THIRTEEN

Our sweet Josie Marie turned into a teenager on Sunday.  How could our tiny little baby of not so long ago already be a young woman.  It really is crazy how quickly time flies.  Everyone tells you this when you become a parent.  They actually

scold you for not LOVING every minute of their youth because it will go by so fast.  And it does but being reminded of the fact that time will fly does not make you love the hard days of their younger lives any more than you possibly can.
Josie has been a relatively easy child.  She was an extremely easy baby, a great sleeper and good eater and over all happy little girl.  When she hit around 1 year old she became VERY stubborn and very independent.  I remember one time as we were leaving Target she

actually held my hand as we walked to our car in the parking lot.  That girl did not like to be tethered... do a hand or car seat or back pack. She has always wanted to be free. 
She simply amazes me with how she is so well adjusted especially as she is raging with hormones.  They poke out every now and then with an emotional outburst but for the most part she is very even tempered.  She is extremely sensitive to other people's feelings and is always trying to keep the peace in our family and within her group of friends.  She is very inclusive and does not like it if anyone is left out.  She is extremely bright and is tackling high school here and all the new academic challenges like a champ.  Her language abilities astound me.  She is excelling in German and Spanish as well as English.  She is very kind and loving.  I'm so SO very proud of our beautiful new teenager. 
She really wanted to do an escape room for her birthday so we invited Julie and Micha to join us and we all met at the Europa Center downtown on a very rainy Sunday.  The mission she chose was called Revolucion Ole.  It was set in a place that resembled Cuba and I thought I would be able to help with my Spanish but no such luck.  Everything was in English and German at least.  The 6 of us worked very well together.  Only a few flare ups as we were all scrambling to crack the code.  Whenever any one of us would do something like find a key or figure out how to play the news or turn on a light the person responsible would yell "I DID THAT!!"  We wanted credit for what we were contributing.  Haha!!  It was very fun.  We ended up succeeding in our mission with 50 seconds left on the 60 minute clock!  Phew!!

Afterward we watched some of the rainy Berlin Marathon that was passing in front of us on the streets.
Then we took a train out of the center to an excellent Thai restaurant.  All Josie wanted for her birthday meal was Pad Thai.  We all happily went along.
She received gifts from family in the states and she was a happy HAPPY teenager.