New Year's Resolutions

Hello again, old friend.  
Wow, we have been some places since I last updated the blog.  I mean we haven't really been many actual places due to Corona but we have dug deep and are probably different people than when this whole thing began.  

We made and decorated loads of cookies

I really regret not keeping up on the blog.  It would be really interesting to revisit how we all felt back then when it was all so new and unsure.  But better late than never, I say.  

Every single year since Marty and I met, in 2004, we have had a yearly tradition of writing down all of our accomplishments of the past year and our goals/intentions for the next year.  We try to do this right around the beginning of the new year.  We write it in the same notebook each year and it is fun to go back and look at what we thought was important 3, 5, 15 years ago.  When the kids were small we would make it a date night or morning or coffee and go away while the kids had a baby sitter or with Oma and Opa.  Yesterday was our day to write our goals and one of my goals for 2021 is to update the blog at least once per week during this coming year.  So here we go.  Surprisingly, we both had a ton of accomplishments last year, even amid Corona, so that felt good.  

We are currently in lockdown here in Berlin.  Actually the entire country has been since December 16th.  The kids had 3 days of  "distance learning" before the Christmas holidays were set to begin.  We spent our days eating and playing games and watching shows and I took a VERY long walk every single day to set my head straight.  It was about the only thing I was consistent with and it felt very good to get fresh air.  I have been into audio books since the pandemic started and I finished 2 audio books, listened to mostly during walks, during the break.  The kids slept in very late and just enjoyed doing nothing.  Sadly our kids enjoy that a bit too much but maybe all kids do? 

Christmas was quiet with just the four of us. I 
am quickly becoming the shortest member 
of the family.

Now we are one full week of distance learning under our belts and we are off to a decent start for week #2.  We are in lockdown, school from home, until at least the end of January.  But since we already have a winter break scheduled for the first week of February our kids won't be back in school until at least the 8th of February.  As tough as it is the numbers here warrant it and I'm thankful to be in a country that takes it seriously.  Germany just hit 40,000 deaths due to Corona and it feels awful and then I compare it to the US which has 374,000 (?!?) and am saddened by so many unnecessary deaths worldwide.  During the lockdown only essential shops stay open.  In Germany that means: only grocery stores, bakeries, pharmacies, pet store, books stores and bike shops.  I love the priorities here.  It has been strange to see all of the normal stores closed for so long.  Unlike the beginning of the pandemic when stores were closed this time there are a lot more people out, 99.9% masked, but just grocery stores and bakeries open. 

We took care of our friend's dog (Chewie) The 
dogs had a great time playing together. 

I started working again in March just before everything began.  I started at the US embassy working in their gift shop/snack shop/grocery store.  I worked 2 days a week throughout the spring and summer and then went down to one day a week in October.  I also started teaching English 3 times a week with a government funded agency that provides continuing education to women.  I have thoroughly enjoyed working again.  Since the latest lockdown I still work one day a week at the embassy grocery store and am now teaching my English classes online.  

We played a fun escape room type game
that Benjamin got from his secret Santa at school 
just before lockdown started. It took us several
hours several nights in a row.  Either it was really
difficult or we are really not that smart. 

Our construction on our house continues.  We are getting there but slowly.  We had to take a 7 month break from March until October but our attic apartment is nearly completed and we have all newly repaired and painted bedrooms.  They had done a lot of damage when they were building the bathrooms and attic last summer.  We were all so excited to get our bedrooms repaired and painted.  They had nasty old wall paper and we each had holes in our ceilings from there they had punched through from working above us in the attic.  Slooooow and steady goes most things German.  

Keeping up with Benjamin's ferocious reading speeds continues to prove challenging.  He checked these books out just before break and had all of them finished within a week.  Honestly, I cannot keep enough books in his hands.  He often starts and finishes the same book in a day. 

We had our first real snow since moving here.
It came just before the kids started back up at school. 

Of note in the first week of January was that I got my permanent residency permit.  This is a huge deal and I'm super thankful for it but still holding out hope for citizenship as well.  Because now they use a card instead of a sticker in the passport (like a diver's license) They need to make the card and mail it to me which could take 6 weeks.  I was told that I am not allowed to leave the country before that comes by mail.  Thankfully we had no travel plans (Corona!!) otherwise it might have been an issue had we planned to travel during Winter Break.  

I am really hoping I can stick with updating the blog.  Finger crossed.