Long time no hear ...

A post on this blog is long overdue. So much has happened over the last four months I don't even know where to begin.

We ended the year of 2012 on a sad note. Our beloved dog Pax developed cancer and a short 6 weeks after we found out we had to say goodbye to him. We managed to get a new puppy before he was put down but is it still not the same.

In the end of January my husband was let go from his job - a turbulent month followed but luckily he was able to find a new job very quickly.

Around the same time we was called to a meeting at school. They wanted to hold back Alexander a year because they were worried about his academic skills. We refused but it means that we need to focus a great deal on him.

It was with a sad heart that we then decided that we had to put our kids first and not have exchange students for a while.

Then life threw us another little or rather big twist. In the middle of march I thought Emmeline had given me the flue. But a pregnancy test showed a different answer to my stomach problems. I am pregnant!! We still have trouble believing it but hopefully come November the household will say Hello to the world to a little baby.

We felt bad for our exchange student because we knew that the following two months I would be very sick and mostly confined to my bed and we simply wouldn't have the time to give her the exchange year we think she deserves. We had also had a period where communication wasn't going so well between us - we didn't see her much and we felt we lived to separate lives. So we gave her a choice. We said that we would love for her to stay but if she wanted to switch family to a family that have more time for her we would understand completely. We felt it was important that she made the choice herself.

I had to make a similar choice as an exchange student. My host mother was a teacher at school and she was a tough teacher. To me she was a great friend that I loved spending time with but to others she seemed very harsh and not a very warm person. One of my great friends asked if I wanted to come stay with her and her family instead. I declined because I was perfectly content where I was. But it did make me think about my situation and looking back it meant a great deal to have made that decision my self. I chose to stay so I was responsible for my own situation - that is character building!

She also chose to stay and she is so excited about the baby that she wants to come visit next summer to see the baby. She has also been great at helping out more around the house and communication has improved vastly since.

Reason number 6 for having an exchangestudent

Al though I haven't done it much lately cooking is one of my favorite pass times. Between kids and every day chores I just don't seem to have much time to do it. But I am looking forward to teaching her some traditional danish meals.

We are an "international" family so we don't eat very traditional danish food - at least not for dinner. 

I remember when I was an exchange student I asked my mom to send some recipes so I could cook for my host parents. I did cook a few times but after I on two separate occasions started a small fire and flooded the kitchen they asked if I could just bake from then on. 

One of the dishes I made was meatballs in curry or as we say in Danish: "boller i karry". It is basically pork meatballs which is boiled and served with a curry sauce and rice. This was actually what I was making when I set the kitchen stove on fire as an exchange student.

Another dish is one that most foreigners have heard of; Frikadeller - again pork meatballs, served with either potatoes and gravy or potato salad.

She has expressed interest in making frikadeller - it will be fun to teach her even more about danish food traditions.

Reason number 7 for having an exchangestudent

Christmas has come and gone again. But what a treat it was to experience a danish Christmas through her eyes.

Christmas lunches
In Denmark almost every workplace has a Christmas lunch and a lot of them serve traditional danish Christmas food. And that means pickled herring, eel, salmon, ham, porkroast and Ris a la Mande. We also went to a family Christmas lunch with greatgrandma with the entire family and to one after Christmas with the other side of the family. The first time she tried almost everything - I could see it in her eyes that there were things she was to polite to spit out again.

Somehow she also got the impression that we eat æbleskiver at every Christmas gathering we go to - well almost true.



She claims she gained several pounds in december ... that is what it is like to be an exchangestudent.

Church
Most Danes go to church at the following events: Baptisms, Confirmations, weddings and funerals. Occasionally some go to church at Christmas - per her request we went too. She liked it but commented on how different it was - before the service there was a lot of talking - she thought that was strange :).

I love Christmas and it has been a joy to share our Christmas traditions with her. Reason number 7 for having an exchangestudent.

Reason number 8 for having an exchange student: Giftwrapping

Christmas is almost here. As in any country Christmas is a big deal. And stressful. Already our calendar is booked beyond what seems do-able. Apart from all the Christmas parties there is also all the activities we need to do ... and have fun doing it!

My sewing project is almost done. I finished the calendar for her a long time ago and my sons is done too. My daughters is in danger of not getting done. I am working day and night to get it done - it is not looking good. My husband knows how important it is to my daughter and me that is gets done before December 1st. so for the first time ever he volunteered himself and her to wrap the gifts that go on the calendar so I could sew. Last night was the wrap Christmas calendar gifts night. My husband wrapped the ones for our son and she  wrapped 24 little gifts for her host sister. I will post pictures once all of them are done and full of  presents.

I love the extra pair of hands. I don't expect her to work all the time but when she helps out to make stressful times a bit less stressful it is just wonderful to have an exchange student. So reason number 8 to have an exchange student.

Parenting

I don't know what exactly I expected when we signed up for an exchange student. The thing I most surprised about it the parenting involved.

Like reminding her that she needs to do her homework, keeping track of her schedule and reminding her when there is something she has to do, waking her up in the morning when she slept in ... again. At this point (3 months into her stay) I sort of figured that some things I don't need to say anymore.

One of my friends says that her son is always just landed - meaning that everything comes as a bit as a surprise to him. She is the same in some ways. The learning curve is a surprise too - after (wrongly) assuming that the bus would come at a certain time one would think one would check next time?

I didn't expect to parent like this not at this age!

School

How important is school during exchange? I was brought up on the notion that school is a priviledge and it is always important to do well in school.

During my year in Muskegon I was bored beyond belief. Being a senior in high school in the states is just not the same level as being a student in second year in a danish high school. Very quickly I realized just how little I had to do and still maintain a GPA over 3.5. I didn't have much trouble with the language nor the academic level that was taught so I could pretty much slack off in most classes. The only two classes where I couldn't slack was my hostmothers class (British lit) and Calculus. My hostmother knew that I could do better and required that I did as much as possible and calculus was actually at the same level as at home (and I would be able to use it at home).

By not even trying too hard I still managed to land in the top 10 in my class.

The story for my student is however very different. Not only is almost everything done in a different language but the level is also college level for her and she needs the credits to able to skip junior year at home and still graduate with her classmates at home.

Another thing she has to learn is that school is different than in the states (I know stating the obvious). But here we learn and understand but there they memorize and forget ... well somethings sticks ...

We were talking about the American election the other day and she was baffled about how much we care about who ends up in the whitehouse. And she was aslo baffled about how much everybody here knows about politics. That reminded me of the standard answer to my questions about different issues in Muskegon; "I don't know - we haven't covered that in school yet."

I remember my second year in the danish highschool - it was tough! And I did a lot of homework. She says she does her homework and the only class she has real troubles in is in physics but I don't see her studying that much ... and does it matter if she doesn't?

Reason number 9 for having an exchange student

Friday we went to tivoli for the big halloween display. We had a great day - the three kids each got a ride-bracelet so they could try all the rides. I gladly paid to get out of getting on every roller coaster and carousel. She loves amusement parks and I have to admit I am getting to old for rides now - I get motion sickness just from looking at things that go around and around and up and down.

The big payoff in the investment came after dinner - pizza, very good pizza and plenty of it. The small kids wanted to try one last ride - pirate ships that goes around and up and down. While the parents was trying to remember why that last piece was a good idea she got on the pirate ships with the twins.

Reason number 9 for having an exchange student.