Congratulations!!!

A lot of you that read this blog know our friend Blake Hlavaty, so I thought it was appropriate to post this one here. Him and Michael have been friends since they were itty bitty and went through high school together. The same way I met Michael, I met Blake: at band camp. He was also in marching band with me at Texas Tech. Blake is in the Navy and lives in Hawaii. (I would be super jealous if I wasn't living in a cool destination myself) Right now he is picking up his girlfriend in Texas to move her back with him. They have been together for quite sometime now and we found out yesterday that they got engaged!!! We are so excited for them and wanted to share the news with all of you :) So congratulations to you Blake and Ashely!

Our "houseguests" or should I say the students that we are hosting for a few days had a lot of delays and such in Dallas yesterday. They made it as far as Baltimore before they couldn't make a connecting flight. Tonight they will be boarding a plane to Iceland and then over to Denmark. To make a long story short, they won't arrive till tomorrow. Last night we decided to test out the Partney Suite so we slept in there. It was really cool waking up with a glass roof and walls! We couldn't see anything while we were laying down besides sky and clouds. Very very cool!

Now, Video Number 3!
If you didn't see the first 2 videos, refer to the previous 2 posts to find out what these are all about and to watch the others, before you watch today's video. :)

"The Partney's in Denmark: Day 3 - Hillerød

More Houseguests!!

A small handful of you (perhaps just our parents) may remember that when we moved to Denmark in 2002 we had NO IDEA where we would be living until about 1 week before we arrived. The housing office magically bumped us to the top of a waiting list for housing. The housing for students in Denmark is sparse. It is not a country you can just come to and find an apartment like you could in the states. While there are many many apartments, they are not overseen by one central office in each complex. Some people own their apartments and some rent them. Back to my story, we didn't know where we were going to live until the week before we got here. Fast forward to today. Tomorrow 2 new Texas Tech students are arriving in Copenhagen for the DTU/TTU program, and guess what? They don't have a place to live yet! We had offered to let them stay with us if they didn't get assigned anywhere before they got here, and sure enough, they arrive tomorrow and will be homeless. Well not completely, Their temporary residents is in The Partney Suite. They will stay with us for a few days at first because of our very close proximity to the university. Then they will start getting passed around from house to house. Tomorrow Michael and Jens (One of the Danes that went to TTU) are going to pick them up and take them to DTU and go with them to the housing office to get a place to live all set up. This isn't said much but one of both of our big motivators of really wanting to move back to Denmark was to help out a little more with this DTU/TTU program, so while getting news 24 hours before they came that they needed a place to stay might really stress out most people, we are glad we are here to help out. I've only meet them both once and Michael a few times. But we share that Red Raider Bond, so we aren't going to leave them wondering a new country on their own :) Now I'm off to set back up the Partney Suite, do some grocery shopping and making sure they have everything they might need! :)

And now, Today's video!
If you didn't see the 1st video, refer to the previous post to find out what these are all about and to watch the first video, before you watch todays video. :)

"The Partney's in Denmark: Day 2 - Central Copenhagen"

Mary and Jason's Trip to Denmark Day 1

It was two weeks ago today that Mary and Jason landed in Copenhagen and we had to do everything in our power to keep them awake until 9pm to help them conquer their jet lag. It was touch and go for a while, but they made it! I didn't really say much about their trip here or show many pictures because I have been working on what you are about to see. This is Mary and Jason talking about their time in Copenhagen along with telling YOU, why you should start making your plans to come and see us!!! This is one of 8 videos. Stayed tuned as I hope to get a new one up everyday...or at least every other day :)

So, without further adieu, I present to you, Mary and Jason in:
"The Partney's in Denmark: Day 1- Arrival"

Graduation Anniversary!

Today I was in my normal online routine. Check my AOL mail, check my Gmail, check out other blogs, and check out myspace. While I was on myspace I saw something posted by one of my high school friends with the title, "Graduation Anniversary!" I thought, ok, this is just something about when she graduated from college or she just graduated and is having an anniversary. So, I opened the post and low and behold this is what it said: "Congrats and Happy 9th Anniversary of our high school Graduation to all my Class of '98 CHS friends! I hope I see all of you next year at the reunion."

What a lovely thing to see. I can't believe it has been 9 years to the day that I graduated from high school!!!! 9 YEARS!! I knew this, but seeing that it was 9 years today just kinda stirred up a bunch of "whoa" emotions in me. I know most of the people that keep up this this blog have been out of high school longer then I have been but it is just kinda hitting me now that this next year will be 10 years that I was living my senior year.

Anyways all this made me think about all my wonderful high school friends and how I am soooo lucky that I still keep in touch with so many of them. There are very very very few people out there that I wonder what happened to them simply because, the most important people in my life at the time, somehow are still in my life. Will I go to my 10 year? I think if I don't, my husband will kill me. He is looking forward to mine more then his own because he knows so many of the people I graduated with so well. He actually may show up without me if I don't go.

So, here I am. Exactly 9 years ago after graduation with my two sweet nieces.
Cheers to the Class of '98!!!

I Think I'm Dead

I couldn't stop laughing at this. So I thought I would share.

All Alone

Mary and Jason sadly left yesterday afternoon and before that Michael left here on Sunday for Boston and Dallas. Now, I am back here, by myself, once again. In all honestly, I'd rather be left here alone then in Dallas while he was hopping over to Europe. So, I don't feel bad for being abandoned!

We had a really fun rest of the time with Mary and Jason. We took them to see a ton more stuff. I'm working on a little something to talk about their trip, but it'll be a few days till I can get it up. For now, I'll just wet your pallet with a few more pictures.

At Carlsberg Brewery - thats beer in my hand, not wine.

Tivoli

On our balcony eating Taco's Jason made for us. YUM. We ate out here often. It was nice.
Jason conquering a hill
Mary at Kronborg Slot (Hamlets Castle)

Enjoying the sun in a park in Roskilde

Replica of a Viking Ship at the Viking ship museum in Roskilde. Thats Mary and I in the picture

With an actual old viking shipOn the Train on the way home

We really really really had a great time with them here. It was fun to get to show them stuff that we love and to finally get to show someone our lives here.
They also say to all our friends and family in the states:
"EVERYONE COME VISIT NICHOLE AND MICHAEL IN DENMARK!"

So there it is, come see us!! Mary and Jason said so. As the first guests they also got the sun room named after them. From now on, it will be referred to as "The Partney Suite" If you come, you'll get something too. :)

Our Visitors

I had hoped to update this thing daily while Mary and Jason were here but well, you can see how that went. Not so good. :) But we have been having fun. They got here Monday and our days since have been pretty packed.

Monday we got some food and wondered around Lyngby. They were both pretty jet lagged, but we were able to keep them awake till 9pm, but it was a challenge.

Tuesday we gave them the grand tour of Copenhagen. Which of course wasn't even scratching the surface but we hit the big stuff.

Ice Cream at Nyhavn

Amalienborg

Jason being silly

Wednesday we went to the great town of Hillerod. I have always loved this town so I had fun being back up there. We wondered around the streets and toured he castle that is located up there.


Today (Thursday) we went to Dyrehaven, Bakken and the Beach. It was raining and kinda cold too, but we went anyways. Bakken is an old old old amusement park that is nestled in a forest. It is claimed to be the oldest in the world. It opened in 1583!!! That IS old! And its free to get in Its rare to see that! From here we wondered to the beach for a look and then back to dyrehaven where we saw a lot of deer and just enjoyed walking through the forest.

Jason shooting a bow and arrow at Bakken

Walking from Bakken to the Beach

Dyrehaven

I hope to do better the rest of their trip. :)

Two Women,Two Knees, Two Surgeries, Two Cities

My mom in El Paso and Michael's Aunt Kathy in Austin are both having knee surgery today. My mom's is and has been planned for some time now. She is having her knee replaced. It has gotten to the point that is is hard for her to walk at times so I know she is very much looking forward to finally being able to get this done and start walking again as are we all happy that she gets to finally have this done! As for Kathy she isn't so lucky as her surgery wasn't planned. Last week she was in a really bad accident and broke her knee (leg) in several places. She has to go under to get it all fixed up and will be in a cast for 6-8 weeks.

I hope all my loyal readers will keep both these wonderful women in your thoughts today and the next few days as they get all fixed up and start their road to recovery. We will be sending many many get well and good luck vibes from this side of the ocean. We love you both :)

As a side note. I'm still sick. Felt better on Saturday, but yesterday and today haven't been all that great. I keep morphing into different symptoms. It's not so much fun. Mary and Jason get here in about 5 hours. We are SOOO excited for that. I just hope they don't get whatever it is I have.

Ugg.

Michael brought back some bug with him from the states. Itchy throat, runny nose. He was sick Wednesday and Thursday and seems to be completely better today. Yesterday at about 4 I swallowed and it hurt and I thought, oh no, not me too. As much as I tried to convince myself I wasn't sick my body had a different idea and as the day moved on, I felt worse. I crashed early last night. My body feels fine, it's just my throat is killing me and I have a bit of a stuffy nose! Drinking OJ this morning felt like I was swallowing nails. At least I am not achy or feverish. It's quite rare that Michael and I are both sick with completely different tings. Hopefully he will not catch this and I won't also catch whatever he had. I will say one of the only really bad things about living abroad is being sick. That is because we can't get the same kinds of medicines here and when we can, we just aren't familiar with them. We stocked up on things like Thera Flu, Clariton, Nitequil, Vicks, etc. but there is always something we could use and don't have. A bottle of chloraseptic would have been nice to be able to run out and get, but we just can't. We generally don't get sick that often. The first time we lived here though we both got what I think was the flu twice along with several other little colds here and there. This time, Michael has already been sick twice and this is my first. I think it has something to do with being exposed to a bunch of "Euro-germs" that are bodies aren't immune to yet.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that we are back to 100% by Monday when Mary and Jason get here!!! That's only a few days away and we are SOOOO excited to have our first visitors.

Back in DK!

The rest of our time in Dallas was busy and quick. We got to see Kelly and James again at a housewarming party that they had at their place. I and we, spent a little more time with Chris and Fayne, and I got my ego blown up while we were working out at the gym one day. One of the big beefy trainers came up to me after I did a set of dips and offered me a job on the spot as a trainer at Bally's Total Fitness and he assumed I already was a trainer. I told them if they flew me in on a private jet everyday, I was in. So I must be doing something right (or at least look like I am) if I am being approached with assumptions that I could be a personal trainer! Needless to say, that made my evening.

We saw "Wicked" on Saturday and it was FANTASTIC!!! I'd go as far to say one of the best musicals out there. The story and the music were amazing and funny. The writer (of the book) and the musical did a really great job on the story. It was basically "The Wizard of Oz" from the Wicked Witches perspective. It takes place from before the wizard of oz, during the story of the wizard of oz and after the wizard of oz. If you find it near you, I highly recommend it. Worth our year wait from the time we bought the tickets and well worth heading back to Dallas to see it.

So we had a very long, very quick 2 weeks, but we are happy to be back. I must say, it's an odd feeling to walk out of an airport in another country and head "home". I walked through Lyngby with my suitcase and backpack at about 8am to our place from the train station. The city is still pretty empty at this time with just a few people walking to work. It was quite and big dark clouds started pouring water on top of me, umbrella-less I quickly found myself drenched. My backpack was super heavy and the suitcase was making loud clunky noises as I pulled it across the cobblestone street, despite all that I couldn't help but smile as I looked around our charming town and thinking, "wow, we actually live here." How amazing.

Innards, Peace and Storms

We have had a busy few days here. Tuesday Mary and I finally got a chance to hang out for a little bit. We ate lunch at the cheesecake factory and then headed to the Body Worlds Exhibit at the Science Place museum. It was really really cool. I have heard about it for a couple years now, and it has been in Dallas for a few months, and I'm really glad I got a chance to see it. All the exhibits are real preserved bodies and body parts. It was INCREDIBLE. Its not every day you see the human body sliced up long ways in 6 pieces and can examine it from both sides. They had every body part you can think of. Normal Lungs, Smokers Lungs, Brains, Hemorrhaged Brains, Livers, Livers with Cirrhosis... and so on and so forth. Being fascinated with muscles in the human body (big surprise huh?) I found it amazing to see actual muscles placed in different positions and enjoyed seeing healthy muscle, and strong muscle, old muscle, and worn muscle. If you find yourself near this exhibit ever, I highly suggest going.

Since my first Tai Chi lesson with Chen Bing from China, I've had another few lessons/classes with Chris. Now I have a ton of new material and things to work on that should keep me busy for a while after we return to Denmark. It is exciting to me, because I am finally able to start trying to break through to the next level of Tai Chi above simply the physical and more to a level of inner peace within the form. yadda yadda yadda....

We also got to go visit Kelly and James (Kelly graduated from High School with Michael) at their new house in Murphy. We had a really fun time. If we hadn't moved from Allen, we would have been practically down the street from them. That would have been really really fun.

Finally, we almost died in the gym last night. Ok, not really, but we got across the street to Bally's and a big 'ol storm started to pass through. Lights were flickering and we were all moved to the center of the room away from all the windows. The electricity went off a few times, but it passed and we got our workout in. We told each other, if we had to die, what better place to go then the gym right??

Dallas Smallas

So...apparently I don't really like Dallas as previously thought.
I suppose I just enjoyed a few things here. The gym and Tai Chi and the few acquaintances we had, just made it bearable. Since I have been here I have felt my energy (I know, that sounds all hippy and wierd) just sink south and it feels familiar. Simply sitting in the car my energy seems to become tainted. It's the same feeling I had been having here in Dallas around the time we moved and I was becoming happy about Dallas and sad to be moving. It has made me wonder how horrible I must have been feeling before I got to that "good"place if the "good" place now seems bad. It made me realize how being gone for the past 5 months my spirits have lifted incredibly and that life became life again and I am not just dealing with the cards dealt. So, needless to say, I'm glad we moved and I LOVE LOVE LOVE living in Denmark.

While I was in El Paso Michael had told me he really was missing home and he was really anxious to get back to his small office, morning rolls,walking to work, and spending weekends enjoying the sun on our balcony. El Paso was a blast for me. I loved being with and catching up with family and friends. but now that I'm in Dallas, I'm about ready to head back across the pond too. Dallas is humid, my hair isn't a fan and makeup just melts off my face. The traffic is ridiculous and the city is soooooo huge! Finally we found how important friends are. In Dallas, with the exception of Mary and Jason, and Chris and Fayne, we just had lots of acquaintances. In Denmark we actually have a really great handful of friends who actually enjoy the same stuff we do and who, for the most part, really "get us". It's settling to have the confirmation that yes, we were, without a doubt, meant to be in Copenhagen at this time in our lives and the things we had to give up, were worth it to have the Danish experience again. We have only been there about 5 months, but already it's so much more then our first time and we still have months and months and months to go. How did we ever get so lucky?