Christmas 2009

Peggy uses her new fancy phone to capture a moment.


Peggy uses Marci's iPod to select one of it's hundreds of songs.


Peggy and Dortea. Dortea is originally from Germany and lives with her husband
Ed in a wonderful house that is also a gallery of art. Dortea does scuptures and other forms
of art as well as running her own landscape business.


Maria and Brian Locke. Brian is a skilled luthier, making custom mandolins. Some of
his instruments can be seen at his website www.lockmandos.com



Ed (Dortea's husband), Art and Tom enjoying some conversation. Art is a professional builder
and done some forward thinking buildings such as rammed earth. Ed is a skilled woodworker
who is in demand in the Pecos area.

Tom, taking a run at the wonderful selection of goose, ham and dozens of other dishes.

Peggy prepares our goose for the smoker. Marci watched the smoker with her eagle eye
and made sure it was a success.

We sure enjoyed our visit to Pecos, NM which is about 80 miles North of Albuquerque. It's
in the mountains, having an elevation of 7,000 feet. It's largely unspoiled and the locals are
fourth and fifth generations of the original inhabitants of the area.

Visiting Scott, Lindsay and kids

Scott makes like a carnival ride with Hunter and Jake.
Dogs think they've found a soft touch. OK, they're right...

Jake's 2nd birthday cake.
Taylor comes down for breakfast, only to be met with a camera.

Grandpa with Jake, Taylor (peaking from behind) Scott and Hunter.

Scott & Lindsay's backyard is "L" shaped. This side leads to the front gate. Their front door is actually inside the gate.
View of backyard and the back of the house. It has a real nice patio and although not as big as the yard in Las Vegas, this has enough room for the little guys to play.
Hunter and Jake playing with what's left of their Hot Wheels set. Imagination makes up for the missing pieces.
Hunter shows how old he is. That, or he's doing his Nixon impression.

Jake, flying solo with the Hot Wheels.
Scott and Lindsay went to Napa Valley and bottled their own wine. Lindsay is opening another for us. It's darned good wine. I even had a couple...ok, more than a couple, but Scott and I were pacing ourselves. We sat on the patio solving the world's problems until 2:00 AM.

Taylor is making one of her pretty Friendship bracelets. It takes patience and nimble fingers.

Here's Taylor as a brand new 10 year old, wearing her sapphire birthday necklace.

Tigger doing what Tigger does best, sleeping. Here she cuddles with Jake's dinosaur.





Saturday, we took a trip to downtown Danville. The small town feel is maintained and loved by everyone who lives there. Shopping downtown and small cafes are still very popular. Very much like Denmark.
The clock says it's 1:00 PM, but the shadow says 2:00PM. Guess it's Daylight Savings. Cool clock though.

A view up the street. Yep, this is downtown!

Another view. I love the trees and big
planters.
We stopped for a burger at Pete's Brass Rail & Carwash. The server's tee shirt says "There is no Brass Rail, there is no carwash and who the hell is Pete?"




Later we went to a Disaster Preparedness Fair. The theme was how to protect yourself and family in case of an earthquake. They are common in Northern California, so the fair was well attended.
They had one of their first Squad cars on display.
The Fire Department displayed a Hook & Ladder Truck and an Emergency Response Truck.
Here a fireman has recruited Hunter to be a Junior Fireman. Hunter is working on getting his Official-looking gold badge seperated from the paper backing. He wanted to do it himself.

Mission accomplished! Hunter displays his (almost visible) badge.

The boys wait patiently in the double trouble stroller while Scott talks to the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) people. The organization makes sense. Basically, they try and get radios with a preset frequency in the hands of at least a few residents in each neighborhood. That way, they can receive status updates from everywhere in the community immediately without having to wait for Emergency Crews to canvas the town.
Lady in waiting. Taylor waits with the boys for Scott.

This was pretty impressive. It simulates what a 8.0 magnitude earthquake would feel like. It resembles the mechanical bulls in its bucking capacity. I can't imagine anything put together with wood and nails surviving for very long.

We're off to Denmark

We left Tucson on Sunday morning and arrived in Aarlburg Monday afternoon (Denmark time). The flight took us up over Canada, Iceland and finally Denmark. It was a long, butt numbing ride.

Leah and Morton live in Arhus which is located on the east coast, toward the southern end of Denmark. They rented a "Summer House" in Skagen (pronounced Skane) for the first week of our visit. Morton picked us up in Aarlburg, which is about an hours drive from Skagen.

Skagen is in the northern coast of Denmark and has a population of about 9,000 people. It's a quaint town with most of the buildings and homes sporting red tile roofs and a yellow/gold paint color. It is packed with history, as is most of Denmark.

Here is how Wikipedia describes Denmark, which is about the size of Vermont.

"Denmark, with a free market capitalist economy and a large welfare state, ranks according to one measure, as having the world's highest level of income equality. Denmark has the best business climate in the world, according to the US business magazine Forbes. From 2006 to 2008, surveys ranked Denmark as "the happiest place in the world," based on standards of health, welfare, and education. The 2009 Global Peace Index survey ranks Denmark as the second most peaceful country in the world, after New Zealand. Denmark was also ranked as the least corrupt country in the world in the 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index, sharing a top position with Sweden and New Zealand. The national language, Danish, is close to Swedish and Norwegian, with which they share strong cultural and historical ties. 82.0% of the inhabitants of Denmark and 90.3% of the ethnic Danes are members of the Lutheran state church. About 9% of the population has foreign citizenship—a large portion of those are from other Scandinavian countries."

I can attest to it being a great place. Everywhere we went, the cleanliness was remarkable. Even the farms we past on the road were all freshly painted and nothing was rusted. The people are wonderful and almost everyone will gladly speak English once they see that you're an American.

They do have a large population of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries and the government has taken steps to limit their numbers.

Having gotten to know Morton, I don't think Leah could have found a better man and she has a great life in Denmark. We are happy for her and very proud of her.

They took us on so many great day trips that I've tried to sort them out in seperate sections below.

Skagen, Denmark: The Summer House

Sam plays on the floor. He is just learning to crawl and is getting stronger every day.

Enjoying the patio and watching Max play.

Me and Sam.

Peg works on a puzzle with Max.

Peg and Sam watching Max chase bubbles.

Max is helping Morton with his shoes.

Morton checking Max's bump on the head. The kitchen is visible in the background. This is a very nice place to vacation. There is an upstairs loft and small bedroom for the kids and a bedroom downstairs for Peg and I. It also has a dishwasher and a clothes washer.

Okay...I'm King of what?

Max tries out his new swim goggles.

Grandpa giving Sam his bottle. It's De Ja Vu all over again!

Grandma's turn.

Breakfast for the kids.

Max used a chair cushion for a makeshift tent.

Morton bought Max a super light tent to play with on the patio. Unfortunately a super strong wind is more than a match for it.

Max is in there somewhere...

He's almost won the battle, but...

Dang! There it goes. Looks like it makes a better kite than it does a tent.

Peg is going to make soap bubbles so Max can catch them

Max discovers that a head start is advisable when there is a 30 mph wind blowing.

Now he has a head start, about 50 feet away!

The vacation resort has all kinds of activities for kids, including this huge jumping bag.

Leah has Sam in the pool, which is designed with kids in mind. It's pretty shallow for a good distance. Note the stone work behind her.

Morton has Sam while Max floats off by himself.

Have you ever seen a beach this empty? The tourist season ended a couple of weeks before we came.

Lots of nice clean sand. The water can be dangerous though, with drop-offs and rip tides. Besides, it's darned cold.

We went into town to buy tickets so Leah and I could ride the train to Arhus, while Morton and Peg take the kids in the car. Annie and Jens will stay in the summer house for the weekend.

Oh yeah, the train. It's unlike any we find in the states. The seats are like one would find in a nice cocktail lounge, arranged so that a table sits between four seats, two on a side. There is little or no engine noise and the ride is smooth and nearly silent. I could easily see taking a train for a long distance trip.

Typical street in Skagen.

Centuries old hotel, which is still popular.

Skagen is known as the place for artists and a famous one built his home on these grounds. Now there is a museum for his and his wife's art works and this small coffee shop. Clockwise above is Leah, Peg, me, Annie (Morton's Mom) Sam in the baby wagon, Jens (Morton's Dad) and Max.

Annie lets Sam take his first taste of ice cream. He's not sure what to make of it.

Hmmm, this is pretty darned good!

Also cold!

Clouds aren't looking good, so we pack up and head for the train stop near the Summer House.