Legos!!!





Denmark is home of Legos.  We briefly contemplated going to the original Legoland in Billund, but it was going to be a haul and take too much time.  Instead, we found this Lego Store along the Storget.  The whole store is full of legos that I have never seen before: the White House, US spaceships, Tower Bridge, Cars and Toy Story stuff. 



Copenhagen soldier made out of Legos



The green dragon, a symbol of Copenhagen, twists through the whole store.  The lights look like the circles on the underside of a lego brick.  The mural is of the Radhusplads.  There are scenes, child height, showing various scenes made out of legos, from mice and cheese to butterflies to hamburgers

 and bicycles.

Green dragons, bicyclers, and Radhausplads

 Will's and Spencer's eyes got big when they saw all the Star Wars legos, including the Death Star, whcih we figured out costs about $669 US.  The US spaceshuttle had a flap that had how many pieces, listed out by what kind with a photo and by how many: it had over 1000 pieces, including 8 tiny squares meant to be lights.

Course they about fell over when they saw the life-sized Darth Vader, complete with cape and a soundtrack.  You can hear Darth breathing and him saying things suchs as, "Luke, I am your father!"

Star Wars ship

Cars

butterflies

me and the lego man! Don't you like my shoe?

Wall of legos-- you can just buy a box of pink ones if you want!

one side of the Nyhavn (new harbor)

a scene along the Nyhavn

having a lego beer

Tower Bridge (about 3 ft high)

want fries with that burger?

Mice in the cheese-- love the cat in the background

Darth Veder with Will and Spencer

even the lightsaber is legos!  And it made noise!

Distracted

Sorry for the lack of posting. Blame Andrew and Oscar and Lucas.

See, they showed us this game for the iPhone called Angry Birds. We then had to download it and attempt to complete every level, of which there are approximately 58493245.

The premise is that green pigs have stolen the birds' eggs, and built various fortresses for protection. The birds, ah well, sling shot themselves into these fortresses in hopes of smashing the pigs. Needless to say it is highly addictive. We even got our friend Dan, visiting from the UK (because we are running a bed and breakfast, dontcha know), to say that he will buy an iTouch when he gets back so he too can download this game.

Will is currently playing, so whilst I await my turn to slingshot various boomeranging toucans, bombing blackbirds, and torpedo-fast yellowbirds, I figure I would explain myself to you all.
Oh-- Will just handed me the phone. Gotta go try and smash some green pigs...

I Got a New Toy!

A Wide Angle Lens! for only $7.50. Wait, that is wrong-- let me be completely honest. It was $7.39 but $4.99 for shipping. Yes, I realize that the shipping cost is more than half the lens... still, I HAVE A NEW TOY! And how awesome is my wide angle lens? Well, let's explore a favorite subject of mine: the attic!



Minus the peep-hole effect, it is very cool. I think I get an extra 3 cm on either side of the frame. And that = awesome. ;)

Legos and the World Cup

This is rather awesome and totally needs no introduction... other than to say Pbbbtt! to Will (and Andrew), who said that the USA soccer team can't beat the English.



I love how everything can be expressed with Legos.

Digging in the Dirt

Will was doing his usual weekend thing of digging in the dirt the other day and hit upon a buried treasure in the upper garden:

A Dinky tank

Now, it is not in great nick, as Andrew and Will must have buried it over 35 years ago when they first lived in this house. But, the tank is metal die-cast, quite heavy, and obliviously durable-- having withstood the years of Washington weather in its mud bunker with very little sign of rusting.

Don't get me wrong: There are definite signs of wear and tear. I will say that is from being played with by two rambunctious Cunningham boys and not decades of Washington clay-like soil. If it weren't for that, we think that this would be quite the collector's item. But for us, it is going back out in the garden, as "garden art," to continue its watch over our vegetables.

6 Little Monkeys

For Christmas, Will and I gave Brando this:

where he can act out the song "5 little monkeys jumping on the bed". Not that we are encouraging him to jump on the bed. Apparently he loves the monkeys and plays with them all the time. Here is proof:

And omg, the stripped pjs!!

And a second omg, he is looking like my sister but as a boy!!

The Great Canasta Battle

Will and I went over to the Italian's for dinner tonight and had some delicious barley soup and a second course of beef stew and mash, and a third course of a stunning chocolate cake. Instead of the usual Game of Life, the Italian and her lovely husband, B, introduced us to Canasta.

We attempted to read the directions in Italian and made complete @sses out of ourselves, butchering the language. Once they stopped crying from laughing at us so hard, they explained to us how the game is played.

Played in partners, we chose sides: my partner was B and the Italian played with the Brit, so it was like a Europe vs America kind of game. The object of the game is to get a series of cards all the same rank (all 7s or 10s etc) while getting the most points possible. I am sorry to say that the Americans lost.

While there is not supposed to be any table talk, the Europeans blatantly ignored this rule and conferred about which cards to lay down, what to discard, and when to close (meaning, go out). They won the first hand with something outrageous: 6,000+ points. You only need 10,000 to win the whole game. It was down hill from there. With all the cheating going on, it is a wonder that we Americans did as well as we did, only losing by about 4,000 points in the end.

However, B and I have vowed that we will return and fight and win next weekend when we meet again for another go at the Great Canasta Battle of 2010....

Robo-Boogie

Will and I sent Will's nephews (and, to be honest, his nephew's dad) toy robots that you have to build. As Will put it, it would be amusing to have Oscar and Lucas demanding their robots be built while Andrew fiddled with all the fiddly-bits.

Today, Andrew sends us this:

"I could hear your worry that we had not got all the pieces after Luke’s exuberant and excited opening of your Christmas present. Very happy to report that we even had two mini screws left over! Luke has been following the robot around all afternoon (often humming the Star Wars theme tune… so robocan might have to morph into droidican). Picture attached of the one second when he stopped. Thank you again – I had a good giggle with the boys putting it together."
I would just like to add for the record, that Lucas looks too much like a big boy in this photo instead of the rambunctious little boy we saw at the end of June. It sorta freaked me out about how much these kids change, almost over night.

I also would like to point out that we built the same robot only we made our eye wires curly by wrapping the wire around a pencil. We also altered the length of the arms by cutting the straw as it seemed improbable that a robot could really function in "real life" with arms that long.

The Alternate Game of Life

We had an impromptu gathering the other night of good friends and we decided that, sitting by our fire and sipping some good wine after some excellent pad thai, we should play a game. We chose the "Game of Life," namely because the Italian had never even heard of this very American game.

We explained the directions, chose our careers, bought houses, and got married, as the spaces instructed us to do. But we wanted to jazz up the game a little bit, so we had alternative marriages.

And then we imagined what the Duggars' car would look like if they were playing this game (and had only girls).

New Garden Toy

I got a gift certificate to Smith & Hawken's for my bridal shower and so, last Monday, Will and I went into the store in Georgetown to see if we could find something to buy.

Did we ever.

The store, the entire company I should say, is closing and there were great deals to be had. And we will keep going back for even better ones as the months get closer to their final countdown.

One of the purchases, and towards which the gift certificate went, is a brand new ginormous thermometer! Because when it is super bloody hot out, you want to know exactly *where* that mercury is on a very large temperature gauge, especially when you can walk into a large, un-air conditioned hot-box of a house...


It is quite pretty and adds just a little more to our garden, which is already pretty much picture perfect.

iPhone Snowglobe

We all know that I am *slightly* in love with Apple and the iPhone, but this is the GREATEST APP for the iPhone.

The Christmas Snowglobe. I can change the colors of the snowflakes, I am change the background (including having a real photo), and it makes noise. It is the best. You must get it. And if don't have an iPhone, ahem, well. You.Must.Get.One. NOW.

The app is called esnowglobe and it is $0.99 and TOTALLY WORTH IT

Balance Toys

I have a couple of balance toys that I love: a jockey on a horse, Santa on skis, but the Snowman with suitcase and top hat is my favorite.

At the bottom of each figure is a bit of pointed metal that rests on a stand. Each has this large weighted arm that allows the toy to rock back and forth, moving parts. Santa moves his arms and heads as he skis down a slope, the jockey raises his arm with a whip and the horse's head moves back in forth as they sprint towards the finish line. In case of the Snowman, he waves his top hat back and forth and his suitcase swings, wishing everyone a happy day and merry holiday. It makes me smile every time he rocks back and forth.

Will and I picked them up at the Louisville Antique Mall, on three different occasions. They have several different characters, but we got the best ones. They are made out of metal and very heavy. They have that nice patina on them too, so even if they aren't old (and we don't think they are), they certainly look it.

Seeing them out at Christmas just makes me happy.