Bech-Svalgaard Family Home Page

Updated September 19, 2004; by Mikael

Dear everybody!

Now the summer is over and it is about time for an update on our lives, from the time when we came back and until the end of the summer vacation. Hence, it is an orgy of sun, family, friends and scenic shots. In some areas it was harder than we thought it would be to come back to Denmark: 1) things are expensive (rule-of-thumb: multiply by two!!), 2) the Danes seemed sour (except our friends and family, naturally!), and 3) and our home and schools were not as nice as those in Boulder. Oh yes, there is another great thing about being back: Danish vaccum cleaners are a thousand times better than American ones. Believe it or not, but this really has an impact on my personal well being. Anyway... on with the pictures:

Here's Merete and her beautiful little daugther, Ida Marie:

Merete and kids came by our place for dinner one workday afternoon and we all had a great time.

Here's Signe with one of our best friends Mette and daugther Rebecca. I like this picture so much, the way their eyes are looking in three different directions and their faces are seen from three different angles. Mette was pregnant at this time, she has since given birth to a little boy - their third child.

The kids have been playing alot with friends from our neighborhood, here is Ingrid and Isabella:

...and Peter + Carl-Andreas from the pre-school. The clothes were bought in Chinatown, SF.

After three weeks in Denmark school ended and six weeks of summer vacation commenced. We managed to arrange it so that the kids could leave Copenhagen for the entire period, being in the countryside with us, or my mom or Signes parents. Here we are sailing on one of the many little Danish ferries on our way to visit our friends Mette and Ken. Take note of Ingrids elegant choice of blouse for the occasion!

Here's Peter and Signes dad, Lasse. The two are cleaning up the pond. It is a very nice little pond with many little animals, such as frogs and leeches. Lasse works and Peter thinks...

Now it's Peters turn to work - this time on a boat in the workshop. Again his mentor on this topic is Lasse. The two are very good at building things. Besides the boat, this summer Peter made: a dollhouse for Signe, a rocket + launch tower for me, and a sword and bow+arrows for himself.

One day we had mail - from Miss Shiela, Ingrids teacher at Creekside in Boulder! Ingrid had written to her and Miss Shiela sent over a large envelope with many goodies. I love this sequence of pictures, look at her ripping open the envelope, reading concentrated and bursting into joy! Thanks, Shiela!!

A long standing tradition for us is to host a large summer party for our friends. Since these have been multiplying in numbers for the last 5-10 years the arrangement is now quite significant with 30-40 people, all counted. We make the salads, buy the wine, set up the barbeques and our friends bring meat. In addition, I take great joy in holding peoples babies while they eat.

This year we hauled out Ingrid and Peters telescope (of course they have one!!) and did a moon observing session. The kids loved it and have since been asking for more.

Here one of Ingrids classmates, Linea, came by for a day. On this picture they are having dinner, good US cuisine.

That evening we went to a circus with Linea's family, same place where Peter broke his arm last year.

We were also on a trip to Sweden where our good friends Mette & Ole have a great cottage. Here's Pete on a rainy day climbing around on a ruin of a water mill in the forest:

Ole and I do the rowing, the girls do the posing:

We rowed out to a very nice place for picking blueberries:

Regardless of marching in the forest, swimming in lakes and eating blueberries the kids still have energy enough to attack Ole.

That's all for now,

Love - Signe, Mikael, Ingrid and Peter

Mikael (svlgrd@com.dtu.dk)

Signe (sba@dmi.dk)