Stage Crew, Charades and Birthday Brunch

The weekend of my (51st ?!?!?) birthday was quite busy.  On Friday night we had friends over for lasagna.  I forgot to take any photos but we had a nice time with some old and new to us friends.  It is actually a funny story how we met the new to us friends.  The weekend we were moving out of our old apartment last June before going to Seattle for the summer, the kids were out in front walking (new to us) Mogli.  There was a woman with a dog who stopped to talk and let the dogs meet.  She then recognized the kids and asked if they had been on a show called House Hunters.  The kids said yes and they continued to talk for a bit.  Turns out the woman is from Bend, Oregon!  She had watched our show and then ended up moving literally RIGHT NEXT DOOR to us.  She was going to be teaching at BBIS the following year.  Our move out weekend, the weekend they had met, also happened to be the HOTTEST weekend of the year.  We were stressed and sweaty and tired so we heard the story but thought oh, nice.. now back to cleaning and moving and trying not to die.

Mogli and Frida with
the house to themselves..

The woman from Bend and I became facebook friends and shared a couple exchanges.  I introduced her to my good friend, Gillian, who has kids at BBIS.  The two of them become friends and their sons become best of friends.  So, it seemed fitting that we would actually meet this family from Bend in real life since we have met virtually and through a TV show.  Her family and Gillian's family and our family enjoyed a nice evening of Italian food, wine and dessert.  So sad though, Andrea - the woman from Bend, the one who initiated the entire sequence of events and friendships was ill and could not make it.  But it just gives us a good reason to meet up again.  The world really is so small!

Saturday night Josie had her final performance of the high school performance of Thoroughly Modern Millie.  She is on stage crew and has completely fallen in love with all things drama related.  She is the only 7th grader on crew and loves the responsibility and finally not being the oldest kid at something. She will also be on stage at the 7th/8th grade musical Annie and plans to be on stage crew for the high school musical in the Spring. We had gone to see the play the weekend before and were sad to not be able to make it to the final performance.

Luckily, Julie was available and happily took Benjamin to the play, took a pic of Josie on stage and then got the kids back home and in bed, meanwhile we were at a very fun Charades Party with some of our good friends.

On Sunday we celebrated my birthday with a very fancy brunch at a hotel in downtown Berlin.  The kids had won this brunch at Fun Day back in September 2018!! It was about to expire so we took advantage of a free brunch, got dressed up (which we NEVER do) and headed into town.  Yummy!!  We came back so unbelievably full we just hung out inside on a very rainy and wet weekend.

My birthday itself was Monday and Marty and I went to lunch at - yep, our favorite Asian place and I had left over lasagna for dinner so I didn't have to cook.  The kids gave me nice homemade gifts and Marty got me these really cool Seattle and Berlin maps to hang on our wall.

I also received a couple gifts from friends (THANK YOU, Kelli for the book!! I'm soooo excited to read it.  I rarely have an actual book these days as most of what I read is downloaded to my kindle from my Seattle Public Library account.  And Tami, for the Starbucks gift card!!  I LOVE their

Christmas blend and can't wait to get some for home) Also several friends here stopped by with beautiful bouquets of flowers (Thank you, Fiounnaula and Juli).  The flowers here are really quite remarkable.  I felt well loved.   FIFTY ONE!!  May it be my best year yet!!

Car and Reclaiming our House

This is not a normal shop.  Just the liquids because
they are so heavy and hard to do without a car. 

Marty and I rented a car for a few hours because one of the things that has been really bugging us is the enormous pile of garbage in our front yard.  The construction workers do work very clean but with the amount of work that is being done on our house it creates a lot of mess.  99% of it they take care of with an enormous dumpster right in front of our house. Lovely!  Along side a VERY smelly (especially when it was summer time heat to warm it up) portapotty.  Our house from the street is so not very attractive at the moment.  But it is the trend as every 8th or 10th house you walk by in this area seems to be going under some kind of construction work.

So anyway, Marty and I rented a car to transport some of the

We finally have a dining room again. Although
we rarely use it as the Winter Garten is so much
more convenient.

roofing paper to the dump.  It has to be bundled up in little plastic packages, wrapped in twine to be accepted at the dump where we have to pay an enormous fee for them to take it.   No joke.  And if the contractor took it along with the rest of the stuff it would cost twice what it costs the average person.  So since we are already spending so much money on this remodel we decided we could do this ourselves.  Well, this was our 2nd time renting a car for this purpose. 

It has been beautifully Fall here

First time a few months ago we took two very full trips.  Back seats down and car fully loaded.  This time was the same.  And still with even us depositing it as a regular person it costs over 200 Euro just to get rid of it just for today's load!!
But since we had the car and we still had about another 30 minutes until the car was due back we stopped by the store and drink store to load up on the heavy stuff that is a pain to carry in our bike baskets.  Cost of living really is so much cheaper over here.  I am reminded every time I go grocery shopping - which is every day or couple times a day because only so much can fit in one load.
Today because we were so tight on time having to return the car I just ran through and grabbed things willy nilly.  Next time I will have a better list but this is what we bought:

5 bottles of wine
12x 1.5 liters of organic milk
6 bottles of flavored drink syrups
12 bottles of not-from-concentrate juice
12 bottles sparkling water
4 cans pringles
4 cans san pelligrino
24 bottles of various craft beers
A bunch of toilet paper (because of all of the above)
Paper towels
5 lbs of potatoes
Shampoo
Conditioner
2 boxes of cereal

And all of that came to 120 Euro but 10 Euro was refundable deposit on crates and bottles.  So it was 110 Euro which equals 120 USD.

Benjamin, Zeke and Mogli

We are also reclaiming our house.  Since we moved in in August our dining room has been the catch all for everything that didn't have a place.  They just recently finished the rec room so now all of that stuff (along with all of our other stuff ) goes in the rec room while they work on finishing the rest of the basement.

House Progress

Basement Rec Room (before)

There is so much going on with the house and yet NOTHING is completely finished yet.  They have 4-6 guys here 6 days a week for 8 hours a day so it isn't as if they are not working.  There was just SO much to do.  Much much more than we had thought when we first bought it. 

Basement Rec Room (after)

The basement has been long waterproofed which was the only thing we were going to have done originally.  And as expensive and extensive as that was our basement smells so much better and is much more healthy but it isn't something you can see!  It gets discouraging as there still seems so much more to do.

They had to jack-hammer
the basement to put in new
sewer line. 

We have one, very small bathroom on the main level that has been dug into more times than I can count to connect the rest of the plumbing in the house through the main sewer and water lines.  The guys are quite considerate, I must say, they warn us when the water is going to go out or when our bathroom will be out of commission for the day.  But no matter how extensive their work is that they they always leave us a functioning, albeit filthy and ugly, bathroom.
I've learned that the hospital is a great place to use the toilet at all hours of the day.  No one asks you why you are there.  You can just walk straight to one of the several, clean, bright bathrooms.  The main sewer pipe goes straight through from the basement to the teeny tiny bathroom on the main level to the soon to be new two bathrooms on the bedroom level to the new rental space in the attic.  It is mostly covered but I have to try to go to the bathroom every day with the sound of Russian workers right above and below me working.  Awkward to say the least!!

Kid's bathroom
on bedroom level

They say that the basement should be COMPLETELY finished by the 20th of

Large, master bathroom
on bedroom level

December.  Which is perfect timing because our good friends the Kitcheners are arriving that day for a 4 night stay.  Hopefully, FINGERS CROSSED, it will actually be done.  It isn't looking so good right now!!

Our nice and cozy guest room😭😭😭

Old laundry room. 

We moved the laundry room to another room in the basement. 

This is where the old laundry room once was

It is hard to tell with all the construction stuff, but the floor is completely tiled and the walls painted.

Our one tiny bathroom with holes and exposed pipes everywhere...not to mention the fine coating of dust that magically reappears every damn day!!  

I will take a video soon and post that. It is hard to tell with just photos. 

Odyssey of the Mind

Benjamin started a new after school activity this year called Odyssey of the Mind.  Josie participated at her grade level last year and really liked it.  He meets each Tuesday after school with his team of 7 other 4th graders and a parent volunteer/coach.  OM started in the US (even though I had never heard of it) but it is a pretty big deal here.  Or at least it is at our school.

I still don't quite understand what it is fully.  It is very student led and driven and the coach is there simply to keep the kids on track and not necessarily direct or guide them.
I was volunteering for a bit but with my sporadic subbing days and upcoming work at the US embassy I backed out of being one of the main coaches.  I did, however, volunteer for their one full day of OM.  It was out in Potsdam - just a 20 or so minute car ride, and the kids all had fun.

For as open ended as the program seemed to me I was incredibly impressed with how well organized the full day event was.  There were nearly as many adult volunteers as students participating. 

Each team had tasks and performances and training throughout the day.  They ranged in logic, spontaneous thinking and talking, performing, creating.  It really is hard to explain.  But Benjamin really likes it and that makes me happy.

Brace Face and Bicycle Fixes

Josie FINALLY got her braces on.  She was scheduled to get them

on the day before we left for Portugal in October but then a few friends suggested that she might be super sore and to be gone for a week just after getting them on might not be such a good idea.  So we postponed it to Wednesday.  She really handled it so well.  I can never tell with her.  She can have a complete melt down over a small sliver in her toe but takes the 2 hours in the dentist chair in stride.
They said it could take up to 2.5 hours so I blocked out most of the day.  She was done in less than 1.5 and once she saw the time when we were packing up she said "I can still make it back in time for drama if we hurry!"  We we raced back to school on our bikes.  She just missed a few minutes.

I am continuing with my ortheopaedic dr and have been now half a dozen times.  It really is helping my back and my feet.  Maybe it is helping because it is the first time that I stuck with something this long or maybe she is that good.  Not sure but happy with the results.  Benjamin went over to his friend, Zeke's house, after school.  I love living so close as I run into the kids sometimes just running my errands.  After dropping Josie off at school after getting her braces on, I started riding through the park toward home.  On the way I ran into Benjamin and Zeke getting on the bus to go to his house.  They had early release.  I rode home and then rode to my Dr. appt.  I rode specifically because it is faster than taking the bus and that way I could race home and go with Josie to her weekly college math class. 
As I was leaving the dr appt I went off a curb kind of hard and my chain snapped off.  I was so mad.  It was raining, I was half way across town, I was meant to race back home to go with Josie to her math class.  I had promised her that I would go this week. 
I've never actually fixed a slipped chain before but I have seen Marty do it.  I turned my bike upside down and set in to fix it.  No luck.  I was getting more frustrated by the minute, my hands were getting greasier and I was getting wetter from the rain.  I texted Josie and said I might not make it. 

After about 30 minutes I decided to let it sit and caught the bus Josie was on taking her to her math class.  At least I could go with her for the last 1/4 of her trip.  I go in with her to the University building, use the bathroom and TRY to clean my very greasy hands.
I wait for the bus to take me back to my bike but I had just missed it and it would be another 20 minutes.  I decided to just walk the 15 minutes, in the rain, with greasy hands.  I struggled with it for another 15 minutes, trying to wipe wet hair from my face without using my greasy hands.  I watched a Youtube video on how to repair a slipped chair and voila!!  I DID IT!!!  I was so proud of myself but also so frustrated to have to ride home in the cold and dark and wet with greasy hands.  I was supposed to meet Benjamin at the bus stop to walk with him home as he returned from his friend, Zeke's, house.  I texted his mom and said I had no idea when

I'd be home and to please tell him to walk home on his own.  As I entered Zehlendorf I took the longer way home hoping I might time it just right and be there when Benjamin got off the bus.  And the one thing that went right that day happened miraculously.  Just as I pulled up to the bus stop Benjamin was getting off!  The timing was amazing and I fixed my own damned bike.  Bad day with a silver lining.

Ashe Reshteh

All the ingredients.  And because groceries
are so affordable here this entire lot cost about
15 Euro. 

A friend from High School had posted a yummy picture on Facebook about a yummy vegan Persian soup she had just made.  I asked her for the recipe and she directed me to Ashe Reshteh soup.  I found a few recipes that I could mix together to make it.  I knew I was going to volunteer on Wednesday with the refugee women teaching English and the area of Berlin that I go to volunteer there are a lot of Turkish, Syrian, Iranian/Iraqi residents.  So I knew that I could hit up any produce stand and get all the yummy greens I would need to make this soup.  Just reading the recipe I knew it was going to be a lot of greens but I didn't realize just how much until I started making it.  SOOO much green in this soup. It is funny because I have always used parsley and cilantro as extras in a meal or recipe.  Just the condiments.  But in this soup it IS the soup.  2 POUNDS of

spinach.  1 POUND each of parsley and cilantro.  Some mint as well.  It filled my entire enormous soup pot before it cooked down.  It was super good and very different than anything I had ever made or eaten.  I topped it with Greek yogurt and caramelized onions, sauteed garlic and a splash of red wine vinegar (which my high school friend, Ladan, said was the secret to the soup and it really did add a lot of flavor!)  Yummmm.

Halloween and Spooktacular

Halloween here is nothing compared to what it is in Seattle.  Our first year here the kids were sorely disappointed.  We had only been here a few months and we were still used to the American way.  The second year we teamed up with our Swedish friend, Toby, and his family.  We hit the American sector and it was quite overwhelming.  SOOO many people!!   It was almost too much for me.  But the past two years Halloween has fallen within a school break so there was no thought of how late we were out or that homework had to be done before hand.  This year it was on a Thursday and it felt much different. 

The kids were still excited.  I bought Benjamin a skeleton costume at H&M that day for half off.  Josie decided to be a symbol off the periodic table (?!?) and we joined our good friends Beth, Maya and Louis.  She had a car and very kindly drove us to the American sector.  Last year there were two American streets that we went to and one felt much LESS crazy than the other so we hit that one.  But the kids had only a small handful of candy after 30 minutes so we gave in and went to the crazier American street.  Thousands of people from all over Berlin were there.  The first area had houses straight out of the 1960's.  This is where a lot of the people who work for the American Embassy live. They were originally US military housing and it feels like you are walking in the movie set of the movie First Man about the first man on the moon set in the late 60's.  The second area, by drastic contrast, was filled with mcmansions.  Each house/villa was more palatial than the last.  Crazy, huge houses. The owners of the house would stand out by their front gate and hand out American candy.  There was a line in front of each gate.  Crazy!!  For the first time they actually shut down cars from driving in the area during trick or treating.  If you lived in the area you could drive in otherwise you had to park a good distance away.  It felt safer, save the swarms of German police with large guns.  It is still shocking to see police here with automatic style weapons.  You just don't see it much here except sometimes when there is a heated soccer match!!  But I have heard since this is an "American holiday and area" that it is a target.  Makes you feel safe, huh??  Anyway, the kids had fun.  Still nothing like Seattle and they had to work for their 20ish pieces of candy where as in the states they get 20 pieces of candy in the first 5 minutes. 

The following night the school had their annual Spooktacular event.  It is just for the elementary but Josie is really into drama at the high school this year and the drama club had a booth were someone was hidden in a coffin and then pops out to scare the kids.  Not sure exactly what part she played but she came with Benjamin and me.  I was signed up to sell margaritas with my friend, Fiounnaula, which kept me busy for the night.  Benjamin had a burger and went to all the stands, activities and performances and then spent a good portion of the night reading while sitting behind my margarita stand. 

Lots of reading, TONS of dog snuggles

Thankfully Halloween has never been a big holiday for me... otherwise I might have been disappointed by it too.  I keep saying that Germany well than makes up for their lackluster celebration for Halloween with how they really do it up for Christmas!!

And the weekend before Halloween we had good friends
over for the famous black bean/sweet potato enchiladas.