Sunday, 8 March 2009

Christmas in Norwich

And then we went to England to spend Christmas and had an absolutely lovely time with Quentin's family.

Sadly, Andy passed away just a few weeks after Christmas and this of course made our pictures and memories of our last time with him even more special.

The children spent a lot of time with Andy at Christmas and they especially remember him playing "crocodile" with them.
Getting ready for Jeanette's amazing Christmas dinner...


Aren't they handsome?:-)










Cool uncle Daniel and his No 1 fan






Erin and Nanny sharing a giggle




and a hug







Christmas cracker puzles





Just to explain to anyone not English looking at this... It's not just a Cullingford-thing to wear pink paper crowns when they work in the kitchen... These things are inside the Christmas crackers on the Christmas dinner table and appearantly everyone has to wear them... :-)









I had to put this picture in because it is so Joshua. His really cheeky smile that tells you he's up to no good...






Three startled, dirty cousins:-) Erin just loves being around her cute cousins.


I know it looks like they're posing for the picture, but actually all 8 of them just happened to be sitting on this two seater settee when Joshua wanted to try taking a picture!

Going for a lovely walk to the park on boxing day (I think?)






















A very cool nanny, who didn't have time to jump off before she got caught on camera:-) (-sorry Jeanette)


Two brothers and two cousins




Joshua, his slippers and the cushions he wanted on him because he'd just got out of bed and was chilly without his duvet. Crazy boy:-)


Cool uncle Daniel and his no 2 and 3 fans...

Patient uncle Phil coming up with games to entertain the children. I just love Joseph's expression while Ryan is about to knock him over with that chair:-D

This was the roof of our car, when we landed in Lübeck and it was minus ten degrees (brrrr). It didn't start for a couple of hours and Quentin had to go get some airport workers to help him jump start it. Meanwhile the children and I waited in the airport terminal and when we saw another airport worker in his yellow top, Joshua went "there's another one of those guys with the animals". I was quite puzzled by that, but both children went on to tell me, that that's how they would start our car; by having animals jump on it until it started. They then went on to discuss what kind of animals they might use... First suggestion was grasshoppers as they've seen how high they can jump, but as Erin said: there'd have to be quite a lot of them to make a difference, being so small. They both thought a cangaroo would be too powerful and Joshua was certain it would be a crocodile no matter how many times Erin explained to him that they really do not jump. Obviously the expression "jump start" had got their little imaginations going big time. I had a hard time not laughing, but couldn't bring myself to cut trhough the pictures in their minds.
We went to England with two small full suitcases and came home with, ehm... four large ones and two carry-ons (yes I'm blushing, but the pound is just so dang cheap at the moment and it was the January sales!) Anyway, only with Quentin's excellent Tetris skills, were we able to get everything home:
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Crabs and Star fish

Crabs and Star fish
One of our most favourite things to do is to go to the beach at the end of our road and catch crabs and star fish. Erin and Joshua are little pros at it now. They both crack open their own mussels, attach them to the line and drop the crabs in the bucket. The girl in the blue dress is Erin's friend from church. They love playing together and are so similar, both in looks and temperaments.


Views from around our house

Views from around our house
We love the area we live in and Quentin can't stop taking pictures of the harbour whenever he walks across the bridge, we must have a million and in fifty years time, Sønderborg city council will propably contact us about copies for their records of the city... This was taken with our mobile.

The beach at the end of our road -we feel very lucky!

Welcome to our blog

Well, we've been in Sønderborg for a year now and time has really flown by!

We've bought a house in Augustenborg, which is a village 8 km from Sønderborg. It is also right near the water and is on the island of Als. We can't wait to move in on May the 15th.

Joshua will be starting preschool in Augustenborg when we move and for the first time he'll be going without his big sister to look out for him. He clings to her quite a bit, so we're happy that there's a little boy he knows from church starting at the same time. Hopefully he'll settle in well and make friends of his own quickly.

Erin will be starting school after the summer holidays and all the children starting this year, will be spending the summer at the school (in what's usually the after schoolclub -SFO) so that they have a bit of time to get used to each other and the school. It's very good timing for us as they start there in May, -right when we move anyway. It saves Erin a move or us driving her from Augustenborg to Dybbøl every morning.

The kids are growing so fast it seems at them moment and they are really looking forward to spending some time with nana and grandad this spring (we're looking forward to them brushing up on their English too...) and to going on holiday to mormor and morfar's on their own this summer.

Quentin is still enjoying working as a physio and still travels to Aabenraa every morning. He is also the branch mission leader and the nursery leader. The primary president loves him and thinks he is brilliant in that calling... He is incredibly creative in the way he teaches the children and they all love him and their lessons. He says he loves teaching a class where the students' vocabulary doesn't exceed his own:-)

I am the primary president and am still enjoying that very much. I have an amazing councillor who makes my calling a breeze and the children are (mostly) just lovely.
I am working night shifts at the old people's home, which I do enjoy, but I keep looking for other, more creative work and would love to do something else.

Apart from that, there's not much going on in our lives and we quite think it's plenty, really...

We are looking forward to you all coming to visit us in our new house when we've settled in.

The historic hills behind our road by Dybbøl mølle (mill) are the perfect place to fly kites before bedtime... Afterwards we like to roll down the hills -All except Quentin who usually ends up feeling queezy.

2007

As you may know we moved to Sønderborg, Denmark earlier this year. February to be exact.
Quentin had just finished his MSC in physiotherapy in Southampton and with it being so hard to get jobs in England because of all the NHS cutbaks, he also applied to one here in Denmark. We'd always thought it would be fun to move here for a while and thought there'd be no better time than now while the children are still small. It was still a hard decision though and one which involved lots of praying.
We are so happy to be here though. We had originally said we'd "give it at least two years", but Quentin keeps extending that lol. I think that must mean he's happy here:-)
He's working hard at a private clinic and is doing really well there. I am so happy that he is able to do the job he has always wanted to do.

He also takes Danish classes twice a week in the evening and we are all impressed with how quickly he is learning. I'm sure it has a lot to do with his perseverance in speaking Danish even to people he knows speak English very well.
Apart from that he is the branch mission leader (okay, the meetings with the elders are in English for the moment being...)

The branch here is tiny (when we first walked into the sacrament meeting Erin thought it was Primary) and we were a bit worried about that, having always belonged to big wards. It is a very different experience and we have to give lots of talks etc, but we actually really love it. The branch is made up mainly of young families and a few elderly people. The children have made some great friends at church and so have we.

I have been working part-time as a home help, but stopped a couple of weeks ago. I would really like to do something creative and somehow utilise my education, but for the moment I am just enjoying being at home with the children and having the time to do the things I want to. I do start working as a substitute next week, but that means I can choose my own shifts and with the shift hours I still pick the children up between one and two. I am also the Primary president at church. We have about 12 children who come regularly and they are so good to each other. The older ones always play with and look out for the little ones, so being the Primary president is a pleasure.

Erin and Joshua go to the same preschool (børnehave) and love it. Joshua likes having his big sister with him and mainly play with all the "big girls". They also go to gymnastics, which seems to be something everyone does around this area, so we see all the children from preschool there every Monday night as well. They really enjoy that too. Erin chose an all pink and shiny gym outfit, which happened to be the same one half the girls had chosen too, so they all run around as chubby flashes of pink and think they're ballerinas. Joshua keeps telling me how fast he runs at gymnastics and loves going so much. They both think Mondays are the best because there's preschool, gymnastics and then Family Home Evening.