Thanksgiving 2018

The thanksgiving weekend is over - that was fast. Probably because we have had a really good time. We have gone for long walks with “the very hungry caterpillar”:

We have enjoyed an amazing thanksgiving dinner. I especially loved the gravy turtle:

What is a home without a gravy turtle? Right?

I also really enjoyed the company

And when you are as old as me and only have teenage kids, sights like this melts your heart:

Not particularly pleasant though was the Black Friday brutal wake up by 16 year old (5:30AM......😖) who insisted to go shopping. Pronto! So off we went. Spending 1 1/2 hours at Briarwood mall to get........ drum roll please....... two cups of Starbucks drinks. We did look for new boots for Teresa, but there were none she liked. Until we made it to DSW:

Where she fell in love. An expensive love I might add. A “not on Black Friday sale at all” love. So Teresa’s new love is now stored away for Christmas Eve, which will be the next time she is reunited with them.

When we got back, Kristian and I did a Target run to get presents for the family back in Denmark. The plan was to ship them yesterday, but Luca needed a day just with him and me. So instead we had French fries:

Snooped around in the secondhand book stores with Star Wars places as far above as possible

We even managed to spot a fresher than fresh Zinn street art (he was actually painting it as we walked by the first time)

And ended the afternoon with the “jolliest bunch of assholes” on Main Street:

Now it is Sunday afternoon. Ulrik is back in his dorm, Kristian needs to bottle a bunch of beer, Teresa needs to do homework, and I will be going to pick up Luca from a friends place together with the 4-legged family member (who is actually losing it right now as he I overly excited about t potential car ride).

On my mind in November

It is November and with November comes Thanksgiving and the much needed first break from school since summer, which we are certainly looking forward to. It is also the time of year where we get the first snow. I had to drive to work early this morning (Sunday) as I had mice that needed my attention. And I actually made it in one piece despite my fear of driving under these conditions:

This also means that a certain high schooler has to get out of the door early, when she drives to school as there is often ice in the car in the mornings:

And I am back to bussing some mornings.Well - on the morning of this picture I guess I could have biked as the bike lanes were clear. But the -10C cold and the thought of frozen gears made me bail out. And made me feel very old👵🏻😕

Ulrik also has a break from college next week and it will be nice to have him home for a bit. We don’t hear much from him, but when we do it is good news. He has been thrown into a lot of unknown territory with his drawing skills and has already improved tremendously and learns new techniques fast. Here is a croquis drawing he has done recently:

I have a hunch that we will be able to fill our walls with art in the next few years!

Last but not least we are also binging on the Great British Baking Show. The hosts are the BEST! A weird goth dude, who has the sweetest personality and an older Danish comedian, who made sure to introduce Danish Week in the program leaving the poor Brits struggling with smørrebrød, æbleskiver, and kagekone. And when we watch that, I itch to get in the kitchen - something that resulted in this pomegranate cake for dinner guests yesterday:

Maybe not the prettiest cake of all times but as compared to other disasters leaving our kitchen I am quite happy with it

Diwali style

I have to admit that every time we reach November I miss all the Danish Christmas hygge terribly much. It’s just not the same here. I miss real candles and non-plastic spruce and everything marzipan. Some of it we try to make up for ourselves and some of it we just have to live without. But then we get other events that would certainly not be a thing in Denmark. Like the yearly Diwali celebration at Kristian’s work where a large portion of the workforce comes from India. One of their biggest celebrations is Diwali - a celebration of light - and that is not being ignored at General Motors. Every year they throw a workday party with food (usually potluck but this year it was catering), decorations, singing, and dancing, and I wanted to share a few of Kristian’s pictures here.

They set up little tableaus with Golden gods, lights, and delicate patterns made from rice/lentils/beans:

And have saris on display:

And then there is the singing and dancing. Last year there was only one lady dancing but this year they stepped it up:

Including Kristian’s boss and “the lazy boys” doing a somewhat not-too-acrobatic dance wearing sunglasses and plenty of attitude. LOL.

Halloween......

......  is over. And with Luca’s halloween style birthday 2 weeks ago I feel like I have had my share of Halloween this year. Which is good when even the youngest kid is now a teenager who doesn’t feel like hanging out with his parents this night. We were still allowed to buy him a costume though😉

And I doubt there are any other dinosaurs out there having had as much fun as this particular dinosaur!

Since no kids were home for trick or treating Kristian and I decided to get out of the apartment and do something else too. Because the weather was nice and mild we went for a walk in Eberwhite Woods, which was stunningly beautiful with bright yellow everywhere:

And then we sneaked over to a local vegetarian restaurant (Seva) where I had the most realistic looking vegan burger ever. I had to convince myself in between every single bite, that I was not eating meat! They even use beet juice to make it look medium rare inside.

When we got home we tried to get bailey in a halloween mood by making him wear vampire teeth. Not a great success

But I must say that I will miss riding batmobiles with uber:

And meet “Mom” in Trader Joe’s:

See you next year Halloween!