What we found (comparable to something nasty in the woodshed)

As promised, I must continue the story of the post wedding reception discoveries.

Picking up where I left off, and as already shown, there were flags on the door. My thought: how cute, our brother in law must have put decorations in our apartment when they came back to get the food we forgot.

Once we opened the door though, "cute" was no longer the word I would have chosen. The door out of the hall and into the main part of the apartment was jammed, and the light switches mysteriously did not work. Maren, Kirsten and I still didn't know what was going on. Morten did though - his voice was calm but betrayed a touch of anxiety as he struggled with the door and said "they must have taken the light bulbs."

What?? What would be the purpose of doing such a thing? He didn't elaborate as we finally burst through the door into a pitch black apartment, and commenced a search for the lamps and light bulbs. Unable to find them anywhere, at last Morten called his brother in law to ask what he had done with the light bulbs. He was informed that the lamp was inside the freezer, and the bulbs were inside socks and things in our dresser drawers.

Ok, so, haha funny, now we can relax and go to bed...NO! Because the bed, much to my dismay, was not itself.



It was covered in candy and balloons, but not only that, it was also covered in lots and lots of rice!! Well, no problem I thought, I would just carefully take off the sheet and shake it out the window. But when I began moving the sheet I discovered...rice was underneath the sheet as well! Ok, don't panic...just take off the mattress pad. WHAT?!?!?! Rice was also under the mattress pad. At that point there was nothing else to carefully remove, nothing else to do but scoop up handfuls of rice. It took a while...and I admit I did not see the humor in this tradition until about 24 hours after the fact. Now I can laugh about it :)

So that is the story of my adventures with Danish marriage customs.

Sisterly visitations and Danish marriage traditions (both nice and not so very nice)

Maren got here friday afternoon and from that point forth until this morning at about 10:00, my life has been a bit chaotic (in very good ways for the most part).

We had great fun showing Maren and Kirsten the town. Kirsten is German but she has also never been to Denmark. We showed them the little mermaid, Amalienborg Palace (complete with blue guard guys with their bear fur hats), the round tower, and real Danish hot dogs! Kirsten especially liked those.

Here are some pictures from friday:







It was fun fitting everyone in our small apartment. Kind of like a slumber party. Saturday morning we decided that before heading for the belated wedding reception at Morten's parents' house, Maren and Kirsten and I would go on a canal tour. It was a great idea, except for the fact that it rained the entire time and A) we didn't have unbrellas and B) I wasn't even wearing a rain jacket. It fun to see some of the sights of Copenhagen from the water and ride under some REALLY low bridges, but we were also very glad to get off the boat again and head for the dry and warm house.





We arrived looking like drowned rats and immediately commenced a frenzied effort to become better looking. I don't know if my effort was as noble as it should have been, seeing it was the third day recently that I have been the "bride" so I guess some of the novelty had worn off by then.

The reception was wonderful! Morten's mom and the rest of the family did a great job of making the house and yard beautiful, complete with a tent in the backyard in case of rain. As luck would have it, the sun came out and we spent a very enjoyable three hours with friends and family.



There are a few Danish marriage traditions that I was not previously aware of. The one with which I was most familiar, was that we do a waltz to the sound of the Danish "bridal waltz." So when they ushered us into the middle of a circle, started the music and began clapping to the rhythm, I wasn't very surprised. I was a little more surprised when they began pelting us with rice, even stuffing it into our clothes...well, the pictures can speak for themselves:




After this I was even more surprised when, after the music stopped, everyone seized upon my husband, lifted him up in the air, violently removed his shoes, and cut off the tips of his socks with scissors, amidst his cries of "not my toes, not my toes!"




Later after the reception we had a smaller family dinner. It was very cozy and fun. I was excited to finally understand more danish than someone else at a family party, and we enjoyed teaching some danish phrases to Kirsten (which she promptly learned to say much better than I can).

At one point during the meal, Morten's uncle started banging on his glass with his fork. Everyone else joined in and at my confused look, Morten explained that we had to stand on our chairs and kiss. We had to keep doing it until they stopped, but then they started stomping their feet. This meant we had to go under the table and kiss. Everyone thought it was exceptionally funny.

It was a really good day. We got home really tired and ready for some nice rest. But then, strangely we saw decorations posted on our door:



and became wary of more foul play. We opened the door to find...

DOT DOT DOT

I will continue the story of what we found in our apartment at another time, partially because I am tired of blogging now and partially because we haven't uploaded the pictures yet. Stay tuned...

I <3 my sisters!

My wonderful sister Maren is coming to visit me today!



I'm counting the hours!

Absentee Voting....AHAHAHHH!

I thought I had registered to vote absentee, like...months ago. I still haven't received my ballot and now I am getting worried...so I checked up on some things and I think maybe they didn't actually register me because I chose "indefinitely" instead of "temporary" when referring to my residence abroad. I chose that because I got called to jury duty last year and had to cancel my registration in order to prove that I don't live in Texas anymore and can't go to jury duty there. SO what's a girl to do? How am I supposed to vote? I suppose I will make some international calls to sort this thing out. Because I AM going to vote. Period. If anybody has any tips for me...please let me know!

I've been inspired!

Today I read Edition 2 of Calcio nos Ossos Online - maintained by my beloved companion Pri (Sister Rebicki) and read by all the dear sisters of my mission who I miss so very much. It was wonderful to read it, and wonderful to feel that connection with them.

So, I became inspired to finally write a bit in my own blog, after a month or so of silence (basically). I have had a right to be silent - I have been pretty busy! Getting married and moving to another country and everything, it's pretty time consuming (not the mention the mental faculties involved).

So to sum up the last month or so, life has been GOOD. The wedding and honeymoon was a wonderful whirlwind, and now we are back in Denmark. Morten works all day (he is taking a semester off while we get the mess of my residency paperwork all sorted out) and I spend my days doing housework and finding other ways to amuse myself/make myself useful to the world. I am currently waiting for paperwork in order to be able to look for a job, take classes, things like that. It is possible for this paperwork to take a VERY long time, like up to 7 months, which has been a bit depressing. But lately we have received a wonderful blessing - a possible job for me sooner than that! A job at Maersk which is an important company in Denmark, and they could probably speed up the paperwork considerably if they decide to hire me. My interview is next monday! I hope it all works out.

I am mostly just feeling overwhelmed with blessings right now. I don't know how it's possible to be so blessed, I know I don't deserve it half as much as so many other people do. But it's not my place to judge things like that, I can only be grateful and use this time to develop good habits, rely on the Lord just as much/more than ever, even though the sun is shining at the moment, and build up my reserve of happy thoughts. That way when the hard times come again as they usually do, I will be ready for them.

Those are my deep thoughts for the day.

So this is what happily ever after means...

...the beginning of a whole lotta happiness that just keeps growing. I love being married to the greatest husband ever!



I'll write more later...