The Nordstrom's: Last few weekends II

The weekend after Dani and her fam and everyone left the house, Tanner's Dad came to stay and visit with two teenage boys visiting the states from Denmark! Tanner's Dad is back from Afghanistan for a little while so he arranged for a friend of his from Denmark (a guy he converted while on mission there) to send his son and a friend to stay with them in California. Of course, they were not just going to hang around the Redding area. They drove ALL the way out here to Utah to hang with us! We had so much fun showing them around. I think they thought we live in the wild west since Tanner & his Dad have so many guns! I tried to explain to them that not every American has as many guns as Tanner & his family. :)

We took a trip over to Tanner's office one night to get ice cream and play foosball and pool.

Red jacket: Mathias (Ma-tea-us). Stripes: Emil (E-meal)

Tanner and Dad N catching up.

Friday, the boys hiked the Y, went shooting and ate at Rodizio. Saturday we woke up early and drove to SLC for conference! The Danish boys went to a session of conference and all the boys went to Priesthood together. We all walked around the new City Creek Mall (the old ZCMI center). It's AMAZING. I think I enjoyed myself a little more than the boys did. ;)

It was such a neat experience having them stay with us. Some new things I learned:

When the Danish boys got here and used the restroom, they thought the toilet was broken because I guess we fill our toilets up with A LOT more water than they do. lol
Denmark is a very socialist country-so their citizens are not allowed guns. They were amazed that people here are allowed to have guns in their homes and kept asking, "isn't that dangerous? Aren't you afraid people will go around shooting each other?" Dan did such a great job explaining that with freedom, comes responsibility. I could tell they learned a lot from him.
Because of their socialist country, getting a drivers license is extremely difficult. It costs them about $2000 US dollars and they can't drive until age 18. Cars and homes cost twice as much. They did mention, "well, we have free health care. We can get heart surgery for free if we need too." Dan explained to them that nothing is free. Their country taxes them 25% sales tax and 40% tax of their earned income to pay for someone else's "free heart surgery". 40%!!! I can't imagine having that much taken out of my paycheck!
We taught the boys what a chinese fire drill is! SOO FUNNY!
Tanner couldn't resist introducing them to atomic fireballs. We got some at the store, and on the way home the boys popped the candies into their mouths. About 2 mins in, I hear a lot of exaggerated inhaled breathing and all a sudden Mathias goes, "I'm sweating." Emil wouldn't swallow until we got home and he spit it out. It was hilarious!

APRIL FOURTH