Danish Magnolia

2009-11-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

What a busy Autumn we've had so far! Godmother Natasha delivered cousin Elliott, eating popcorn and ice cream, helping Daddy and Bedste in the kitchen and the best of all, Halloween!

Click here to see the pics!

South Africa 2009

2009-09-16T06:11:00.000-07:00

Enjoy our recent pics from our trip to South Africa. Click on the pic.

Hula hoop

2009-07-07T23:52:00.000-07:00

Frederik loves being active with Wii - especially hula hoop!
Nice form you two!

Summer 2009... so far!

2009-06-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

Time flies when you're... playing on the beach, watering plants, vacuuming and playing Wii. Oh, and dancing up a storm. We still don't know where he got some of his moves! Enjoy! (Click on the pic)

Winter Photos 2008

2009-03-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

We've had a busy but fun winter, filled with laughter and fun times, but also a lot of sick days! Frederik is finally liking daycare and actually didn't want to come home last Friday, so things are looking up! Enjoy our backlog of pictures from this winter! Click on the pic to see our album.

My first birthday!

2008-11-26T10:07:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I'm already a year old! How time flies when you're learning to walk and talk. I had a really nice party with a Thanksgiving theme and got lots of nice gifts. Check out the pics here

My Autumn

2008-11-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

Well it's getting chillier and it's hailing as we speak, so it must be Fall. I've gotten 2 black eyes so far and love using my little walking wagon to get around. Halloween went well even though Mom dressed me as the Frog Prince and dad ate all my candy! Enjoy the pics from the past 2 months! And stay tuned for pics of my 1st Birthday on Monday, November 24th!

October, Halloween, November

My September

2008-09-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

I'm 10 months old now and crawling everywhere. I'm pulling up on anything in my reach too. I've gotten my first black eye... lovely. I love plucking and eating cherry tomatoes from the porch and oozing seeds all over Daddy :) Enjoy this month's pics here

My first summer vacation

2008-08-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

Well I made it over the big ocean and had my first vacation with Grandma and Grandpa. I also got to see Uncle Eric and Kirk, my Aunt Sharon (and future cousin) and my cousin Emily. Thanks Emily for teaching me how to crawl. I'm now going at warp speed and keeping my parents on their toes.

Frederik's First Spring

2008-05-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

My how we've grown. Frederik can now sit by himself, roll over in bed and giggle with the best of them. We're still waiting for that elusive first tooth, but I can tell it's irritating him so hopefully it will make an appearance soon. Check out April's pictures here

Giggles

2008-04-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

We've really been having a fun spring so far. Check out one of Frederik's giggle sessions:

Frederik's Christening

2008-03-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

On March 16, 2008, Palm Sunday, Frederik was christened here in Espergaerde. Philip's sister is Frederik's Godmother while our neighbor and good friend Karsten is the Godfather. It was a perfect day full of sunshine, good friends and our Danish family. Anne-Marie's family was in our thoughts. We held a brunch afterwards at an organic farm that was having an Easter fest with pony rides and an Easter egg hunt.

Frederik's Active Week

2008-03-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm over 3 months, it's time to get out and try some new things. Mondays I go to gymnastics and Fridays I take a dip in the pool along with the other babes. Check it out by clicking on the pic.

Hokie and proud of it!

2008-02-04T00:31:00.000-08:00

Well I'm 2 1/2 months old and mom decided to try this Hokie outfit on me. What do you know... it fits! It's a size 6-9 months. So I'll be a sure recruit for the Hokie Basketball team in a few years.

My January

2008-02-04T00:18:00.000-08:00

Can you believe January is already over and done with? As I sit here writing this on a cold Monday morning, Frederik is taking his morning catnap on the couch. I can't believe he's already 10 weeks old. He's slept through one night already (7 hours!) and is napping through the day like a pro. He's smiling and almost giggling now when he sees Philip or me. Check out his busy January by clicking on the picture.

My first 6 weeks

2008-01-02T05:01:00.001-08:00

Time flies when you're eating, sleeping and pooping! Take a look at how I've spent my time these past 6 weeks. Click on the picture.

Christmas 2007

2008-01-02T04:34:00.000-08:00

Frederik celebrated his first Christmas in style, of course, by racking in the presents. He slept through the opening of presents Christmas Eve at his Grandma and Grandpa Skou's apartment. He was surrounded by his Great Grandmom Lini, Aunt Natasha, Uncle Michael, Grandma and Grandpa Skou and 2nd cousin Visti, and of course his parents. We woke up Christmas day and opened stocking stuffers, which Frederik really enjoyed. He received his first train set from his parents, which Philip proceeded to "test". All in all it was a very relaxing first Christmas as a family of three! Click on the pic to see more of Frederik's first Christmas.

My First Bath

2007-12-15T01:28:00.000-08:00

Yah yah - I know that it took a little time to get my first bath, but I think my parents were a little afraid of what I might think about it. So they have relied on trucker baths up to now. Anyway the bath was nice, so my friend RubberDuck joined me. My dad has added a video and a few pics of the first time I hit the water. Surfs Up.

Frederik has finally arrived

2007-12-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

Frederik was born on Saturday November 24th at 0.22. He 56cm long and 4,5 kg. We are all doing well. Go to a slideshow by clicking on the picture.

Fishing Tour

2007-08-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

The weather was perfect on this Sunday afternoon in late August. We took our neighbors Karsten, Natalie and Philipa to Dronningmølle, Philip's favorite boy-hood fishing hole. The girls caught 5 fish while Philip and Karsten tried their best. Philip had his maiden tour on 'the boat' and was able to steer it a little. I played photographer, fishing pole holder, hot chocolate pourer and biscuit fetcher. Enjoy! Click here for pics.

Anma's 31st Birthday Party

2007-08-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

Well another year has passed and Anma has turned 31. Hard to believe, except if the sun shines on her hair and you catch a glimpse of some white hairs. Anyway, we threw a Mexican-themed party for Philip's family, complete with peach sangria, gazspacho soup, chicken enchiladas and sopaipillas. Everyone was stuffed and happy- just perfect!

Check out the pics here

Embrace the Journey – France 2007

2007-08-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

June 25th, 2007: Espergærde, Denmark – Göttinge, Germany
The Baron, Rasmus’s grandfather, once said that you are not a true traveller if you can’t experience something on a S train from Copenhagen to Klampenborg. Anne-Marie proved herself as a traveller already on the first day. On the highway just 8 kilometres from home Anne-Marie giggled, when she saw two lamas making out on hill next to the road.

The trip through Denmark went fine and we rolled straight onto the ferry with out reservation – nice.

When we reached Germany we had 50 miles of small roads and then we hit the autobahn and from there on we cruised between 140-160 km/h. The left lane belonged to Mercedes, BMW and Audis. They were driving 200 km/h and more.

We have ended up in Göttinge, 100 km south of Hannover. It is a University city, so we had no problem finding a hotel. At night we went downtown to the oldest bar (1738) and got a solid German meal (Wiener schnitzel and Gnocchi) and a well deserved beer for the driver.

It has been a long travelling day and we have past lost of interesting places, but Anne-Marie just can’t stop talking about the lamas 8 kilometres from home. Maybe we should just camp out at the zoo next year.

Go to the web album.

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007: Göttinge, Gernmany – Mittelhausen France.
Today started like every other day with us waking up at 5:30 AM. But today was a special because this was the first real day of vacation, so I had a long snooze in the bath, so my finger tips looked like raisins when I finally got up. Anyway time for breakfast and then hit the road again.

BUT our car had something else in mind for that day. We started the car perfectly and then the dashboard said 1700 km to next service. You see you wouldn’t normally have a problem, but we are travelling 600km a day so 1700 km wasn’t really far away. Luckily we went past a Skoda dealer and he was able to service the car in 3 hours. We spent the time in a local bakery / café and besides drinking lots of coffee we also planned the next few days. The bakery was the local hang out for lots of different groups of people. There were a womens club and some old retires guys having a swell time charming the ladies.

The rest of the trip to Mittlehausen went fine with lots of sights like sunflower fields, vineyards etc. Mittelhausen is a quite little town with approx. 600 inhabitants. So Anma got her first taste of France. We had dinner at the hotel and I tried some of the local cuisine like pork terrine and sole on sourcraut. Anma had a filet on potatoes and crème brulé.

Go to the Alsace web album.

Wednesday, June 27th 2007: Mittelhausen – Strasbourg – Obernau – Mittelhausen

Today we went to Strasbourg. It rained as usual, but that didn’t stop us to walk around Petite France a picture perfect part of town. There a lot of water channels in Petite de France and wonderful buildings. We saw the cathedral, but didn’t manage to go in. There was a big sale on in town and we found a area where there were lots of clothing shops for children, so we made the first purchases for little Frederik: 2 small body stockings.

We went on to Obernau to stock up on brochures on the wine route. This evening is going to be used on planning the route in greater detail.

We tracked back on the small roads to Mittlehause: Ottrot – Boersch – Rosheim – Avolsheim.

Stopped in Rosheim to buy dinner and ate it in Avolsheim overlooking the river and a near by church (picture below).

We are still on the Alsace album folks.

Thursday, June 26th 2007: Mittelhausen – Obernau – Bernardwillers – Barr – Mittelbergheim – Dambach la Ville – Ribeauville.
What a day. We started out at the market in Obernau. Before the market it seemed like we waked the owners of the hotel at 7AM. They didn’t expect people that early at the breakfast buffet. Anyway at the market, which were all over town we bought boar, deer and donkey sausages, gruyere, Tomme de Jura, sweet melons and abricotes.

We drove to Bernardville, where I had my first winetasting. The wine growers are not really good in English so we got by with German and hand signs.

We ate lunch on the square of Hotel de Ville (town hall). We started and then it rained. Then we paked everything up and walked around a little. Came back to the square when it stop raining and packed the lunch out again and then it started raining again. We ended up in front of the old post office where there was room for two people without getting wet. The topic of the lunch was weather. We have opened the discussion on skipping out trip to the mountains and instead drive directly down to Søren in Hyere. We just want some sun.

We went on and came to Mittelbergheim a quaint little town. I had two wine tastings. One at family Schwob, where granddad didn’t let me spit out the wine. The second at Family Gilg, where the wine was superb.

Well Anma was the driver for now on because I got a little tipsy trying out all that fine wine. Next town was Dambach la Ville where we saw our first stork nest on one of the city entrance towers. But we thought we were privileged with this stork nest, but we had a lot more in stalled for us when we reached Ribeauville. Here we had a hotel in the heart of town and we got a table next to a house with a stork nest. So when the storks were chucking down frogs we watched whicle having dinner to. Not frog legs although that would have been appropriate.

Friday, June 29th, 2007: Riberville – Beaujeu (wrong town – right name) – Beaujeu – Lautignie
We decided to drive down to Søren in Hyere, because the weather has been misbehaving. But, we started out thinking that we would drive up to the castke on the hill only to find out that you can only walk up. So we decided to drive on to Beaujolais (1/2 way to Søren) instead of walking our legs off up the step hill to see some old castle ruins.

The only problem was that our GPS, Ibby, told us that there were 3 different Beaujeu’s in France. So I (Anma) just picked the first one. Unfortunately, as we found out from some nice Swedes, we were in the wrong town. Also there were no vineyards in sight, so they were probably right. After checking all our maps we picked the second Beaujeu and Ibby proclaimed that it was a 2.5 hours drive. Time was of the essence now. We were cutting it close, and the Tourist Office could be close when we reached town, which meant no help finding a vineyard B&B. But we made it and we wasn’t disappointed driving the extra distance. The hillsides were covered with small shrubs of Beaujolais grapes not more than 1 meters high. Bad backs must be a common problem in this region.

Still more to come.

Tree Hugs III

2007-04-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

We got these pictures from our friend Vivi. There are some nice picture from Cleveland, but the love of trees has also spread to Iraq!

What do you do after a hard day at work in Iraq. You have probably guessed it. Click on Al Faw Palace now US Military Headquarters in Iraq to see.

Brussels March, 1-4. 2007

2007-04-08T04:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from a nice trip we had to Brussels. I went on a business trip for two days and Anma jont me the second day and stayed the weekend.

Go to album.

To all you Art Nouveau fans. Here is a special Art Nouveau album.

Go to album.

Tree hugging II

2007-01-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

Some of you have sent us pictures and we hope that we get even more in the future.

These pics have arrived from Cleveland, Ohio where an architect friend of ours sent his wife on a mission. The mission of the day was to go hug some trees. They found a sad looking tree up a slope a bit. Bruce sent his wife up the slope and took this picture. Sadly when she was reaching out for the tree to give it a big hug Bruce's camara ran out of battery.

So much effort and no tree hugging picture. But there is a tree on a steep slippery slope somewhere close to Cleveland, which is a happy tree.

What do you do when it is really cold outside and you really want to hug a tree. For some of us it would be a big problem, but Vivi has found a perfect solution. Go hug your dusty plant in the corner. Look how the plant has longed for a warm embrace and gently touching Vivi's cheek. That is one lucky plant. Thanks Vivi.

Anma and I are, if we can say it ourselves, quite experienced tree huggers. Listen up - You have to pick a good site, when you go tree hugging. This next picture is from the town where the South and the North signed the end of the American Civil War. The town is called a long and impossible name to spell but it starts with an A. (Appomattox) Anma is hugging a younger Southern magnolia and I have my arms partly around a big old oak. I am sure that this oak was probably there when General Lee rode his horse up that long bending road to the court house where General Grant was waiting with his pen.

Christmas in Virginia 2006

2007-01-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

Philip and I made it over to Lynchburg for the holidays to relax and spend some time with my parents and my brother Eric. We bought a real tree, eventhough the thermometer read 65 degrees, ate and ate and ate, visited some historical sites around the area and basically had a really good time. Click on the picture to open the album.

Anma at work

2006-12-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some picture from Anma's work. It's early morning while I write this so Anma can tell you a little more about it when she wakes up. Click on the picture to go to the album.

Marine Ball 2006

2006-12-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

What better way to spend a weekend than to stay at a fancy hotel, get dolled up and go to a ball! On November 4, 2006 Philip and I attended the U.S. Marine's 231st Birthday Ball at the Hilton in Copenhagen, Denmark with our friend Dawn, who works at the embassy, and some other friends. It was quite the schmoozing event with important American and Danish dignitaries there, as well as the actress Sela Ward, a friend of the ambassador. We drank, ate and danced merrily until the wee hours of the night! (Click on the picture to connect to our photo album)

United Tree-Huggers

2006-11-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

Spreading love to nature is important in this materialized world. Hugging a tree is free and you will look like a fool guarantied. So why do it. I started my tree hugging carrier in downtown New York. I hugged a few trees and I definitely put a few smiles on peoples faces. Hugging trees is also caring about trees. We take trees for granted, so we need to think about nature a little more, maybe even plant a few trees in the garden.

My friends say I always come up with some funny projects. Well here is a funny project for you. Start sending me picture of you and friends hugging a tree. It would be nice it you have a short story to tell. Spread the word. The most wanted pictures are of politicians hugging trees. If we can get them to hug a tree maybe they will take the trees (nature) into consideration next time they are planning new road etc.

Send pictures to thonningjr@yahoo.com

Our New home

2006-11-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

We are finally settling down in our new apartment in Espergærde. Moving from Copenhagen NV to Espergærde is quite a change. It's like moving from Harlem (not quite) to a coastal city in Maine.

Our day has changed, which takes a little getting use to. Especially for me because I now get to work at 10 AM. We have started to walk 45 minutes every morning (when it is not raining), which is really nice. You also get to see the neighborhood and its people rushing to work.

Click on the picture to see slide show.