My how time flies. I am back in Europe on business. (It seems business trips help me find the time to write.) This time I am only spending two weeks here, as opposed to the month and a half I spent last time. I went to church today in Malmo, Sweden, where Erika, Thomas, and Matthew also went to church during their trip earlier this year. I saw a couple folks nod and smile when I mentioned this during my introduction in the priesthood meeting. It was a really nice experience, bringing back memories of the small branches and wards I attended as a youth living overseas. The upcoming U.S. election was brought up a couple times in Sunday School and Sacrament meeting, mostly in reference to the world-wide attention being put on the church. Apparently a program talking about the church aired on TV this week - it had some positive things to say but also a lot of negative things. The Bishop likened this media treatment to someone looking at a beautiful face and focusing on one little blemish or mole. Apt analogy, no? One man who bore his testimony said he remembers years ago teaching a history class in school and that one of the subjects they covered was the origins of our church. He recalls finding it all quite preposterous and even getting his students to laugh with him. Later, when the missionaries taught him basically the same history he was deeply moved. His conclusion - teaching by the spirit makes all the difference.
My company is slowly transitioning back from being a global company to being a mainly Danish company. When I was hired last year the vision was for U.S. operations to expand. This week the company announced the closure of two U.S. offices, one in Boston and another in Colorado. (The closure of the Houston office has already been announced for some time, but the timing is now more certain.) The only major U.S. office left is in Portland, but there is really no technical research going on there. Nonetheless, I have been asked to move to Portland by June 2013. Portland wouldn't be so bad, but it puts me nine hours away from HQ where pretty much everyone I need to work with is located. I was also given the option of moving to Aarhus, Denmark (HQ), but after some careful consideration decided against that mostly for the sake of the family. Last week I spoke with an American co-worker who lives in Aarhus -- he loves his job but the cold and darkness has taken a bit of a toll on his wife's mental well-being and, to some extent, his. He also misses a lot of the little conveniences most of us Americans have but take for granted, such as a garage, space for large items of furniture, and a coat closet. Furthermore, the heavy taxes have made saving money difficult. His solution to the cold and darkness has been to take lots of mini-vacations to warmer, sunnier places, but that puts additional strain on his budget. So we will have to give Portland some thought, but I am looking around at other job openings in Houston (and a little in Dallas - I have an interview there later this week). Although I am grateful to have a good job, the uncertainty about where I will eventually work and, correspondingly, where the family will live, has put some unwanted stress on all of us these past few months.
During this trip, I have been skype-ing with Erika and the children almost every evening. I stay up late and my virtual head sits (via laptop) at the table with everyone during dinner. But for the silly faces little Coco (now Cora) and I make at each other during dinner, we carry on with our normal conversation as if I were actually present. Thomas has been enjoying cross country at school this year. He truly loves running - something I remember loving a lot when I was his age, at least I loved it more than I do now. Matthew loves playing on a soccer team and participates in math competitions. One evening when I came to his room to tell him goodnight he quickly asked me to leave because he was timing himself on a practice test. One of the competitions he enjoys most (there are a few different ones) is mental math. For example, he can multiply lots of different combinations of 3 digit numbers in his head in seconds. I think he likes the parlor trick value, so to speak, of that particular competition.
I recently had the opportunity to attend a campout with Thomas and the other scouts his age. Matthew, though not a full-aged scout yet, came along as my guest. Thomas was not too keen on the idea, Matthew being a little too young and immature for Thomas and his sophisticated 12-13 year old friends. In the end, nobody minded having Matthew around one bit. In fact, the 12 year old scouts were particularly delighted to have him around. While sitting around the campfire, the owner of the property we camped on announced that he had free kittens for the taking -- they were found one morning in one of his sheds . Thomas and Matthew begged to take a kitten home. Erika thought it wasn't such a bad idea. So we welcomed two kittens into our home that day. They stay in Thomas's room for now. About a week later, the female got lost. We weren't sure if she had managed to escape the house so just in case Erika made some signs and posted them around the neighborhood. We eventually gave up and Thomas shed a few tears. That night after reading bedtime stories to Emmy, while leaving her room I looked down at a pile of toys near her door and saw the kitten curled up with the toys.
Emmy copied a "lost kitten" sign with her best handwriting to help with the search
A couple months ago I traveled to Singapore for work and spent a week there. Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip (there is a whole raft of these photos on my facebook profile).
part of the city as viewed from a river/canal I jogged by each morning
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some monks playing badminton... without a net (what bravado!)
a tree that grows "figs" on its trunk
And here are some recent photos of the kids:
Matthew's bed-head looks a little like some of the hair-dos I've seen on this trip
These next few were taken a while back while Erika and the boys were in Denmark and I took the girls to a nearby children's farm.
Cora climbing around in a play structure / barn
Emmy did not want to milk the cow - too many flies, I think
Emmy during a much happier moment
Went to turn off the light and found this
Thomas really wanted to go to a haunted house so I took him to this "mental patient hospital." Nobody else in the family or any of his close friends dared to go with us. It was quite scary.
And finally, here are some photos of sights in Malmo, Sweden:
The twisting torso building near my hotel.
The twisting torso up close (turns out you can't go inside - it's residential)
a castle with moat and all
my 3pm shadow (to be fair, I am rather tall)
I couldn't resist photographing this cool little orange juice maker in the European patent office in Munich. (I was there for a judicial hearing to oppose the grant of a competitor's patent.) The basket on top rotates, dropping oranges into a little torture chamber in which they are squeezed to death.
