Christmas & Spedding's Visit

MSped and his wife, Randi (aka. the lovely Mrs. Spedding) arrived on Christmas Eve. We picked them up at the airport and went to my grandmother's house where we celebrated Christmas together.
This was the first time Stella and I have celebrated a Christmas in Denmark with our Danish family and now we got to include my 5th grade teacher and his wife.
When we arrived from the airport my aunt, uncle and his family had already arrived. The food was almost done and (Stella's favorite part) the gifts were lined under the tree. We first ate a beautiful traditional Danish Christmas dinner. For dessert, we had Ris a la mande with cherry sauce on top. Delish!

Later we danced around the Christmas tree and holding hands. We sang Christmas songs with Stella as the lead.

"Nu' det jul igen,
og nu' det jul igen,
og julen varer li' til påske.
Nej det' ikke sandt,
nej det' ikke sandt,
for ind imellem kommer fasten"

After we danced around the tree, we opened gifts. Usually Stella ans I pass out the gifts and we take our time, but here, gifts were thrown at us! Gift after gift from the family... Thanks! And then . . . .

CA-POW!!! MSped started throwing gift after gift at us from all of our friends in the USA. THANK YOU GUYS!!! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

We all played and/or chatted. I played wii sport with my cousin, and when I finally won, he changed the game... Oh well! Stella and Amalia played with all of the new gifts, mine were already put away carefully (if they were clothes or candy) and hung up nicely if they were a card or a signed picture. :-)

When everyone had left, we cleaned up a bit and then went to bed from a long day. A long, fun day...
Pictures from the 24th here.

The next 7 days we toured the Speddings around the Northern Sealand.

Dec. 25th:
Today we went to Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød and toured the inside. IMPRESSIVE! We walked around Hillerød and had a picnic by the castle lake.
Later we drove them out to the beautiful Buresø were Stella and I have spent many hours swimming every summer.
We ended the day with a walk around Lynge where we showed them our school before having dinner at my grandmother's house.
Pictures from the 25th here.

Dec. 26th:
Stella was not feeling good today. She had a cold and a fever so we unfortunately had to leave her home. My mom, the Speddings and I took the train into Copenhagen. We walked down Strøget and Nyhavn before heading the National Museum. After a wonderful day in the city we went to my grandmother's house for dinner.
Pictures from the 26th here.

Dec. 27th:
Stella was still not feeling good so my mom and I went off to spent a day with the Speddings without her.We drove to Louisiana on the coast to see the Polar exhibition. After seeing the exhibition, which I thought was fantastic, we went and walked around outside for a little bit. This museum is location so beautifully! We then sad and enjoyed a great picnic before heading up along the coast to Helsingør. Helsingør is a great town with charming streets, old houses and Hamlets castle - immortalised by Shakespeare.
Pictures from the 27th here.

Dec. 28th:
Today was a big day for me. I got to show MSped and Mrs. Spedding my riding skills.We went out to the stables and I introduced them to all the horses. We asked if Mrs. Spedding would be interested in riding with me, but unfortunately she declined....
There was a boy that had already taken Fussie to ride on so I had to ride on a horse called Prince. I was not happy! Bente, who owns the stables, knew that I was sad because I really wanted to show the Speddings me riding on Fussie. Half way through the riding lesson Bente asked the boy on Fussie and I to switch horses. I was so happy that she did that!
Pictures from the 28th here.

Dec. 29th:
The Speddings really wanted to see the Jewish Museum so today we went back in to Copenhagen.
The architect of the museum, Daniel Libeskind, who lives in America, has done a really cool job with this museum! Wow!
When we where done we decided to go to another museum - Glyptoteket. This place was amazing and huge! We walked around and checked out the fantastic collections before settling down in the museum's beautiful restaurant for lunch.
Before heading back to my grandmothers for dinner we walked down the back streets of Copenhagen.
Pictures from the 29th here.

Dec. 30th:
Today we drove to Gilleleje to go for a walk on the beach. Stella was especially happy because it meant looking for rocks. :-) The weather was amazing for December - sunny and not too windy.
We had a great time walking the beach, the harbor and around town. Later we drove all the way Knud Rasmussen's house. It was so cool to be there with MSped because my explore project in 5th grade was on Knud Rasmussen. Full circle.
We ended an awesome day with dinner at my grandmothers.
Pictures from the 30th here.

 

Dec. 31st:
Today was our last day with the Spedding before they were heading back to California. We took the train in to Copenhagen. The Speddings checked in to a hotel and we then went for lunch - at BURGER KING!!! After our gourmet lunch ;-) we walked down to the queens castle - Amalienborg. When we got there we noticed that there were TV stations everywhere. My mom told us that they were getting ready for the queen's New Years speech. As Stella and I was goofing off trying to get a picture with the queen's guards my mom noticed that one of the doors in to the castle was opening up. And out, right there in front of us, came a car driven by the queen's husband, Prince Henrik. He had the window down, looked right at us, waived and said hi. It was way cool!!!!
We made our way back to the heart of Copenhagen and went to Tivoli. In Tivoli, there were loads of people. The decorations from Christmas were still up, including all of the elegant lights. Everything was so peaceful and enlightened. At 6:00pm we saw a light show with Nutcracker music and later, at 9:45pm to be exact, the fireworks in Tivoli were lit.
We ate dinner in Tivoli and when we were finished, we left. Everyone left at the same time, so it felt a bit awkward. You literally were floating while you walked out.
We walked over to Rådhuspladsen where we saw the amazing, and powerful fireworks. It was a madhouse! It was two hours of non-stop fireworks!
Stella was having a hard time. I think that the large fireworks really brought up her emotions as well as her tiredness. She had a hard time celebrating New Years without Dad.
We began 2014 by wishing the Speddings a happy New Year and then we said our farewells as they headed to their hotel and we went to train station where we took a train home.
Pictures from the 31st here.