Day 2 - Copenhagen

The girls woke up at 4am this morning and were bouncing off the walls. We managed to sort of snooze until 5am and then we got up and fed the girls some cereal that we had bought the night before. At 6am Dave went on the hunt for coffee. No luck! Nothing opens until 10am on a Sunday. He did find a Grocery store for some fruit. We made it another hour or so and I'm sure everyone in proximity to our room hated us by this point. Children really have no understanding of voice volume control. I think we're going to have to give up or we will likely go insane getting after them to be quiet.
We went on the hunt for a park and found a beautiful one. This city really has the most impressive parks. They are all within these iron gates and fences. There were so many people out running at this early hour. Tons of couples out with their jogging strollers. There is definitely a baby boom here. So many strollers, and everyone uses the large old fashioned pram style strollers. They also have the most fantastic bikes with built in kids carts/seats. They have got this stuff figured out. I figure the prams are used here as the cobblestone make it hard to push a stroller with smaller wheels. Ours is working out fine. Really glad we didn't bring the umbrella strollers though.

We found coffee and Danishes and strolled through the park. There was a very strange children's playground which didn't hold their attention, and then as we looped around the park, we came across the most unusual thing...it was a soother tree! It had thousands of soothers suspended from it's branches along with notes and pictures and ribbons. It was fascinating. Clearly the place to bring your child's soothers when you were giving them up. It made complete sense to Cadence as we had mailed her soothers away when she gave hers up...so the soosie fairy in our house now had a home. We asked Avery if she wanted to leave one of her soothers at the tree. She said yes, so we tied one up on a ribbon. Too bad we didn't have a pen and paper to leave a note, but she's left her legacy here nonetheless! Once I figure out a way to put photos up, I will post some. It was quite magical looking...really!






We then started to walk towards the city centre. We took a lovely stroll down the pedestrian only road and then stopped at Nyhavn for lunch. Brunch is served here until 11am so we had to wait around a little which was fine as it started to pour with rain again. All the restaurants are equipped with nice fleece blankets at their outdoor seating so we snuggled in and ordered some lunch.

Once we'd eaten and the rain had subsided, both girls climbed into the stroller and we headed back for a nap at the hotel. Everyone was tired having bee up since 4 am. Not even halfway and both of them were sleeping. Poor Avery's head was bobbing all over and eventually she fell fast asleep head first on the front of the stroller. Then came the rain. I was glad that I had brought the rain coats at the last second. It had been a sunny morning, but we are learning fast that the weather is very unpredictable. Having nothing but my raincoat to cover the stroller, Dave and I hustled back to the hotel as quickly as we could. The girls easily slipped back to sleep once we got back to the hotel.

We had a good sleep and later in the afternoon we received a call from the front desk staff. Janet Jackson was playing a concert at our hotel and they were extending tickets to the guests...did we want to go? We said yes, seemed like something fun to do.

We got some dinner and got dressed and headed down around 8pm for the concert. We bought some ear plugs for the girls and ventured in. Unfortunately we were in the general seating area which meant no seats. The girls are still quite jet lagged so we were having to carry them a lot. We got a few songs in and I had a dance with my girls before Avery became adamant that she wanted to go outside. So that was the end of that. We attempted a trip for ice cream but Cadence had had it too. So back upstairs for games and tv before trying to get them to bed.

Day 1 - Copenhagen

Our flight arrived into Copenhagen on time and customs was a breeze. We picked up our luggage and stroller (which was no longer at gate check...a bit unfortunate) and headed for the signs marked Metro. We aren't sure if we over or underpaid on the Metro, but we made it to our stop and after a few wrong turns, we made it to the hotel. Thankfully they had a room ready for us for early check in as we were all ready to drop.
The girls didn't settle easily, Dave and i were beat and needed some sleep. Finally we all fell asleep and woke up several hours later around 6 pm. Dave got us some snacks before we headed out for a walk. The moment we stepped out the front door, it started to pour! Back inside to get umbrellas! We strolled around for several hours. The streets were pretty quiet. The stores were all mostly closed. Just bars and restaurants still open on a Saturday evening. We found a nice stroll along the canal and found a really nice botanical garden. By close to 10 pm we were starting to get hungry and weary. I headed to the hotel room with the kids as we decided that a restaurant might spell disaster at this stage of the night. Unfortunately take out eateries around here close at 10 pm. So it was slim pickings. We will have to be more on the game in the days ahead.
We watched some tv together and played some games and then tried to pack it in for the night. Hopefully it won't take us too long to kick the jet lag.

View from our hotel

Travel Day

Our flight left from vancouver at noon today. We took the Canada line to the airport. That line is great! It works so well for us being close to the station. We bought this new strap from mountain baby in Nelson, which allows you to strap your car seat to your luggage so it's sort of like a hybrid stroller. We brought the stroller to, but lugging the car seat through airport connections is such a drag, so the strap was great.

We had checked in the night before and actually the baggage check line was not too bad at all considering the strike. They wanted to charge us excess baggage because we were overweight on one of our two suitcases. I have to say that really annoys me. Here we are a family oaf 4 people all entitled to checked luggage, and all we had was one duffel bag, albeit large, and one smaller bag. If. We had brought a bag for. Every one the weight would have been much higher. Luckily Dave whipped out his Elite card and that allowed us more weight. We had a chuckle at the fact that after so many years of Dave flying to Kelowna and back, that this was the first payback we've gotten from the status-$75 bucks!

We got to our gate with no major issues and off we flew to Toronto. The girls were fantastic. No major issues. We went through the majority of our snacks though, and I had bought the girls these glitter colouring sheets so all of us are covered in glitter. I'm sure we'll be covered with glitter for the rest of the trip along with a every plane, train and car we ride in. Dave looked like he'd come from a rave!

Once in Toronto we headed over to a international departures and because our first flight was delayed, we ended up getting straight onto the next plane. The girls continue to be amazing. We sat four in a row on the last flight but this time we are two and two behind each other. They sat nicely and watched tv and coloured. Air Canada tv system is pretty awesome. I think I've watched about 4 movies today. dinner went okay. Food was pretty mediocre as usual. They didn't have Cadence's special meal so we had to risk the less of her two allergies and give her the pasta. She seems to have not reacted to it so far. There seems to have been lots of screw ups around us on the special meals and they reminded everyone to verify your special meals 48 hours in advance. A good tip, except that we had called this adorning, and same with the people beside us! As the grand finale Avery spilled her apple juice on me and inside the seat pocket which contained my book among other things. Then she pooped! Awesome! You can imagine the aftermath of those sequence of events.

I anticipate that we are going to have a very hard time finding food for Cadence to eat on this trip. I did do some research into grocery stores that carry foods that she can eat, and I did download allergy translation cards in each oaf the languages of the countries we are going to. Finger crossed.

We are more than halfway through the flight now. The girls and Dave are asleep and I'm a going to try and shut my eyes now. Only a few more hours until we arrive and waking the children is going to be like poking hibernating bears!

the eve...

We are on the eve of our departure...the bags are packed (well mostly) and the house is in various forms of disarray.  The kids stayed up way too late tonight...so hopefully that won't come back to bite us tomorrow during our travels!

We leave at noon tomorrow, Air Canada is on strike which is awesome..

Dave is going to head to the airport in the morning and try to get our bags checked in early so we can stay at home a little longer and then we'll just take the Canada Line to the airport.

I feel like i've left work in a mess, you never seem to get everything you want accomplished...grrrrr!  oh well, I did the best I could and now I have to relay on my amazing co-workers to help hold the fort down while I try to take a much deserved break.  I'm exhausted and have been working myself to the bone...a break to spend time with my family is long overdue.

So...how do you pack for a trip like this with 2 little ones?  Well, very meticulously of course!  I have been a little anal I will admit, I have individually wrapped each of the girls outfits for each day into little ziplock bags...there is nothing worse then rooting through a huge bag for a sock or little girl underwear!  I have snacks coming out my ying yang and we have loads of stickers and colouring stuff for both of them.  We've been ruthless about how much we packed...only one large bag for all of us.

We got this great duffel bag from MEC which is on wheels.  Very excited to try it out! 

We're bringing dvd players and the ipod and the laptop of course.  I wanted to get an ipad but ran out of money and time!

We started our lists for this trip over a month ago, and thankfully we only have a few small items remaining to go into the bags.

So that's that...we've got our passports (picked mine up today...yikes!) and our itineraries...need to take out some Danish money tomorrow and run a few quick errands...then we're off!  Hard to believe...time has flown by so fast.

Will check in once we get into Copenhagen...wish us luck on the long journey!

one month to go...

It's now May 14th and we have little over a month now before we leave for our trip to Scandinavia.  I'm both excited and totally stressed out at the prospect.  We still have so much to do!

I'm feeling relatively good about our itinerary which I will post shortly, but we have not booked all our accommodation and transportation between cities yet.  Don't get me wrong, we've made some headway, but its a long trip and there are so many decisions to make about what to see while we're there. 

We also have packing to do and we need to figure out what we are going to do with Cassidy.  It will all get sorted out I'm sure...in the meantime...its work work work to try and get as much finalized before we go. 

The break from work for both Dave and me will be nice, its been crazy for months and although I'll still be linked in via email, I know our family needs the time away together.  With Dave's new job, it's been very busy and hard on everyone, so it will be a good chance to reconnect.