Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Another sunny beautiful November weekend. That we spent sleeping or watch go by from a cozy corner on the couch.

Kristian just came out of a crazy work frenzy. Pretty much working e.v.e.r.y. single day for a month. And by the end of that, there is not really much energy left. I have not been any close to being that busy, but I have hardly been using my office chair for several weeks besides eating my lunch as fast as I could. Ulrik and Teresa have ended the first quarter of high school being buried in homework, while Luca has been overnight camping with school. So it is really not a very energetic Frikke Family these days.

But we did get a few things done Saturday. We went here:

Our church supports "operation christmas child", a christian organization that brings out shoeboxes with Christmas presents for kids in poor countries. You chose either boy or girl as well as the age group, and then fill the box with toys, toiletries and school supplies. It is the third year that we are involved, but somehow it always ends up being crazy chaotic finding the stuff to go in the box. This year we went to Walmart. And like every other time we go to Walmart we just cannot control ourselves and ended up with pants for Ulrik, shoes for Luca, Christmas bling (including an incredibly ugly ornament for you, Christine) etc etc on top of the box filling toys. Oh, and 4 pairs of slippers to directly to a charity event collecting slippers for Hope Clinic - a local initiative providing health care to those who have no insurance (or slippers apparently ;-)  And we got to further support a good cause by buying brazilian brigadieros. My all time favorite truffles. Not bad at all.

We promised the kids that we were going to decorate for Christmas early this year, as we are going to California December 21'st. But that will have to wait until next weekend. The ornaments are standing by to replace our fall deco though:

And Saturday a souvenir arrived at the door. While in Universal Studio my sister was certain that we could not live without a crazy ugly bath towel sporting Luca, Christine, and I as Shrek characters. Guess what - of course we cannot. Just look at this beauty:

"beautiful island"

Despite Kristian and I both having work to do this weekend, we had planned a little outing Saturday just to get away for a bit. Eastern Market is one of our Detroit favorites and also our 2016 summer bucket list included a visit to the island in the middle of the Detroit River: Belle Isle.

So off we went.

Detroit Skyline

getting closer

now we are almost there

Oops. One wrong turn and this is what the center of Detroit can also look like

As always Eastern Market was a pleasure, and this time we even found the apples we have been hunting for since we tried them last year. I have never seen pinata apples before, nor have I ever heard of them, but they are the best apples we have ever tried:

We stayed for lunch at the food trucks. Luca had french fries (what else..... sigh) and Kristian and I got our lunch from a pasta/italian sandwich truck. The weather was perfect with blue sky, sunshine, and almost warm enough to wear only T-shirt. Nice!

After shopping fruits and veggies for next week, and after telling Luca that we were not going to buy the monstrous Hubbard squash for his teacher Mrs Hubbard:

 we continued to Belle Isle. It is an island turned into a park in the middle of Detroit River, smack in between Windsor and Detroit (see map here). The first thing you see after crossing the bridge is a giant US flag. I guess they want to make sure that people know they  have not accidentally crossed the order to Canada..... LOL.

It was truly living up to it's name of being a beautiful island on a beautiful sunny day.

Luca was however somewhat disappointed as he spotted a playground he really wanted to test. Well, the rain had caused it to sit in a pond........

No matter what is was unexpectedly nice outside today, and it felt really good to be outdoors. I wonder how long that will last!

Orlando trip

We are back from a couple of amazing and exhausting days in Orlando. The plan was Disney World and not really much more - primarily based on my total ignorance of what would be possible in the land of sunshine, palm trees, and theme parks. Lucky for me, my sister was a pro!

Luca and I flew down Sunday afternoon to Orlando, where Christine was waiting in the airport. It took a little effort to find eachother as our phones kept messing it up. And the shuttle to the hotel was kind of messed up too resulting in a free cab ride. Not bad.

Monday was Magic Kingdom day. I have never even been close to any Disney park, so I didn't really know what to expect. Well two things were certain. The magic doesn't start until you are inside (after a crowded bus ride and a bag search), and as long as you leave your account information and your pride by the entrance it will be nothing short of amazing!

on the "magical" crowded bus

"magical" bag search

First stop: get crazy Disney headgear for all!

and now the magic can begin :-)

Next stop: get fast pass ride booked.

And then it was time to take it all in. Luca does not like roller coasters! At all! But he sure does like spending money and he got himself an autograph book so he could get it signed from all the Disney characters he could find (except princesses though - he does have certain standards after all).

Oh, and regarding leaving your pride and account information at the entrance? Please leave any feminism out there as well. LOL

We had a blast trying rides. Fast pass entrance rocked and we got into "it's a small world" in a matter of minutes. We also tried "monsters inc laugh floor" where the camera seemed to pick out a certain redhead quite fast. Here's Luca on the big screen.

We did the Buzz Lightyear ride, and the jungle safari boats, where we heard enough lame jokes to last quite some time.

We also got a good view of the parade. It was SO impressive, and the look on Luca's face when he got high fives by Goofy was priceless.

Our plan was to stay until the fireworks, but all the restaurants were booked and we were incredibly exhausted, so our magic evening was spent in a hotel bed watching "chopped" on the food  network and eating room service dinner, before Luca passed out moments after exclaiming that he had just had the best day in his entire life!

I did not really have any idea of how to spend Tuesday. But again, who would ask an ignorant like me anyways? Honestly I didn't even consider that universal studios were also in Orlando. But now I know!

It was less crowded than the magic kingdom the previous day and we got to walk through all of universal studios including every motion simulator ride we could find (do not  underestimate Krusty land - just sayin'. It looked like they were pretty busy cleaning up some puke before we were let in!). It was wild but Luca absolutely loved it. We also took the Hogwarts express to Fantasy Island, and made it all around the park including Jurassic park (I did not allow him any gene sequencing fun in there though - I have plenty of that at work!), cartoon land, Marvel land, Dr Seuss land etc etc.

Christine insisted that we made it to the animal show, where they had dogs (including Marley from "Marley and me" and Frank from "Men in black"), cats, pigs, birds, chicken and a single skunk. It was mind blowing what they could teach these animals. A certain cute redhead was chosen to join on the stage for doing a dog stunt and a bird stunt. When the bird stunt included a turkey vulture at the end, it was time to leave the stage though ;-)

Luca and the dove

We had dinner outside the park at "cowfish" where we all enjoyed bento boxes and a marvelous sunset outdoors. And once again none of us had trouble falling asleep......

Now we are on our way home. Luca is wearing his brand new Pokemon sweater, and I am not too excited about the jealous faces I will have to encounter at home. The rest of the family was cool with Luca and I visiting Disney world, but they feel pretty back-stabbed that we also went to universal studios without them, which is totally understandable. They would all have loved it there. Hopefully there will be a next time sometime, right Christine?

October life

Life lately has been....... well life lately. In an October kind of way. I have a thing for butternut and acorn squash and try to eat them as often as possible. And we have done a tiny bit of halloween decorations. Just a bit. And honestly - that trip to Target, where we found it, was such a good one. Target for Halloween and Christmas is just the best! And a whole lot less distasteful than what can be found at other stores.......

 

 

 

Ulrik has had his first test. The practise SAT. We went to an info meeting about all this testing and college applications etc and it just stressed me out on the spot. Not only is college one of the most defining periods of the rest of a life, so you really want to make sure that your kid goes to a place that is right for them, but it is also really expensive and filled with "rules" that we do not know, because we have never tried it before. I guess we just have to start climbing up that mountain too. At least we have become really good at climbing mental mountains :-/

The apartment is slowly filling up with ceramic. Ulrik is really enjoying his ceramics classes and every time he brings something home, he talks about that next piece that is almost ready, that will be so much better. 

 

Luca has band in school this year, and has decided to stick with flutes (the rest of the family are kind of relieved he did not get the violin.....)

 

And the dog still cracks us up on a regular basis. Why can he just not sit like a regular proper dog? The legs somehow always escape like they belonged on a rubber chicken.

Sunday Luca and I will fly to Orlando to meet up with my sister and spend a couple of days in Disney world. We are both beyond excited and I will make sure to spam the blog with pictures. Stay tuned!

Best halloween deco EVER

I am still giggling over that crossfit skeleton. Seriously! It's the best

Going nuts

So my bike has been broken........

I repeat: My bike has been BROKEN!

For those of you who do not know me, this means that my world stopped spinning and I have to spend significant time every day doing something I absolutely despise: riding the bus :-(

At first it seemed simple. The chain needed adjustment, but then the rear tire needed to be replaced and once that was done, Kristian could not get the nut back on. The nut that holds everything together. Small world problems, right? So he went to Home Depot. And ACE hardware. And the bike shop down the street. And amazon. No luck in finding a replacement nut, because the one that my bike needed was 10.5mm inside, and every nut in the US (apparently) was either 10mm or 12mm.

I seriously almost cried of frustration. Until I decided to contact my colleague that can fix everything. He somehow managed to track down the one and only nut on the North American continent in the appropriate size and yesterday it arrived from Seattle. Here it is. Isn't it just a pretty sight ;-)

Our stove is broken too. Sigh. Yesterday all our power went away and when they finally got it back on close to 10PM we figured out that the stove was somehow dysfunctional and needed to be switched off. They haven't repaired it yet and my skills in cooking dinner with no heat are non-existing (we don't even have a microwave) but hey, blog post writing does not take a functional oven, right?

Still there are things to appreciate. Tomorrow we have a cleaning agency coming over for the first weekly appoinment I am as excited as a kid for Christmas. No more nasty arguing about washing the floors or trying to hype that kids about the awesome task of scrubbing the toilet. It is even a lot cheaper than I expected. Only 45$ for a weekly cleaning by a small company that use only environmental friendly cleaning stuff. Yay. The thought of stepping through the door on any random Thursday to a clean home - aaaaaaah.

Some October days should never end