I decided it’s time for a new theme — the cherry blossoms were sweet, but the whole blog look seemed a little flat and stark to me. So I’m going to try some stuff and things might be a little disrupted around this joint until I get it squared away. Ha ha! As though my complete silence for weeks at a time could be disrupted!

     But we are doing okay here and I appreciate all the support and nice thoughts! Thank you. I will let you know re horse’s head Laurell.

     The main reason for the silence has actually just been a major work deadline, that required much overtime. So that is finished, and now I have one more week before I start my very Danish three-week vacation. That’s three weeks in a row. I think the last time I had that was in 1996, when I was still teaching. We’re shipping the kids off to Cincinnati to visit my parents, and then James and I are going to have a lot of together time, which will also be an unusual experience. In addition to making some plans for the future, we are heading to Venice for five days in there. So there’s lots to look forward to.

     And summer in Denmark is so pretty. It’s the reason people live here. The skies are often blue, and the temps hang in the moderate mid-70s. I’ve been biking to work more often than not, and it’s a pleasure.

     We have signed Mabel up for a new school for the coming year. She couldn’t face returning to the local school, and the international schools are full. We asked our kommune to subsidize her enrollment in a relatively nearby Swedish international school (it’s public, so they don’t have formal tuition) but the kommune said no. For a bit, we settled in with the plan to homeschool Mabel this fall, which was pretty much the death knell on our time in Copenhagen. But then Mabel decided to give it one last shot at a Danish school, so we found a public school downtown that has a few qualities that might make for a better experience for her. For one, it’s in the city, so the students will likely not be so horsey. And this school has a Danish as a second language program, as well as several English speaking kids, so there is a better understanding of the needs of foreigners. And they have mixed up the classes at her grade level in the past year, so the friendships are not so entrenched, and should make the students more open. And our friends are sending their kids there, so while they are a different age and stage of Danish, I think that will add a nice sense of community to the experience. Best of all, Mabel is really up for the change. She’s up for the hour-long commute each way, and she’s up for trying out a new place and new group, with the understanding that she has to make a better effort to be outgoing and approachable. She feels like her language skills have really come along, and I think this will make for a much better transition for her. So we are hopeful.