Healthy Breakfast

Robin sometimes enjoys sweet things for breakfast. Here is what he chose to eat this morning:

- 2 brownies (see the brownie wrapper on the plate next to the brownie he is about to eat)

- Pudding made with heavy cream (in the bowl in front of him)

- A "healthy" fruit topping on the pudding

- Toast with butter

Let's see, I think we have the grain group, the fruit group, the dairy group, and the chocolate group. Sounds like a well balanced breakfast to me.

Handy-Woman

I think it may be a fairly common misconception that I don’t know how to use tools. The reality is that, yes, I do know how to use tools, I just don’t get much practice. I know about screw drivers – phillips and flathead – which way to turn a screw – righty tighty, lefty loosey… I know how to use a drill and a hammer…. Anyway, basically I know how to use tools, I just usually don’t.

So, Robin and I purchased two small pieces of furniture this week both of which needed to be assembled. Robin had been busy between working 10 hour days and going to school so I thought I would save him the trouble of assembling the furniture and I would do it. Besides, it’s pretty impressive when your wife can put together furniture, right?

Project 1 – small drawers that Robin can file his paper work, school work, and various other office supplies into.

Before

After

Not too bad. It only took me about and hour and 15 minutes. I am an expert.

Project 2 – Larger drawers to put in our entry way.

Here is the picture of the directions:

One man, 1 hour, two tools. Ok, that isn’t too bad… One woman, one and a half hours (or two), two tools… I can do that.

Before

Now, let me explain some of the problems I had. I was happily assembling the drawer runners when I realized I put two of them on backwards… Turning them around would not have been a problem if I hadn’t accidentally stripped the head on one of the screws…. Lucky for me, my dad was awake and when I talked to him on the computer he gave me a quick solution to solve the problem. Ok, continue putting on drawer runners… wait a minute… that pre-drilled hole isn’t lining up! No way, no how. So I got out the drill and put a new hole in by myself (it didn’t mention a drill in the instructions). Continue assembling. It took me an hour just to complete step 1! Then the phone rings, but where is my phone… hmmm…. Got it. Ok, back to my project. The next few steps weren’t too hard… mostly. Then finally on to putting together the drawers… it says to use the wood glue, but it doesn’t say where. I put together one drawer just to make sure I could do it, but I didn’t use the glue. I put it in on the drawer runners, attached it with a screw, pushed the drawer in, then tried to pull it out… Oh, that’s where I need the wood glue! The face of the drawer came off in my hand. No problem; get the wood glue, apply to the pegs, push the face back on. Easy. So I put together the rest of the drawers, put them in the places and now I am the proud new owner of this lovely piece of furniture.

All in all, it took me about 3 hours.

I went to pick Robin up from work and I told him I had a surprise waiting for him at home. He was excited to see whatever the surprise was… he could hardly wait so he drove home fast. We walked in the door and he saw it. He liked it.

About an hour after he go home, I decided I wanted to try out a brownie recipe (the brownie mixes here aren’t very good). I started making brownies and Robin told me he had thought the surprise would be brownies… not furniture.

Note to self: leave the furniture assembly to Robin, I can just stick to making brownies J

I want a dishwasher

Before we got married, I told Robin there was one special item I wanted in our new apartment. A dishwasher. Normally, a kitchen doesn't come with the apartment here in Germany so a dishwasher that comes with the apartment is pretty much impossible. I wanted dishwasher because I have spent the better part of the past 10 years without one and I am sick and tired of doing dishes by hand. Doing dishes for one is bad enough, but dishes for two is a lot of work.

Fastforward - we have been married 6 weeks now. Robin often does the dishes after dinner. Last Saturday after we dropped my parents off at the airport, Robin thought it would be a good idea to go look for a dishwasher. He told me it was taking too long to do the dishes every night. 30 minutes a day makes it 2 hours a week. He told me he would like to do other things with that time rather than spend it doing the dishes (like spend time with me). So we looked at a few dishwashers on Saturday, but didn't find one we thought would work. The search continues, but I don't think it will take long.... We both want a dishwasher now.

New Dishes

We ate on our new dishes with our new silverware the other day. It was so pretty to look at. Robin noticed something interesting while we were eating... normally when the silverware touches the plates it makes a noise. Our silverware makes a very pretty noise - Robin said it was like our dishes were singing :) So everytime we use our dishes and silverware we get to listen to a little song. The other nice thing is that food tastes better when it is eaten with nice silverware on pretty dishes. It really does.

German Wedding Reception

I've been off the computer for a while - getting ready for our wedding reception here and sight seeing in Germany with my parents. They went back to the US today, so it is time for me to update my blog.

Our reception here went very well. The decorations looked great - we had over 80 roses and 28 ivy plants. I am not sure how many people came but it was a lot - the whole wedding cake was eaten.

A nice lady in our ward was the photographer for our reception. She made a short film online the next day so that we could see our photos. The film can be seen here.

Visas AND Passports AND Consulates - Oh my!

I got to step foot on a little piece of America here in Germany two weeks ago - the American Consulate in Frankfurt. I needed to get a passport with my new last name on it. Here is the process

First of all, no electronics or liquids are allowed in the Consulate. I rode the train to Frankfurt so I had to leave my cell phone, camera, hand sanitizer, and USB stick in a locker at the main train station. Once I arrive at the consulate I got in line to get a number. After I had my number, I got in another line so that I could enter the building. After 20 minutes of waiting outside, I got to go through security. It is alot like going through airport security without all the luggage. Once I got through that, I went to another building, up the stairs and waited in a long hallway with about 50 other people for them to call my number. I waited and waited and waited.....

While I was waiting there was a few interesting things going on. Lots of people were there waiting with all sorts of different reasons for being there. Some man seemed to be upset about an answer he was given. In loud German he said that it was a typical excuse, much like "oh, it was Wednesday and I wasn't wearing my socks...."

Another wonderful story I heard was there was a man needing a new passport. He had lost his. They asked him the usual questions just to make sure the passport wasn't stolen or that someone would find it and use it illegally. He said, "Well, actually I know where it is. We dropped it behind our fish tank. It has like 100 gallons of water in it and lots of fish, so we couldn't move the tank. We didn't want to drain it out. So I can see my passport, I just can't get to it". What?!?!

Anyway, it was finally my turn and everything went just the way it was supposed to. A week and a half later my new passport affived with my new last name on it.

Squared

I recently saw a decorating idea at Ikea (I've seen it other places too, but Ikea was the most recent). The wall was painted with a square of color and there was a framed picture over it. I decided to try it today. TA-DA! In my personal opinion, it looks very good. I did this in our hallway. It was so easy, I think I might do it other places too. I wanted to do it today, but the paint roller was still wet (ahhhh)! So, that means I have to wait until tomorrow to do another one... or even longer.... We are having our wedding reception here this weekend and my parents are coming into town. I expect it will be a busy week, so my paint squares may have to wait until next week. Bummer.

Slide Show for our German Reception

Decorating the walls

Now that most things are unpacked, I can start decorating the walls. This banner was made by my Aunt and my mom and was used at our wedding reception in Utah. I found that the banner fit above our bed, so that is where I put it. For those who pay very, very close attention to detail, I would like to point out the fact that this banner is only about an inch off center from the bed. I was at home by myself when I put it up so I had no help trying to get it even. The only tool I had was a short ruler. I think I did a pretty good job...

More packages

Something lovely came in the mail today - my silverware. I have been wanting this silverware set for almost 2 years now. I chose it out when I was a missionary here in Germany. I wanted to take home something nice to remember Germany by, but in the end it was too expensive and weighed too much. Now that I am living here, I can have it. What a nice wedding gift... so shiney.

Wedding Reception v2.0, German Version

Let me explain what you see in this picture to the right. This is a picture of 30 ivy plants that have been repotted in white pots and are now being turned into heart shaped topiaries. I have spent about 4 hours on them so far and they aren't quite done yet... still about 14 plants left to put the heart shaped wire in and wrap the ivy around.

Our reception here in Germany is on August 14th. We are expecting about 150 people to attend. I have never been to a wedding reception in Germany, but my understanding is that it is a little different than I am used to. I expect that our reception will be particularly unique because we are blending both German and America cultures.

There is a nice lady in our ward who is helping me with the decorations. Robin and I are doing the planning and other people with ward will be helping with set up and clean up. I will try to post other pictures as we get ready for this next exciting event.

Dinner Table

We have had a dinner table since we moved in, but I have been using it as my computer desk and a place to put random things so we haven't been able to eat there. Today Robin put together a desk so that I had somewhere to move my "office". I put the other random things away, got out a table cloth, and made dinner. For the first time in 3 weeks we ate a meal at the table. How nice :)
Notice the "romantic" blue candle on the table. When you move into an apartment here there aren't any light fixtures. In the other rooms we have been able to put up fixtures, but since we hadn't eaten at the table we didn't put a fixture there yet. So the candle was actually used to give us light to eat by. It was a bit romantic too. I think tomorrow Robin will be installing a new light fixture.

Painting, Painting, Painting

When Robin and I moved into our apartment, all the rooms were white except for the entry way. It was Pepto-Bismol pink. Ick. This past weekend we decided we just couldn't take it any more - we needed to get rid of the pink.

We went to the store and bought 10 liters of very good (also expensive) white paint. We masked the walls and got everything ready. Robin even trusted me with a paint brush.

I painted everything down low, Robin got the corners and everything up high. It took several hours, but we finally finished the task.

After the paint dried, we noticed that there was something a little strange... the room had a pink "glow" to it. The pink on the wall was actually PAINT EATING PINK! If someone didn't know that the paint underneath was pink, they probably wouldn't notice, but I noticed and Robin noticed. So, Monday morning bright and early after Robin went to work, I painted a second coat. Now we have a nice white entry way. No more pink :)

Hello Bosch!

Robin and I welcomed our new Bosch into our apartment today. In my family you aren't an adult until you have a kitchen mixer. You don't get a kitchen mixer until you get married.... It doesn't matter how old you are - 18 or 28 - no mixer = not an adult.

My mom and my sisters all have Kitchen-aids. Living in Germany, Bosch is more common to have than Kitchen-aid (I'm sure there are other brands that are common here too, but Bosch is the one I have heard of the most). I have been researching Boschs' and finally decided on a model. It arrived today :)

The box

Unpacked and assembled

In our kitchen

It blends, kneads, mixes, slices, shreds, and more... now, it only it would clean up after itself......