a wonderful experience and now I really feel ok about going back again.

I will go back in October and she will check out all of my mouth....see what needs done. Then she will take it one step at a time, doing the most important jobs first.

If I have pain in between times she said I should ring and they would get me an emergency time so that I could get the bottom tooth filled. I am just soooo relieved that I survived.

Now I need to get to bed. I have 5 hours of my wonderful wee monsters in 4b!! (They really are wonderful kids - just full of life!) It´s a special week in the school. The kids get one full day with one particular subject, e.g. a day just with Danish, Maths, or Art etc. Tomorrow is their day for English. I haven´t had any teaching this week so I am looking forward to tomorrow. ( I feel that I have a good programme ready for the day. I hope they enjoy it and learn alot from it. We are learning numbers 20 -100 and also about "our clothes" I have lots of fun games and worksheets ready!! We are ending the day with a film and quiz! Hope it all goes well. )

If two of you agree....

Last night I experienced, yet again, a miracle.

As many of you know I had a bad toothache yesterday. It acutally started Monday afternoon and gradually got worse. So last night around 10.30pm I took two pain killers. By 11.30pm I was still in pain, so I took another pain killer (wasn´t sure if I should as it was a pain killer of another type, but I was in soooo much pain that I honestly didn´t care!) I went into bed about 11.50pm and somehow managed to fall asleep even though my tooth was killing me. The sleep was short lived. At 1.30am I woke up in soooo much pain. (and I can´t stick pain!haha) Kristian was feeling rather helpless. Seeing me in pain was really getting to him.

As we lay in bed, me in tears and moaning, he said "Laura, let´s do what you always tell me to do - let´s agree to move this mountain." He prayed and commanded the pain to leave my mouth in Jesus name and I just lay there thanking God and quoting scripture while he prayed. As soon as he finished saying "in Jesus name" the pain immediately left my mouth. I was lying down and sat up in amazement and said - "Kristian it´s gone!" We lay praising God. It was amazing, the pain was totally gone. It was like someone had turned off the pain switch!!

I fell asleep and woke this morning feeling fresh and in no pain. I haven´t had one single pain killer today. I am still going to the dentist tomorrow to get her to look at the tooth and fix it up. I can feel there is something wrong with it but it is not painful.

I suppose some people will call what happened a co-incidence, the tablets finally taking effect.....but not me - for me it was truly a miracle!! God stopped the pain - I have no doubt about that.

Now now I just need the courage to get through tomorrow!!

I´ll keep you posted about the dentist:-)

A day of pain, a night of praise

Yesterday afternoon my tooth/teeth, started to play up!! I could feel an ache on the right side of my jaw. I hoped it would go away! I prayed it would go away, but it didn´t!

Today things have gotten worse, in fact it´s soooo sore that I have contacted the dentist! Now those that know me well know that things have to be really bad before I do that!!

I have got a time for Thursday morning at 11.30am! I don´t know how I am feeling about it all, part of me LONGS for Thursday to come so I can get rid of this pain. The other part of me is hoping Jesus comes back before Thursday, or that I somehow, painlessly pass away so I don´t have to face the dentist chair, not to mention the drill!!

So my day was filled with pain but my night has been filled with praise. Leah´s choir was singing at a church service and Kristian and I went along to hear them. I was in pain even though I had taken pain killers so I wasn´t feeling much in the mood to praise. However something does happen to one, when one praises!!

When I got my mind of my problem and unto God and praised Him the pain seemed to go. Now the pain was probably still there, but my focus was somewhere else, and it just felt soooo great to sing those praise songs this evening. I was soooo glad I went.

Leah was singing a solo at the service and off course her mum just had to video it for the blog.:-) Enjoy!

Kidnapped and ate alive.....

....that is just some of the things I experienced this weekend.

Leah and I have been away with our church on a kids camp. There were 30 children, 7 teenager helpers and 7 adults. Leah was along as a helper.

I must admit that on Friday afternoon I was in no mood to go on a weekend with 30, 6-12year olds. I was more in the mood to put my feet up, make some delicious food and see a film. It had been a busy week and I wasn´t in the mood to have a busy weekend too. But I must admit, the weekend was brilliant. We had such a great time with the kids, right from start to finish. So even though I was tired on Friday afternoon, as soon as I got to the camp I got the energy that I needed.

The highlight for some of the older kids was our "night-run." We gave some of the teenager boys the responsiblity to organise a "night run" for the oldest kids. So as soon as we had got all the younger children tucked up in bed, the fun could begin.

The older children were gathered in the dining room, playing card games together. The boys had arranged that they would come in and kidnap me. Then the children would have to go to different posts and do different things to earn money to be able to pay the ransom money to get me back. (I was a bit worried that they wouldn´t want me back!) It was hilarious. I wish I had videoed what happened!

The time was about 10.45pm. We told the kids that we were going to read them a goodnight story and then it was off to bed....(few complaints at that!) While the other leader was reading, the dining room door suddenly opened and in came 4 people (our teenage helpers) dressed like "terrorists." They had masks, guns (toy machine guns with all the noise that comes with them!) and they shouted and screamed. They grabbed me and pulled me out of the room. Now I knew this was going to happen and I got the shock of my life....so you should have seen the kids, they nearly jumped out of their skin!! and they LOVED IT!!!

So at about 11pm last night, I was out running through the forest with these boys. I couldn´t see a thing, and there were a million mosquitos about the place.

The other adult leaders were already at their different posts in the forest, waiting on the kids to come. Then the "terrorists" hid in the forest ready to scare the poor kids as they were on their way to the different posts. Every so often you could hear loud, high pitched screams and you knew they had succeeded in scaring them once more.

Since I was getting ate alive with mosquitos, I decided to head back to my car and hide. But what a job that was! I had to make sure that I didn´t meet the kids on the way! I finally made it back and about ½ hour later the "terrorists" came and dumped me back at the camp for a happy re-union with the kids.

The kids thought it was brilliant. They talked about it constantly last night. We could hardly get them to bed! This morning when we asked the kids what had been the best thing about camp - all the older ones said it was the "night-run."

I thought I had gotten a lot of mosquito bites until I saw Leah´s legs. She had only short leggings on when she went out on the "night run" and she paid the price for that. The mosquitos had a feast and all she got was itchy legs!!

Now it´s off to bed. Another busy week is about to begin, but that´s ok. I feel refreshed and great, even though I have been on the go all weekend!

From 20 to 18 to 44.....

From 20 years of marriage to our niece´s 18th birthday and then Kristian´s 44th birthday! It has been a weekend of celebration!

But first things first. The big news of the day is....it´s Kristian´s birthday. Today he turned 44! When he arrived home from work we had the cakes prepared and the presents wrapped. We had a small celebration, just Kristian, me and the kids. I had junior club this evening so we couldn´t really do much this evening.

We have a tradition in our family, that the birthday boy or girl gets to choose what´s for dinner on the evening of their birthday. They can choose fast food, fancy restaurant or their favourite home cooked food. Kristian had wished for home cooked food....a steak! So a steak is what he got, along with the rest of us. They were delicious.

While I was at junior club he enjoyed himself here at home, watching one of the DVDs that he got from his mum. He was over the moon with it. Kristian loves jazz and his mum bought him a DVD about the old jazz musicians that played in Montmartre in Copenhagen. The DVD is made like a documentry. One of his favourite singers, Swedish Lisa Nilsson is also singing with them.

I think he has had a nice day even though we didn´t do too much.

On Friday evening we were out with my work. We went to see and hear about Falkons. It was amazing seeing these great birds up close. Then we were out eating together. It was the whole school,so teachers, office workers, cleaners, the board of directors and their partners were out together. Kristian came along with me which was really nice. We had such a great evening.

Then on Saturday our neice turned 18! We had a wonderful day with her and the rest of the family down on the farm.

All the cousins were together. (Below is Leah with her cousin Philip and Annie. They were all born the same year. Leah and Annie, only 1 week apart. Philip came along 3 months after the girls.

Below is Sara with her cousin Christine.

Below: my wonderful mother-in-law.

We had some fun playing games. A group of us played rounders.

The next day I had such sore legs! (Above is Kristian´s sister husband running for all he is worth!! I didn´t know he could run like that!! haha)

Andrew and Philip played badminton against Sara and Christine.

Not sure who won!

Anyway, we all had a really wonderful day!!

So we went from celebrating a 20 year anniversary to an 18th birthday to a 44 year old birthday....and it doesn´t stop! Next week we have more birthdays!!

(Really bad planning!)

Yesterday....

...was our 20th wedding anniversary.

So the day started with Kristian making me breakfast. (that was a real surprise! Kristian is not a morning person!) So I got the whole works - bacon, eggs, bread, juice. It was lovely! I also got a bunch of flowers and some sweets.

Since we both were busy yesterday, we decided to celebrate our anniversary one day later. So today when I came home from work Kristian took me out on a date!

We drove up to the coast. There was a restaurant that we had heard good things about and we decided to check it out. We were not disappointed.

We had the most delicious meal! A 250grm Herford steak from Ireland, along with a salad buffet and different types of potatoes! It will not be last time we go there!!

We finished our meal just in time to have a walk along the beach and take a few snaps of the sky before the sun went down. It has been a lovely anniversary. Wonder where we will be in 20 years from now???! I will be 62!!! HELP that sounds old!! hahaha