Karlovy Vary

The Saturday before Easter we went to a town in Czech near us called Karlovy Vary.  I should have figured, but wasn't planning on it, so was pleasantly surprised to find an Easter Market going on.

Very similar to a Christmas market...but the booths sell Easter themed wares.

 Some of the eggs are so intricate!

They are mostly blown eggs, so very fragile...they would not hold up in our house!!

 This is a resort/spa town because of the natrual hot springs here.  It seems in Europe, wherever a hot springs is, a spa/healing town pops up.  They truely believe the water has healing properties.

 Here is one of the fountains piped from the Hot springs

 The main fountain "drag".  There are maybe 7 fountains in this corridore...each in varying temperatures.  The temp. is displayed on a plaque above the fountain.

 People come from all over to drink this water.  You buy these special cups with a straw attached at the bottom, go to which ever fountain you want to drink from, and fill you cup.

yum!

Here is a pic of a bunch of locals and tourists filling their cup...I talked to one man, and his cup had been in his family for 4 generations.

 We decided to hop on the band wagon.

Here we are filling up our cup...

 Tasting...

Tasting...

 It tastes....interesting.

Cora thought it tasted like blood?!!  She went on to describe that it is the taste in her mouth she has after loosing a tooth.  It was very metallic tasting.

 All the high rise hotels above spas along the river...

 Where the Hot springs meets the river flowing through town

 We found these yummy wafer things, they were only like 15 cents or so.  The kids loved them!

 We also got to see some locals perform some traditional Czech folk songs.

When I heard there was a Russian Orthodox Church in the area...I had to stop by and see it.

Isn't it pretty.  Not as ornate as some you would see in Russia, probably, but still pretty amazing.

Happy Easter

Easter in Bavaria is magical.

Not as magical as Christmas, but still very unique and inspiring.

About a week before Easter, all these Easter "fountains" and trees start popping up.

They take hundreds of decorated, blown out, eggs and decorate the towns fountains and hang them from trees.  It is a fabulously festive sight!

I had ordered Easter dresses, and outfits for the girls and boys.  The girls dresses did not arrive...so they wore something from the back of their closets.  

 I thought the boys looked especially debonair in their new Easter duds.

 The girls looked great too.

Not the coordinating dresses I had pictured in my mind, but they still are beautiful.

I guess now I can return the dresses I ordered, since Easter is over...

Dying Eggs, Hunting Eggs and Easter morning...

Our Easter fun started Friday night.  We died some Easter Eggs while watching "Rise of the Guardians .  It was a fun night, while being a bit challenging.  This year the boys insisted on doing it all on their own.  Luckily we only had one spill...

The kids got really creative this year, and we ended up with some really fun eggs...plus a few eggs that the boys dropped.  Those shrink wrap designs that we never use, came in real handy to keep the cracked eggs together!

 Easter Morning!

My camera was on the wrong setting, and I forgot to take a test shot...so some of these are blurry, but too cute so still included.

Huddled around their baskets.  Our Easter bunny was German this year, we got all German chocolate and candies...YUM!

 They boys got something to add to their Star Wars toys...

 They were so happy!

 This was a favorite of the girls.

 Dig in!

I don't think the boys ate breakfast at all...and I made homemade Cinn. rolls too!

Matt and I spoke in Sacrament meeting and I felt like I needed to include a public apology for the boys Primary teacher...Sorry for the hyper activity, they had a diet of pure sugar today...

 After church we had a little egg hunt.

This year we beat the eggs!  They were all found. In past years there have been one or two that we couldn't find again...

I love Easter, I love the meaning of Easter.  All the games and goodies are lots of fun, but we still try to remember the true meaning of this wonderful Holiday.  A few years ago, Anya made a set of "Resurrection Eggs" with her friends.  This had quickly become a new Easter tradition for us.  In each egg is a Scripture and symbol (piece of white cloth, piece of soap, rocks...etc.) all about and leading up to the resurrection of Christ.  We read one every night the 12 days leading up to Easter. On Easter morning it was empty, with the Scripture talking about how He is Risen.  It is a wonderful visual for the kids to remember...that on the third day, the tomb was empty and our Savior, Jesus Christ, rose again and is living flesh.

I am so grateful for His Atonement, and that my children know and have His Atonement to lean on throughout their lives.

Malmo, Sweden

Well, you know us, we can't pass up a good travel opportunity.  And we were faced with just that on our way home from Copenhagen!  We decided to take a 30 minute detour and cross the bridge that connects Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmo, Sweden.  We wanted to cross one more country off our list!

 In reality we only spent about an hour walking around a pedestrian shopping square in Malmo called "lille torg"

Don't you love the timbered structures and sweet store signs hanging from the buildings!

 It's cold mom!  And it was!!!

 ahhh!  Cheese...I will take one cheese wheel to go please!

 Why did we choose to walk around a shopping square in Sweden you might ask.  Well, Matt's all time favorite candy is swedish fish...so we decided to find some swedish fish in Sweden to buy.

And we did...here is Hannah scooping some out now!  This batch was made in Malmo...it was stamped right on the fish, and they come in a variety of colors and flavors.  The red are still the best!

Before we made the long trek back home, we snapped a quick picture of this magnificent building.  It is actually just a bunch of business offices, and our parking lot was in front of it, but what a place to go to work every day!  Absolutely stunning!

We made it to Sweden!

Copenhagen, Denmark

The rest of our trip in Denmark we took off our genealogy caps and became tourists.

We decided we wanted to get off the Jutland (where our family is from) and visit the islands, where Copenhagen is.  Along the way we stopped in Roskilde, which used to be the capital of Denmark in medeval times, and toured a viking ship museum.

 Here we are in front of a replicated viking ship.  In the background you can see all the different sheds where they show you and allow you to try out the different methods that go into making a viking ship.

Inside the museum you can see 5 preserved viking ships.  They found these at the bottom of the fjords that lead into Roskilde.  They were deliberately sunk at strategic junctures to prevent enemies from traveling up the fjord and attacking without warning.  They were discovered about 20 years ago, and excavated and preserved.  They were pretty neat to see.

 They found two small fishing ships, two war ships and a large trader ship.

Can you imagine sailing in such confined quarters with 30 some odd other people for days on end.  It would take them 3 days to reach England from Roskilde.

 There was a kid section where the kids could dress in traditional viking attire and play around on mock viking ships.  They had a blast!  We almost couldn't get them to leave!

 Finally, we made it to Copenhagen!

This is Amalienborg Palace, where the Queen lives and her son the Crown Prince and Heir to the throne lives with his family.

The flag is flying so she was in residence!

 Trying to get a picture with a danish guard outside the palace.

Unlike England, Scotland and Prague...they don't stand still...so it was a bit difficult.

 Anya's future apartment...what a cool dragon sculptor on the outside!

The tradition of large ship ancor's in the town squares was soo cool!

 Copenhagen's main harbor and shopping district

 In the visitor's center of the L.D.S. Salt Lake Temple there is a massive statue we call the "Christus".

It is actually a replica of the Resurrected Christ sculpted by Bertel Thorvaldsen.

I have always wanted to see the original, and so we went to the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen and there He was.  It was so majestic.

He sits in the alter, along the sides of the perimeter of the church stand statues of the 12 apostles, all sculpted by Thorvaldsen as well.

You can sort of see the Apostles in this picture...

 Here is the outside of the church, it has a very greek feel to it's architecture.  A lot of neoclassical touches.

We had to stop in a Lego store, after all, Lego's were created in Denmark.  Lego's were first created in the wood toy shop of Ole Kirk Christiansen in Billund Denmark.  His company later came to be called Lego, which comes from the Danish phrase "leg godt" which means play well.  The company headquarters are still there today.

 To finish off our day, before we found a dinner of some delicious open faced sandwiches (which are each like works of art!), we stopped to see the Little Mermaid Statue from the Hans Christian Andersen tale.  It was a perfect way to end the day, now off to warm up with some Hot cocoa... tomato soup and some Smorrebrod.

Hals, Denmark

Most of the Jeppson line comes from the tip of the Jutland of Denmark, stretching from Aalborg to Hjorring and Skallerup.  We were limited on time, so we only picked two towns to look around.  Next in our line up was Hals, Denmark...on the coast due East of Aalborg.

Here is where Pedar's great-grandpa and grandpa were born.  Jeppe Thomasen was born, married and died here, and Christian Jeppesen was born here then married outside of town a ways.  We found the church where Jeppe and Anna Christensdatter were most likely married.  It was the only church for 30 miles, and the center of Hals.  It was built in 1741, so a year before Jeppe was born.  It is the church he grew up with.  We thought that was really neat.

 Unfortunately, they recycle cemetery's in Denmark (most of Europe actually)  A common practice is to keep the plot for a generation, then if the family is no longer there to pay the "rent", it is given to another family.  Jeppe Thomasen and Christen Jeppesen, were no longer there.  The danes would bury individuals in wood boxes, so everything would disolve and a new casket could be buried when the time came.  We did find evidence of the Jeppesen family all over the cemetery though...it is a very common name in this area, so probably distant cousins.  We even found a marker for an Aksel Jeppesen...which was a nick name we used for Hunter (baby A for Axil) in the womb before he was born...spelled differently though.  But we laughed when we saw it...it's a family name, who knew?!  I took a picture...but I can't find it, so it must be on Matt's phone.

 There were a lot of thatched roofed cottages in this town.  It really was very charming!

 Another Thatched roof!

The town square had this huge ancor and ship mast in the center.

It was cold!

 This, obviously, was a fishing village, and probably an old whaling village.  We can surmise that our ancestors were fishermen.  These whale bones are in the center of town, and were there in 1752, so Jeppe and Christen saw these as part of their day to day life.

 I love this sign...don't drive off the dock!

 Hals, fishing town

A Lobster boat.

It was neat to see where Matt and my children "come" from.  It was so cold, we didn't stay out much.  We had checked the weather before we left and it was supposed to be 0% precipitation ..but would you believe it snowed off and on pretty much our whole trip!

Still it was such a unique experience!  I am glad we went!