It’s hard to believe that we’ve had Ellen for six months. It seems like a lot longer.
She still keeps us busy, but less so now that she can sit up and play with toys for long stretches at a time.
On the other hand she’s eating more and more solid food (probably more than half of her intake is solid at this point) and that requires more preparation and more cleanup.
But overall things are smooth. Except for bathtime, which she hates for some reason.
Ellen is five months old. For the first four months, there was no question who she took after. Virtually everyone remarked how she had my coloring, my eyes, and so on. But recently that has all changed. Her original dark hair is rapidly being replaced with blond hair, and her eyes seem more and more like Lisbeth’s.
The change has been pretty dramatic. I’d grown accustomed to having her look something like I did when I was her age, but suddenly people that see her say things like, “Oh, she look so much like her mother.” I had a good four months, but it seems that my reign of genetic dominance is over.
I’m not a good nature photographer. I lack the patience. If an animal happens to bound across my path I’m happy to try and capture a good image, but I’m not going to hide in a bush all day or painstakingly sneak up to a heard of grazing whatevers.
In this case I got lucky. I just happened to be riding by as two kayaks approached this crane and I knew it wouldn’t let them get much closer. I stopped, waited five seconds, and got these shots.
June 21st was the longest day of year, which in Copenhagen means sunrise was at 4:25 AM and sunset was at 9:58 PM. It’s a great time of year (but a bit confusing when you wake up in the middle of the night and have no idea what time it is.)
On the 23rd, Danes celebrate Sankt Hans (Saint John), an ancient summer tradition. The idea is essentially to drive away evil spirits. Apparently in the 1920s the evil was personified as a witch that is banished to the mountains of Germany by the fire.  (It’s not uncommon for the bonfires to have simple witch effigies on top.)
This year we were invited to a Sankt Hans in Hellerup by our friends Pia and Søren (I got a picture of Noah, their 8 month old, but not Søren). It was really nice, especially in contrast to our first Sankt Hans together, when the wood for the bonfire was so wet that it wouldn’t burn. We were at a huge park in town with hundreds of people, and after an hour or so, they tried silly things like thowing in plastic bottles.
But Sankt Hans is just one evening. It is one of the longest, but there are plenty of long, long days this time of year. Days when I can head out for a bike ride at 9:00 PM and it doesn’t get dark before I get back.
Days when we can sit on a couch out on our terrace and watch the light slowly fade. Days when I have plenty of opportunities to grab my camera and catch that very late afternoon light that I like so much.
I don’t know when I’ll learn. Every time, when I consider moving, I think Oh sure, no problem — I’ll just load this and that — and the couch of course — and that’ll pretty much be the worst of it. And every time I’m shocked by how much work it is.
So we’re not done yet but we’re exhausted. The new apartment is full of unpacked boxes, and we don’t quite know where anything is. But that’s not stopping us from enjoying the new apartment. That’s the best part of moving — setting up shop in a new environment.
But the move, along with the fact that work is as busy as ever, keeps me from posting entries here has often as I’d like. And so this is just a quick update, and some pictures that I’ve taken recently when I take the scenic way home after work.
And of course there’s Ellen, who keeps us busy too. She turned four months old on the 16th, and she’s as energetic and curious about the world as ever. She has two teeth coming in, but hasn’t shown any sign that they bother her.
On Saturday, May 30th, we had Ellen baptized at Christians Kirke, just down the street from our old apartment. She behaved really well, even smiling at the priest during her prayer (so much so that I think the priest almost forgot what she was saying.)
It was interesting because both Lisbeth and I got pretty nervous before the service, but not because Ellen was getting baptized. This was more like post-traumatic stress. (This is, after all, the second time that I’ve gone into a church and said “ja” (yes) to a priest who asked me multiple questions in a language I really struggle to understand.) I think we were both nervous because it sort of felt like we were getting married all over again. Read More →
Mom and dad were here for two weeks and we filled that time pretty well with moving, but we also went to Stockholm, which was neat because none of us had ever been there before. (And considering how much traveling Lisbeth has done, that’s pretty surprising.)
 
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We opted to take the train instead of fly even though flying was cheaper. The train is just more relaxing, and gave us a chance to see the Swedish countryside, which is very pretty, with a lot of hills and rocky outcroppings (which you certainly don’t see very often in Denmark.) Plus it’s a fast train. It goes about 200 kph, or  124 mph, which means it only takes about five hours to get to Stockhom.
 
Since I moved out of my parent’s house, I’ve moved around quite a bit. The longest I’ve stayed in the same place was my house in North Bend, outside Seattle, where I lived for five years. The second longest stay has been my apartment in Christianshavn, where I’ve lived since April, 2006, shortly after moving here. For most of that time I had the place to myself. Lisbeth moved in with me in March of last year, and then Ellen joined us in Febrary of this year. And although we could certainly have continued to live there, space was getting a bit tight.
This weekend we moved to a very new (and less central) apartment. The new neighborhood is called Ørestad, which I wrote about over two years ago here. Back then I thought it was the last place I’d find myself living, but… a lot has changed. Read More →
It’s spring, and the weather is fantastic. I don’t know if spring in Denmark is just plain fantastic, or if it just seems that way because the winters are so long and dark, but either way, it’s a big relief when spring arrives. And yet a Storm arrived a week ago.
Lisbeth’s sister Hanne and her boyfriend Kaspar had their first child last Friday, and so we went to see the new addition. There seemed to be a little uncertainty, but it looks like they’re going to name him Storm.
It was a big shock for us to see him, for several reasons. For one thing, he’s sure to steal Ellen’s thunder, and so we basically see him as a threat. And to make matters worse, he’s the first boy in Lisbeth’s family since her older brother Mogens was born, so that’s a pretty big event too. Read More →
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