New experiences that requires responsibility!

21st birthday: 

The first of May is the date of a new beginning. the weather gets warmer, the trees are bursting, and personally May is my favorite month of the year. Of douse this specific date is my favorite since it's my birthday ;-)

My families back in Denmark Skyped me with a surprise call, where my mom's side of the family celebrated my birthday with strawberry cake while I was watching a great surprise, which made my eyes a little misty since I didn't get to taste the cake... argh man! ;-)

later on it was time for my celebrating with my American family. Chris had made me my favorite cake, CHOCOLATE CAKE, yummy! so with Kensi all super excited, cause she loves birthdays (or... she loves cake) she wanted to blow out the candles with me. that girl just puts a smile upon my face every single day! :-)

A great day of celebration which I'm very grateful for, thank you again guys for making this a special day for me :)



Hockey game 7th of May:

The Rangers are in the play offs and it was my time to experience my first "big" hockey game. at the Madison Square Gardens stadium. The Rangers is up against the Penguins in a tense battle to the semi final of the major national hockey league.

Jamie and Jackie invited me to the Rangers' supporters restaurant followed by a bus ride with the most extreme supporters of The Rangers through the streets of manhattan to pump up the city's mood.

this night will forever be remembered from a guy who's not that big of a hockey fan, but the experience was amazing because of the atmosphere! again thanks to Jamie and Jackie for taking me and sharing this experience with me.

At the restaurant, LET'S GO RANGERS!

Autographs by legends

On the bus!

Tattoo and first soccer game with Kensi:

this would happen to be symbolic and memorable day! Kensi, Chris and I was heading into the city to first get my tattoo followed by me and Kensi hanging out in the city for the FIRST time alone.

This tattoo that I've been wanting to have for 3 years was finally becoming reality. the story behind it is as you can see on the picture, its a face coming screaming out of a brick wall. that image is from Pink Floyd's movie "The Wall".  the message of this movie/ music album is that you'll go through struggles in life, that you have to deal with. the bricks in the wall symbolizes all these struggles and therefore you have to break down "The Wall" brick by brick in order to be happy with life. That's what my tattoo symbolizes. I got the idea when I was the movie with my best friend Steven. We have this tradition, where we watch The Wall together over "a couple of beers" and it hit me...  THIS should be my tattoo! And well... here i am, and this is the result:

Now the red areas are gray

First time alone with Kensi in NYC:

A little taste of the things coming up. I'm supposed to have Kensi all day for the next couple of months since she's out of school. Therefore I took Kensi into the city for the WHOLE day!

The plan was first to go to the build a bear store with Daddy, so that Kensi could get her 100000049th build a bear ;)

Afterwards we went to the american girl store, where I had scheduled the lunch appointment for me and the princess ;)

Here are some pictures of Kensi and her doll in the restaurant:

Afterwards we figured going to central park, to see the beautiful bloomed park, on the way we found Kensi's new favorite park in the city, named "the tire-swing park", where we spend 4 hours. 

Followed by the park, we ended the day with a horse ride through the park, to really enjoy the view! 

Kensi gets to feet the horse!

A little video for Daddy and Papa :')

The inspiration of a child

Soccer Game 23th of April:

Since we live close to the New York Red Bulls Arena this was the team to root for. Chris had never seen a soccer game at the stadium before. My LCC Zane, from the agency I work for invited us to come see a game. Therefore we were in a bit of a stressed situation, since it was last minute tickets. Luckily our friends Debbie and Bob were able to look after Kensi that night and again we're very grateful for your help! :-)

Game night! It was time, my first soccer game in the US. before we went into the stadium we went to the stadiums shop, this shows what I spend my time on in there:

All set for the game! 

And the game is on!

and in excitement it came to me that the former Arsenal FC and Barcelona FC soccer player Theirry Henry plays for the Red Bulls. a great thing to watch a such fantastic player on the field even though it's his last hours on the field.

before the game started we ran into a sells guy who offered us season tickets, and he convinced us to give us a tour on the stadium so that we could make our decision. at the end of the tour Chris asked me: What do you think? I was a little modest and said, I don't need the tickets.... as his respond was, happy birthday my boy, here's two season tickets for the whole year where you can go watch some matches with both me, Kensi Paul, and some of your friends. Thanks again for that amazing birthday present! :-)

Some eye candy for the ladies... and Chris! 

Jamie's 30th birthday party:

The family friend Jamie had her 30th birthday, which we were invited to it. She had chosen to do it at a local Habatchi place. Habatchi is this special Japanesse restaurant where the cooks prepare the food in front of the guests and make a show out of it. Wonderful experience, and I'm sure Jamie had a good time celebrating.

again happy birthday Jamie :-)

Here's a little video of the show :-)

Mets game April 26th.:

The US has it's national sports that are huge nationally for example baseball. another Au Pair, Ayelén and I went to a baseball game at the new stadium of "The Mets". Neither of us had any idea of how the game baseball works, but we took it as a new experience and figured it out as the game went on. Great experience to see the HUGE stadium, and the atmosphere is just phenomenal. thanks for a great day Ayelén :-)

LET'S GO METS ;-)

The inspiration of a child:

Here's a little site story about how Kensi has inspired me so far. We went to a very famous mall in upstate New York called Wood Berry comments. There I had Kensi for myself most of the day and we went to the Disney store that was attached to the mall. in there she choose to get a set of bow and arrows. Then when we got home, she of course wanted tot try it. And after a few instructions she could manage the bow and arrow better than most people. It was amazing to see how fast she was able to shoot the arrow that smoothly. this little story's message is that you can be anything you want. If you have a goal then reach it, and don't stop until you're satisfied with the result of it.

My little Robin Hood ;-)

CHARGE!

Rachel Ray 29th of april:

 Here we are another thing America is very famous for. TV shows! Chris had signed us up for the cooking show Rachel Ray. Unexpected things would happen that day, warning you now...

We headed into the city where we were meeting up with Teresa and Julián for the show. On our way Chris and i stopped to get cupcakes for Teresa. ;-)

finally we arrived to the building and we waited in line for the doors to open. Here we met Teresa. Julián was running a little late, but well... I guess it's the colombian culture ;-) Just kidding.

Now the time had come. we were in the waiting room and during that the entertainer handed out a dollar to all the men who he assumed was dragged to this show by their wives which the entertainer assumed Chris was by Teresa. After handing out the dollars the entertainer explained that the husbands was forced to get on stage for a dance off, which during the show let Rachel Ray herself to tiggle Chris and but a asparagus in his shirt pocket. A great experience with lots of laughs during Chris' dance show, and of course he won ;-) Here's a picture of the happy champion:

Found it!

Sorry guys... I'm straight... 

Easter and NYC

Easter at Diane's 19th of April: 

Is was upon us, and the celebration was enormous this year. Daddy and Papa had scheduled An Easter dinner with close friends. Everyone brought some eatable, where our household was asked to bring th deserts, mmmh!

Therefore I was asked to make a danish desert, which resulted in a danish apple cake. We were to go to Diane's house where her nephew Liam would join us since he was on holidays from college, besides that the couple Kevin and Carmen would join us.

     As Daddy and Papa told me, they each year had a traditions of going there for Easter and within that tradition, there was always a special Easter egg hunt for Kensi. When we got there we all greeted each other and I was officially introduced to the group. Kensi and I started drawing some cookies Daddy and I got I a the Chelsea market in NYC, where  some special crayons came with them (Of course the paint was eatable), therefore we decided to make the American, danish and Swedish flag (since Liam has a girlfriend in Sweden).

making the cookie-eggs. 

Kensi and I holding the cookie-eggs. 

Finally it was time for the egg hunt! daddy and I had hitten ALL of the eggs we prepared the day before! We had hitten like 50 eggs all around the garden of Diane's. Kensi looked found and looked and found.... This year the Easter bunny had really been generous since it both had put candy and dollar bills in the eggs this year! Wauw! We had a great afternoon and evening at Diane's, again thanks for a great night guys :-)

ready to go to get those eggs!

gotta get all of them! 

more, more!!

Disney Junior and eggs by Rockefeller center 20th of April:

A big day was ahead of us. We had ordered tickets to thee so called Disney Junior show, which was addressed at the Madison square park, just by Penn station. We were going with Kathi, who is mentioned earlier in the blog. Before eggs big show we stepped by the Pennsylvania hotel's restaurant for a littl brunch before the show started. 

     I could feel Kensi's excitement the show we were gonna watch was a Disney show that was very high rates st that time. It was about the nice pirat Jake and Issie, who fought the evil Captain Hook. Within the breaks foe kitchen show, both Mickey Mouse and Mini mouse themselves came to entertain! It was a great feeling watching the excitement of the thousands of kids screaming and singing along on the sound tracks for the show with full passion in their voices! There's nothing more pure than a kids passion for things! 

 Land ahead! 

 Issie and Jack!

Captain Hook is in trouble!

After the show we decided to head towards the Rockefeller center. For the last few weeks the New York board had decided to make a huge Easter egg hunt, with beautiful exhibits of eggs that are made from different artist. No less than 260 eggs were placed all around Manhattan. Therefore on Easter Sunday they made an exhibit by the Rockefeller center, so that the citizens and tourists of NY could come see them ALL. Some of the eggs were just amazing! Indescribable how beautiful and creative the artists work was!

            

Paul by one of the many gorgeous eggs at Rockefeller center :-)

Definitely my favorite egg from th exhibit, gorgeous! 

Found the soccer egg!!!

found "THE EGG", oh yeah Paul and Chris... you know what I'm talking about ;-)

Paul found a lovely hat on the way home from the egg exhibition ;-)

EASTER

The foundation of the pursuit of happiness

The advantages of communication:

It's a huge decision signing up for getting an au pair into your household, but you feel like you need some help around the household for the daily tasks, because of lack of time to deal with it. But at the same time, it's hard to putting so much trust into a "stranger" to take care of the daily tasks around the household, and most importantly... taking care of the person that you care most about in this world... your child/childen. This decision has a huge risk for the family, since they're trying to pursuit happiness by taking off some of the pressure on their shoulders concerning the daily tasks besides of work. Likewise it's a huge decision signing up for being an au pair. Putting your life on standby in your home country for a while, because you sign up for it, since it's thousands of miles away, over seas, and with a whole new family with a different culture, is a huge risk to take to pursuit happiness. This decision has some consequences for both parts of course that results in a number of both posetive and negative consequences since there is some cultural differences as values, norms, and expectations.Cultural clash results in both positive and negative experiences that's what history has taught us so far. 

       My point is that you have to take these risks to pursuit your happiness. In this case the pursuit of happiness by taking this risk is worth it. There's nothing more rewording than feeling like these cultural differences that so far has resulted in both struggles and joy has brought Kensi, Paul and Chris closer to me emotionally. The best reward is hearing your host child saying: "Jeg elsker dig" (I love you in danish). :')

A thing we did to make our daily week day easier by making a big schedule fir each week on this board! A great idea that I'm sure is gonna make the structure of the household a lot easier!

Tea party with the family Friday 4th of April: 

Pappa, daddy and Rasmus had planned out something special for Kensi. In the morning I got Kensi ready for school and broth there there afterwards. When the daily duties were done, daddy and I decided to go for a little shopping to prepare for Kensi's OWN tea party. We went to different stores until we finally found the perfect tea porcelain set for the perfect tea party at princess Kensington's residents. The tea set was pink with both cups, plates and this huge platter to put on delicious cupcakes, cookies or what ever imaginable for a sweet tooth. This fire perfectly into the plan since pappa was bringing all these different cupcakes after work, so the platter would be all full. Yummy! Other than that, daddy and I also bought different decorations for the party like these paper chain rags of different colors and patterns hanging from the ceiling and animal hats for the royal guests attending the party The time finally came to pics up Kensi, I went to the school to pick her up, but full of nervousness to accidentally spoil the surprise... When I arrived and said hi to Kensi, it was so hard not to tell her about the whole thing, but I limited it just to spoil that we had a surprise for her. When we got home, we were in trouble, since Kensi's room was picked out for the surprise, so she wasn't aloud to go in the ere before pappa got home with the cupcakes and cookies for the party. We tried all we could to keep her occupied with something, so she wouldn't spoil her own surprise since it wasn't 100% ready yet. Kensi was super excited and it was a huge challenge to keep her out of the room since she figured out the surprise was in there by they very first minute she walked in, which made it an even bigger challenge After a little while pappa finally came home and we rushed our way into Kensi's room too set up the surprise perfectly. When we were done, we showed Kensi another surprise we got her, which was this beautiful reed dress and we let her wear pair of her high heels and her red lipstick for the special occasion. The time had come to spoil the big surprise and we were all super excited. I was sitting inside her room ready to take pictures of her reaction while daddy and pappa led her into I the room. Suddenly he door opened and Kensi's eyes grew ten times bigger and her mouth fell to the floor just as in a cartoon and she screamed: "A TEA PARTY!?!? FOR ME?!" Just the reaction we were hoping for! Excellent! I the tea party was celebrated with good manners and you would greet one another as "my lady" or "my lord", a real traditional royal tea party!we had an amazing time, and it was just amazingly rewording to see that fantastic girl smile, laugh and having such a good time, amusing her "guests" with her personality which is positively indescribable :') 

 All dressed up and ready for the tea party surprise ;-)

 greetings to the queen before the big surprise ;-)

 And we're all set :-)

 Just the reaction we were hoping for, YES beat it!

Manners are required... 

the result of eating cake ;-)

The queen explains the rules around the castle ;-)

 First time in NY with the WHOLE family 6th of April:

Early afternoon, and the family is all ready for their very first trip together in the city of dreams... Which should be confirmed later that day! a big day was ahead of us where we started up in lower western Manhattan more specifically The Village, where we started out with a real southern states meal!

Me having french toast for breakfast :-)

desert - baked potato, and no it's not a real potato ;-)

Kensi and I checking out the facilities of the restaurant :-)

After a delicious meal, and exploring of the restaurants facilities we headed towards midtown with a surprise for Kensi. We got there and Kensi was full of excitement to know what was ahead of her, we were going to the American girl store. This store with a 3 floor store full of every imaginable doll and of course daddy, pappa and I got dragged to each and every doll in the store but what was most important was that she had a blast, and of course she got a thing from the store, the other thing is just torture, and not only that I scheduled an appointment with me and her to go for their tea-party, where the girls, and boys (if they like me playing with dolls, are welcome to bring their dolls, and have a royal dinner-party.)
             After "dragging" Kensi out of the building it was time for the big final of the day! Daddy and Pappa had worked their a** of to get tickets to the very attracted broadway show Mathilda, which is every little child's dream to go see. Luckily we go tickets the night before. this show is about this extremely clever girl, who loves book and expression herself through it which doesn't fall in everyones taste to put it mildly.
   we had a fantastic day together which ended up in the local towns ice-cream store to end a great day with the family.

Ready for Mathilda!

Definitely ready for Mathilda ;-)

The beautiful settings of Mathilda!!