Category Archives: Pictures

Spring has sprung

March 25, 2012 8:41 pm // 2 Comments

Winter is over! (And to celebrate, I’m shooting two stops overexposed.)

I like to tease the Danes for their exuberance when the sun starts to spend more time in the sky. They act like they’re kids and Christmas has arrived without warning.

They all rush out at once, and stand in parks, on street corners, and on terraces, close their eyes, and bask in the sunlight. On the first warm day of the year, you can’t find a grumpy Dane in the whole of Denmark.

But I have to admit spring in Denmark is fantastic. It comes on so suddenly, and in such sharp contrast to the winter… each year I spend less time teasing and more time quietly soaking up the sunlight.

Posted in: Denmark, Ellen, June, Pictures

Quiet

March 4, 2012 9:56 am // Leave a Comment

The current price of thirty minutes of quiet? One piece of paper. (That’s a damn good deal.)

Posted in: Ellen, Pictures

Ellen turns three

February 16, 2012 11:38 pm // 1 Comment

Ellen turns three today. We celebrated her birthday on Sunday, and, despite the fact that she looks a little sad in some of the pictures, she had a good day. Ellen’s cousin Marie also has a birthday in February (she turned 16 on the 9th), so there was plenty to celebrate.

This was the first birthday where she understood the concept. She talked about it for weeks in advance. She knew she was going from two to three, and she knew that gifts were going to be part of the deal.

She also understood (due to the diligent repetition by her parents) Read More →

Posted in: Ellen, June, Personal, Pictures

June at one month

January 8, 2012 8:18 pm // Leave a Comment

It’s been a month of adjustment. Adjusting to scattered sleep schedules. Adjusting to not out-numbering our kids two to one. Adjusting to being a family of four (which still sounds a little weird to me.)

Despite the fact that June looks so much like Ellen did at this age, there’s no confusing the two in other respects. When Ellen was a month old, she was getting Lisbeth up once a night for an hour at most. With June, Lisbeth is generally up four or five hours a night. Read More →

Posted in: June, Personal, Pictures

2012 360°

January 4, 2012 10:44 pm // Leave a Comment

Last New Year’s eve, we planned to return from our trip to the US, and spend a jet-lagged but pleasant evening looking out at the fireworks from our bedroom window on the eight floor. That didn’t work because our flight was delayed, so we welcomed the new year on a place over the Atlantic.

This year, with an infant, we opted to stay home, but now we live in a quiet residential quarter, with no view whatsover, so we didn’t think we’d see many fireworks. We were wrong.

Apparently, in a country where guns are illegal and fireworks are allowed only once a year, you really need to get it all out of your system. For three days prior to New Year’s, there were random explosions around the neighborhood. This increased dramatically on the 31st, going on pretty much all day.

It picked up even more after dark. We thought that it was all the people who have kids that they want to put to bed later, lighting their fireworks now instead of waiting for midnight. Wrong again. Read More →

Posted in: Denmark, Pictures

Wake-a-thon 2011

December 16, 2011 9:17 pm // Leave a Comment

I had forgotten. I’d forgotten how small newborns are. I’d forgotten that they make strange little squeaks and snorts. I’d forgotten that they don’t have a very loud cry, and that their single purpose is to eat. (Yes, they sleep too, but they sleep only if their single need — to eat — has been met, and they sleep only to gather the strength to empatically request their next meal.)

I’d also forgotten that a newborn has no respect for night and day, and that despite the fact that their cry is not loud, it is impossible to ignore. There is no restful sleep in the house of the hungry infant.

June was, even in the womb, alarmingly active at night. Read More →

Posted in: June, Personal, Pictures

June

December 13, 2011 12:42 am // 1 Comment

On Tuesday, December 6th, our second daughter was born. We’ve named her June Vestergaard Trujillo.

This time around we opted to take the option of having the birth at home. We did this not because we had a bad experience at the hospital when Ellen came (quite the opposite), and not because we’re dedicated to doing everything the old fashioned way (our tribute to the old-fashioned is pretty much limited to not asking the sex of the child during the scans.)

We did it mostly for practical reasons: we don’t have a car, and we live in a big modern city, so if anything went wrong, we’re a short ambulance ride from three hospitals. By having the child at home, transportation was not our concern. When the midwife leaves, we’re already in our cozy and warm new house, in December, with our new child.

It was a great experience, but there were moments when I wondered if I’d regret it. That’s because, even though we knew that delivery usually goes faster for the second child, we were caught off-guard by the pace at which things unfolded. As it turned out, the midwife showed up only eleven minutes before the baby was born.

Posted in: June, Personal, Pictures // Tagged: childbirth, midwives

Tivoli

November 14, 2011 9:05 pm // Leave a Comment

Lisbeth turned thirty-five on Sunday. To celebrate, we invited her family to Copenhagen. They arrived on Saturday morning, and we had brunch at the house, and then we all went to Tivoli.

According to Wikipedia, Tivoli is “the most popular seasonal theme park in the world.” But Tivoli can be a little hard for Americans to understand. It’s sort of a theme park — it has rides, and shops, and ornately decorated promenades, but it’s no Disneyland. It’s much lower key than Disneyland. It’s a tranquil experience, regardless of the season. There may be people that go to Tivoli just for the rides, but most people go just to walk around and enjoy the surroundings.

Posted in: Denmark, Pictures

You haven’t lived…

October 16, 2011 8:37 pm // 5 Comments

Until you’ve moved by bike.

Posted in: Bikes, Denmark, Personal, Pictures

The house hunt

August 31, 2011 10:30 pm // 1 Comment

Seven easy steps to finding the ideal home:

Stumble into house hunting halfheartedly — pretty much as a joke.
Set a price limit that, while affordable, limits you to houses that are too small for your family, or require at least the asking price in repairs, rendering your price limit meaningless.
Early on, settle on a house that you’re not particularly crazy about. Go the whole way, paying to have it inspected and so forth, and agonize a good deal about it.
Back out at the last minute, triggering huge relief on your part and crushing disappointment on the part of the seller (ideally so much so that they take the house off the market.)
Return to the hunt, mostly because you want to get the whole thing over with.
On the next outing, discover a house that is ideal and pretty much feels like home as soon as you walk in the door.
Make an offer that, given how quickly the sellers accept, causes you to wonder how much you overpaid.