digging--it's all in the family

we rather often tease sabin's father that he's obviously happiest when he's digging. he has transported vast quantities of our lawn from one side of the yard to the other. he has dug out foundations by hand. he has terraced bits of the hill behind our house--all by hand. he is a digging maniac. he would make a great prairie dog (they dig a lot, don't they?). and this weekend, sabin and her big sisters proved beyond a doubt that they are indeed his children (as if anyone doubted it, since they all look exactly like him.) he was so pleased, he came running in for the camera, so these pictures are taken by him.

sabin and karoline are working on creating a new flower bed where they can plant whatever they want.

addie, is there anything you or your brothers do that convinces people that your parents are your parents? :-)

just a quick note for addie: i'm traveling this week, so if we're not responding properly to posts, that's why. the blog is something sabin and i do together and she's home alone with far this week and he's just not very bloggy. we'll read everything and comment properly on friday! :-) she's gonna love your weekend post! :-)

sabin's big sisters

we haven't really explained sabin's family as of yet. her two most favorite people in the world are not her parents (much to their disappointment), but her two big sisters--karoline, 17 and mathilde, 14. karoline and mathilde have the same far as sabin but a different mor (that's mom in danish and pronounced moah).

last year at almost exactly this time, we all went to barcelona together and this is one of my favorite pictures of sabin and her big sisters, even tho' it's almost a year old:

mathilde (then a mere 13), sabin and karoline (then 16)

at gaudi's park guell, barcelona, spain

you can see from the picture that we're dealing with teenagers here. but they are so awesome with sabin that it's a real pleasure to have them come every other weekend and sabin is in absolute heaven when they're here. big sister karoline takes her to the movies almost every weekend she's here. the girls have taught sabin to play world of warcraft and have guided her through it. she plays a lot on mom's facebook with them in a game called pet society.  karoline's birthday is new year's eve and when she turns 18 at the end of this year, she has declared that she will come and live with us. she's going to gymnasium, which we would call high school in the US, but is really somewhere between a high school and a junior college type place. she's super helpful around the house, so we're looking forward to her moving here. both girls have their own room here at our house.

another shot at park guell, barcelona

mathilde is 14 now and will be confirmed on saturday. it's kind of a big deal occasion in denmark and her father has prepared a speech and a big slide show with pictures and stories of her life thus far. there will be a big catered party at a rowing club by the harbor in copenhagen with 60 family and friends invited. when karoline was confirmed a couple of years ago, we rented motorized toilets to race on (i foolishly did not have my practice then of never going anywhere without a camera, which makes me sad because it was completely hilarious and i have no photos of it).  however, we can't find those people again--i suppose there is a relatively limited market for motorized toilets--so we're just taking our bigscreen t.v. and the Wii for the entertainment this time.

not sure what's going on here, but this is a fairly typical scene

it must have been sunny and bright in barcelona because they never took off their sunglasses.

as you can see, mathilde looks a bit older than 13

we'll try to post more recent pictures after the party this weekend. it looks like the weather should be great and i'm sure we will have multiple photo opps. but we wish you a lovely weekend and we'll catch you on sunday, since saturday will be a busy day away from the computer!

we'll share sabin's favorite reads on sunday, we haven't forgotten!!