We had a great time in Berlin this past month. The weather was fabulous and Berlin as always interesting, quirky, big-hearted and full of good food, old friends and opportunities to spend money. See our photo album for a few impressions.

… or for sitting cuddled up by a fire with a hot drink to warm your hands and insides. We did both last weekend, though the kids preferred the snow and the adults the coffee and ‘Apple Betty’. Thank goodness for the Internet, so Christmas shopping was a breeze. Now we can just enjoy the holidays as they were meant to treat us: With comfort, friends and joy.

Well, you haven’t heard from us for a while, but finally mom uploaded quite a few new photos from all our summer travels. First we all went to Florida to have fun at SeaWorld, Universal and the Mid-Florida wetlands. Then the kids went to Summer Camp in the Missouri Ozarks for a week. After that Andrea took off to Germany and Italy for almost a month. Meanwhile the rest of us was in Jamaica and on a short weekend trip to Michigan. Check out the photos in the album section.

We have had a few really nice days already this year, but today was perfect for a bike trip at Busse Woods. At first the kids complained but then Sabrina volunteered that it might be fun after all. She could talk with Julian while biking next to each other. Also Busse Woods is right by ‘Sweet Tomatoes” her favorite salad restaurant. So we took a 7.7. mile tour around a lake, through woods and over prairie and then rewarded ourselves with mountains of green stuff for dinner plus serious piles of apple cranberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

After 2 years of begging and prodding, bribing and blackmailing the kids finally had me: I agreed to getting a cat last week. So Thursday we picked him up from the local anmal care center, our black and white 4 month old cuddler (well, the latter makes him supremely suitable to thrive in this family). Of course my resolution never to let him near my bedroom dissolved after about one and a half days and now Tommy wakes me up at around six by traipsing all over my face and poking his cold nose under my chin. His favorite toys are any kinds of strings and chains and his sleeping place at night is Sabrina’s covers. So it will surprise no-one that our household just got even livelier and more chaotic and the gender distribution is finally balanced.

It was a wonderful morning to wake up to. It had snowed about 5 inches and the sky was bright blue. It was also the first weekend after I was officially acknowledged as the new manager of an awesome team of 10 plucky developers at Lawson Products. I was trusted to lead Lawson IT’s brightest and most deserving of success, fun and rewards and I will do everything in my power to navigate us there.

So in very good spirits we shoveled snow, drove Sabrina to her appointment at the hair salon (very cute cut), went to Borders (to add to my collection of team building and leadership literature), stopped by Panera (first time this year, hmmm), got a few household goods at Linen ‘n Things and ended a most comfortable day at home by the fire, sipping tea and reading a good book.

Tuesdays I always go to volleyball and today I had lots of fun. Because I got to know the people better and I got better at volleyball myself. My sister Andrea also came with me to watch. There is an odd number of people so Andrea has to throw the ball to me and I have to set or pass the ball back to her. In the beginning we practice techniques and then during the last 10-15 minutes we have time to play some real games. Now I just hope that mom doesn’t ever want her training pants back.

We have finally finished the book that we had started to read when we were still in Germany over Christmas. I had just not had much time to read to the kids these last few days.

Boy was this a different book! Main story was about one day in a 14 year old girl’s life, her birthday to be exact. She had been abandoned as a baby and was still ’searching’ for her birth mother. Going through the different stations of her life in her mind and meeting people from these periods along the way, she ultimately realizes that the ‘mother’ she had been searching
for had long been by her side: The retired school teacher who had adopted her five years earlier.

I was amazed to see the kids stay really interested in the story, though there was no action, no ‘heroes’ no fantastic beasts as with most of the other stories I read with the kids. Instead there was fear, isolation, abuse, even crime - but also resilience, strength and love. There was also a lot more to talk about afterwards…

Still the next time we’ll probably choose a lighter topic, just to keep a balance. However this type of thought-provoking youth literature is going to be a frequent visitor of our reading repertory now.

Another nice feature that Wordpress offers: Just send an email to a dedicated POP3 account and the text will automatically be added to the blog. Well, it works, as this post proves.

While modifying the style sheet that was used to create this blog, I saw for the first time what a friend in Germany had already made me aware of: Style sheets are not only for fonts any more. Geez, there are virtually no tables anymore to lay out your page. Everything is done through absolute positioning and custom styles. Now I just have to learn A LOT more about tags and their attributes, so far I could get away with a fairly limited set. FUN FUN FUN

I’ll use the photo album pages as a guinea pig because here I really have to think of a style sheet on my own and not just slightly change an existing one. Keep the finger’s crossed …