happy new year

I can't believe it is already 2012. I am looking forward to seeing what this new year has in store.

We celebrated New Year's Eve with the family in Florida. We just hung out, had a yummy dinner prepared mostly by Team Vang, watched the danish queen's new year's speech etc. Anders did not make it till midnight ... but I guess we will forgive him this year;)

two years

Michael and I had a wonderful two year wedding anniversary in West Palm Beach.

We started the day at Starbucks reflecting on the past year. We have a great tradition now of journaling about the things we remember from the past year - what we have learned about each other, ourselves, fun times/moments, travels, etc. Then we pick our scripture passage for the year.

We ate lunch at the same place we ate lunch after we got engaged.

We ended the day with a fabulous dinner.

What a great day. We look forward to celebrating many many more anniversaries in the years to come.

hygge

When we were in Florida we had lots of hygge. We had a great time just enjoying each others' company. One of the nights Michael and I went for a walk with Team Vang. When we got home we made æbleskiver. YUMM!

hanging out with anders

We really enjoyed hanging out with Anders over Christmas. Michael had never met Anders - but Anders liked him right away. Every time he would see Michael he would start smiling waiting for Michael to make him laugh. What a cutie. We have facetimed Anders a couple of times since we got home to make sure he doesn't forget what a great time he had with his uncle Michael and tante Signe.

juleaften

Being danish, we celebrate Juleaften (Christmas) on December 24. We had a wonderful day/evening.  This was Michael and Anders' first danish Christmas so they were introduced to many danish traditions.

We had amazing food. After dinner we ate the traditional rice pudding dessert - risalamande - where an almond is hidden. I found the almond in my bowl ... and won the mandelgave (almond gift) ... dark chocolate:)

One of the fun danish traditions is dancing around the Christmas tree while singing danish Christmas songs

the beach

fleeing from an unexpected wave

The great part about spending Christmas in a place like Florida ... is that you can go to the beach! We had a lot of fun. Even though Anders was a little trepidatious in the beginning, he seemed to warm up to the idea of the beach soon enough.

lille juleaften (little christmas eve)

As a danish family we have always celebrated the night before Christmas Eve - Little Christmas Eve (Lille Juleaften). In many danish families, this is the day the tree is bought and decorated. In our family we have the tradition of playing a game called 10,000 while eating lots of candy, chocolate, Christmas cookies etc. This was Michael's first lille juleaften experience and he did great. Andreas and Ashley were the winners this year - way to go Team Vang!

christmas in florida

We had an amazing time in Florida with my family over Christmas. We hadn't seen my parents in six months and Michael had not even met little Anders. It was great to reconnect in person and just relax and enjoy each others' company. We have taken so many pictures so I hope to write several posts over the next couple of weeks giving some highlights from this trip (and I will warn you... there will probably be many pictures of Anders:))

the petersen house

We went to the Petersen House Museum today. It is a house built by a Danish immigrant in 1892. Every year they do a Danish Christmas open house and decorate it with typical danish decorations. It was fun to see all the danish decorations and the Christmas table was even set up with the same Royal Copenhagen tableware my farmor had. We also met a danish couple visiting Arizona so we got to speak danish which was fun.

skyping with allison

Allison is back in NY from Uganda for Christmas so we got to skype yesterday with no delay or anything. It was so great catching up a little. Looking forward to seeing her in January:)