On Friday Benjamin's friend Clayton, the one he digs in the sand with, came over after school to play and Benjamin was in heaven. I have not seen him this excited for a very long time. He wanted to show Clayton everything. They started out with the prized screen time but that didn't even last that long and on his own he was off showing Clayton all over the house. They ate lunch and played games and share a lot of laughs. It was fun to see him excited about a friend which he really hasn't been since arriving in Germany.
A couple of hours later Josie arrives with 2 friends from school. I made popcorn and they all sat around and ate and talked and laughed. Having a bunch of kids over, enjoying popcorn and having fun is something that was a very common occurrence in Seattle and I hadn't realized I was missing it until it was happening again.
The sun came out and so Benjamin and I and Clayton, his brother and his mom all headed to the nearby park and flew the kite and the boys ran around crazy. Benjamin has been really needing that boy energy release. He is so often surrounded by Josie and her friends that he doesn't get to be rough and tumble as much as I know he would like and need.
We also had some fun friends over for dinner on Saturday night. Thanks for making the trek, Bridget, Luke, Elia and Tesh!! We realized that it was our first dinner guests (apart from friends visiting from the US or family) and it felt good to feel a bit more at home here. We knew the month between when Marty left for Seattle (September 29th) and Halloween would be nuts. Marty was gone for the first week of Oct. I was in Madrid for 4 days, then we had the House Hunters International filming, throw in a broken washing machine for 10 days and Spooktacular and we were literally and utterly drained both mentally and physically.
We didn't even realize it last night was the "fall back" here in Germany so we got an extra hour of sleep. And the kids have this entire week off for Fall Vacation. Just in time for all of us to take a little break.
Weeks ago I had mentioned to Marty that he should take this Friday off and we should go somewhere for a long weekend. I found an 8 hour train trip to Paris for about the price of going from Seattle to Portland and then there were 50€ per person, one way flights from Paris to Berlin on Sunday. So cheap for a weekend in Paris but he said he didn't want to take another day off of work since he had just spent the four days doing the HHI stuff. Just a few days ago he said that now he actually has Friday off but of course, now the prices are over double. But we may end up going to Prague for the weekend. It is only a 4 hour train trip and cheap by train and to stay right in the center. Weather looks to be good, too. But... the whole waiting to the last minute to plan a trip is not going to work for me. There are waaaayyy too many good deals on airfare. I've already looked ahead and for all of us to fly to Athens on the Friday before MLK Jr. Day (Marty and the kids get the Monday off) and fly home on MLK day is only 200€ total for all of us. Crazy. There were similar prices to Naples, Italy and Lisbon, Portugal and Sevilla, Spain... My mouth waters just thinking of all the of the long weekend trips we can hopefully plan and take while living this close to so many cool places. Stay tuned....
No comments:
Post a Comment