"If Music is Life, Then the Violin is it's Soul."

With just 13 days left of elementary school, Lacey is enjoying all the fun end-of-year festivities.  Today, all the 5th graders got dressed up and went to see Newsies at Toby's Dinner Theatre. 

And then tonight, she had her final Violin concert.  She has played the violin for three years and she chose the violin because that is what I played when I was growing up.  Sadly, Middle School only allows you to choose two electives.  There were so many exciting choices, that when all was said and done, violin didn't make it in the top two, so this will likely be her final violin concert and the final time I see her play violin 😔

The String played first and then the Band played.  Always fun to see my T play his sax!

And then after the Band finished, all the 5th graders gave a chorus performance.  I joked that I was likely one of the only parents in the school that had a kid in Strings AND a kid in Band AND a kid in Chorus.  I always had someone to watch ;)

With friend in tow and violin in case..... that's a wrap!

When Life Gives You Lemons....

Spend one more day in Copenhagen!

We were scheduled to leave Denmark on Tuesday.  We left our house by 8:30am and made our way to the airport to catch our 12:20 flight.

But 12:20 came and went and we were still there.  They kept delaying us over and over again until they finally canceled our flight altogether.  We couldn't believe it happened to us both coming and going!  The only good thing was that Dave hooked us up with this lounge so at least we waited in comfort!

I felt anxiety about the kids missing another day of school and of Dave missing work and of the kids missing games and practices and soccer try-outs.  And I was bummed that, if the flight was going to be canceled, it wasn't canceled sooner so that I could have made my way to Kronborg Slot!  But alas, it was what it was and we decided that we wouldn't let the day be a total waste.  We got the kids settled in the hotel with Larry and Rita and then Dave and I decided to hit the town for one last hurrah.  And we found a restaurant named after us!

Such a typical Copenhagen scene.  Bicycles everywhere. 

The very first Lego store.

One of my favorite parts of Europe - all the cities have these big open squares with surrounded by fountains and cathedrals and cafes. 

One last walk down Nyhavn.

Hans Christian Andersen lived in three separate houses here in Nyhavn, so we made it a point to find all three of them. 

And then we visited the Hotel D'Angleterre again, this time without kids.  We went into the lobby again and found this amazing lego structure - a gift from Lego to "The White Lady" on it's 220th birthday. 

It took us a while to find it (because it just moved to this location a couple months ago), but we made our way to Noma, the best restaurant in the entire world!  You have to make reservations months in advance.  And it's only open Wed - Sat. The cost is $375/person not including drinks.  We were there on a Tuesday, so it was closed, but a security guard was there to make sure we didn't get any closer than this! (the window to one of the chef's food labs).

Until next time, Copenhagen.

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure.  There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open." ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

I Want to be a Herbatologist

When traveling with 8 people, there's a lot of give and take.  What is important to one may not be important to another.  So, you compromise when you can in order to keep the peace and to show your fellow traveler(s) that you love them a million billion.

For example, because of our flight debacle coming here and because of our hesitancy in pulling kids out of school for too long, we only have four full days here in Copenhagen.  Therefore, it would never have been on my radar to spend one of those precious four days at the zoo.  What I would have done today was go to Kronberg Slot and the Lousiana Museum of Art.  If there would have been extra time, I would have squeezed in another boat ride and maybe done a quick visit to the Designmuseum Danmark.  But alas, one of my fellow travelers is my 9-yr old son who has declared that he is going to be a Herbatologist when he grows up.  He was bound and determined to go to the zoo while we were here and he was very excited about impressing us with all of his herpetology knowledge.  So, because I love this animal-loving boy of mine, we spent our last day in Copenhagen at the zoo!

Seeing the polar bears was a highlight.  In the United States, I don't think I've ever seen animals eat other animals - at least when that animal still resembles an animal.  But they just threw in a seal into the cage and we just watched the bear go to town eating his lunch.

It was really quite something. 

We also loved seeing the other bears.

The elephants. 

And real life reindeer!

European parks are the best.  Seriously, everywhere you go, there is some kind of park/playground for kids and it's always way better than the parks/playground in the U.S. 

This one even included a short race track with lanes and a light that let the kids know when to go.  And of course this little competitive girl loved racing over and over again.  I think mostly she enjoyed winning over and over again, but the running part was fine too ;)

And another highlight of the day was petting the baby goats.

I was particularly interested in seeing the giraffe habitat after seeing the 60 minutes special on the controversial killing of a healthy giraffe from this very habitat in the Copenhagen Zoo a couple years ago. 

Babies are cute.

Lacey's in flamingo-loving heaven!

After the zoo, we made our way to the temple and came across an Aldi, my favorite store!  So, Dave snapped a picture ;)

And then we came to the LDS Copenhagen Temple.

Hard to believe we were married in the Chicago LDS temple nearly 13 years ago.

Our eternal family.

Tanner and Angel Moroni have a lot in common.

And, sadly, that wraps up our time in Denmark.  We get up early tomorrow and head to the airport to catch our flight back home.  But it's been a great trip.  We've packed as much as we could into the time we were here and we've created some pretty special family memories.  It's the first time any of our kids have been to Europe and obviously the first time we've been to Europe as a family. Leaving a little piece of our hearts in Copenhagen. 💜