Git 'r done.

Tom made TONS of progress on the coop this weekend.

And the girls got their first outside time. They loved it, of course. 

All hail spring.

Or nearly summer, although you'd never know it with the cool, rainy weather pattern we've been stuck in for the past few weeks. Things are downright soggy and chilly around here. It's been more like Juneau weather than Denver weather lately!  However cold rain in Denver means snow in the mountains...late season skiing for us tomorrow!

But a hail storm today here...luckily the hail was small and didn't do too much damage. 

Back home...with big chickens.

Well we arrived home on Sunday to gigantic chickens. Well, gigantic is relative, but I'm amazed how fast chickens grow. Thank you to my good friend Andi for caring for the little monsters!

Denmark was wonderful. Visiting with distant relatives and being invited into their lives and homes is truly a great way to enjoy a new country. Often times, when traveling, we are separated from the culture a bit, but we dined in homes and got the "behind the scenes" tours of towns and communities. Thank you to everyone who made the trip special, most of all my in-laws, who were great fun to travel with, and truly made it a trip to remember!

Play days.

Well, another whirlwind of two days. In short, we arrived in Saeby and were lucky enough to meet more family (they were as gracious as the rest of the family). Karen took us on a great tour of Saeby and Skagen. We visited buried churches, harbors and museums, and most importantly stood in two seas at once (North and Baltic) at the northernmost tip of Denmark near Skagen.  Standing in two seas was...cold. 

Last night, before a fabulous dinner at Karen and Arne's house, I snuck away to the hill trails near our B&B for a few more miles on the running shoes.  There's nothing quite like finding running trails out your back door, a very nice surprise when traveling. 

Today, we took a ferry to Laeso Island from Frederickshavn. Laeso was a sleepy little quaint island about 90 minutes offshore aboard a car ferry. We visited a salt seething site, a house with a seaweed roof, ate fabulous fish and generally poked around.  Tomorrow we start the long trek home, first a flight to Copenhagen, overnighting there, then back to the US.  

Oh, and one of our top goals on vacation has happened. We've seen no other Americans since we left the airport. Perfect. This means we've gotten far enough away. :)

On the ferry. 

Laeso salt. 

Deserted beach. 

East coast calm.

Today, we are staying in Saeby, over on the east coast. Compared to the wild and churning west coast, thie sea here is like a swimming pool. A very cold swimming pool. Saeby is charming, and we are in the shoulder season so it is deserted. We are staying at Aahoj B&B (http://aahoj.dk) on a quiet stream in the town, just next to the shopping area, walkable to everything.  It is also sunny here, a very nice change. I took the opportunity to dust off my running shoes and was lucky enough to find a huge hilltop park and woods. Single and double track wound through miles of old forests. I saw hardly anyone. So peaceful. Of course, being at sea level makes me feel like wonder woman and I cranked out ten miles before I knew what happened. It felt great.

Yesterday we visited and hiked to the Rubjerg Knude lighthouse, it is slowly being eaten away and covered by shifting sand dunes, http://rubjergknude.dk/engelsk/visit-us/. Also, we had dinner within Evald and his girlfriend. Visiting with family again was fantastic. 

The rest of the buildings are already buried. 

Tom and I ran up the biggest sand dune to snap this pic. It was cold, rainy and very very windy. 

Today on the way to Saeby we stopped at Viking burial circles outside of Aalborg. Very interesting. Oh, and we found a killer Danish bakery and discovered that the treats that are sold by the Danish bakery back home really ARE legit Danish pastries. Good to know. 

Burial circles. 

Boats on the beach near Lonstrup. They haul them up out of the sea with a big wench. 

Tomorrow we head to Skagen and dip our ties into two very cold seas at one time!

Evald & Tage

Pronounced "Evel" & "Ty" in Danish (with a very thick accent). They were our very gracious tour guides today. They are Connie's 3rd cousins and this is the first time she has met them. They are wonderful. They drove with us all over the area where the family came from in Denmark. We visited original homestead sites, met family, visited churches, museums, the sea, and had a fabulous lunch and dinner, cooked by Tage's wife. I can't say with strong enough words just how welcoming they are. 

Surprising fact of the day:  the blue jeans of choice here are ... Wranglers!  No lie. 

There are just too many photos to go through after a long day. So I stole this from Connie's Facebook page. :)

From left:  Evald, Tom, Wayne, Connie & Tage. 

Nordjylland

Or North Jutland in English.  That's where we are tonight, the very northern part of Denmark. After taking a morning train from Copenhagen to Aalborg, we hopped on a city bus to reach our rental car at the airport. Then, we continued to head even further north.  

Our bed and breakfast is very rural and only about a km from the North Sea, surrounded by sand dunes, horses, the sea and very wooly sheep. This is a sharp contrast from our noisy Copenhagen hotel last night (sirens and a barrage of fireworks).  The wind is relentless here, rolling in from the sea and whistling across the ground, strong and steady with larger gusts quite often.  I imagine that their west wind is a constant visitor here, as many trees lean a good bit to the east. 

We had an awesome dinner of fish (of course), rye bread (a Danish tradition), and yummy desserts at Resturant Llileheden in Hirtshals (http://www.restaurantlilleheden.dk). Everyone drank Carlsburg beer...

Pictures from our drive back to the B&B from dinner below:

Horses on the sand dunes. 

Wooly sheep. 'Nuff said. 

Sleep.

It's such a rewarding experience after an international red eye. We gutted it out until about 10pm last night so we could be on this time zone. That usually works quite well for me. We wandered the streets of Copenhagen for about 2 hours after dinner. We went up in the tower next to Christiansborg palace last night, we caught it just before closing time. It's probably the best way to get an aerial view of Copenhagen. 

Today, we hop a 5 hour train to North Jutland, where Tom's distant relatives live!  It's been rainy and cloudy here so far, but we did just see a small peek of sun.  Encouraging...

The chicken crew.

Well, Tom and I got a lot done this weekend!  I did some spring cleaning and he made good headway on the chicken coop. Good thing too, those little feathery bundles grow fast - they basically just eat, sleep, drink and poo.  And they do a lot of it.  We have our doubts on one - since they're all named after classic female country artists, "pat" aka "Cash" will either be a June or a Johnny, depending on the gender.  They all have feathers, some have tail feathers and all are beginning to make flights around the chicken bin.  They are seriously fast growers.  As far as names and personalities - a short rundown:

Loretta (Golden Laced Wyandotte) is the smart one and the one voted "most likely to escape from the yard".  You can seriously see her thinking - she knows when the chicken wire cover is off the bin and starts planning her escape.  Case in point - when cleaning the cage yesterday, I put them in their normal temporary box.  Loretta immediately flew/hopped up to the edge and perched - none of the others did that!  But she won't get in the mix when the others are feeding in a group - she likes to stay to the side and wait for her turn.  She's also the smallest, probably because of this.
Dolly (Light Brahma) is the scared one - screams like a ninny when you pick her up.  But she's fuzzy and cute and will come around.  She's a great eater!  Her black and white feathers were the last feathers to show up, but they are very pretty.  She's just so soft.
Cash (Johnny/June) (Easter Egger) is the mystery "Pat" one - not really dominant, but a great eater and BEEFY!  Grew feathers first in every way and has some sturdy legs (a possible sign of being a roo). 
Minnie (Easter Egger) - started out as my favorite and still may be - she's 2nd most aggressive in the food area, and she may turn out to be pack leader overall. She has a speckled head and is a bit obsessed about the stick I use to flick poo out of their food trough.  I almost called her Kitty because it was like she was chasing a string around.
Dottie (Speckled Sussex) is my most aggressive when getting to the food.  She's also very energetic.  I feed them out of my hand sometimes and Dottie is the FIRST to arrive.  She even comes over to inspect when I'm just filling food or changing water. 

Dolly

Minnie

Dottie, Loretta and Cash, left to right. 

So, that's the rundown on the chickens.  Ellie loves them - we get them out and hold them for her - she licks them and whines.  I think (hope) this is because she likes them, not wants to eat them.

On another note, we leave for Denmark the end of this week!  We are very excited, of course - we are going with Tom's parents and it should be a fantastic trip.  We are looking up some of my mother-in-laws distant relatives in North Jutland (far northern reaches of Denmark).  We've never been to Scandinavia, so we're looking forward to it.  Tons of great seafood, not to mention Danish pastries - YUM YUM!  Taking my running shoes so I can feel like superwoman at sea-level, hehe.  Check back for blogs, as I usually try to update it nightly, or at least every other night while on vacation.