November 2020 Fun

To quote one of my favorite teachers at Vilseck High School, Mr. Krebsbach... are we having fun yet???

I mean, I guess if there's a good way to start out the month, this was definitely it....

Election Day also featured me wearing my RBG pearls. WERK!

And Election Day closed on a stunning note.  *ALMOST* as good as those Auerbach sunsets.

While the election was still in flux, we were busy having our walkway redone.  The slate-in-dirt walkway just wasn't going to work with these Massachusetts winters.  We needed something that would be easy to shovel snow on.

The days following the election were full of predictions and math.  I was particularly fond of MSNBC's resident math and Gap-pant wearing nerd (and I say that in the most loving way) - Steve Kornacki.  

Meanwhile, the Cheeto-in-Chief was grumpy about how things were going, so he constantly tweeted disputed info about the election.

Tell me this isn't the best Steve Kornacki wallpaper EVER.  This man gets excited about the numbers and I just love that.  It's like my weird passion for Excel spreadsheets.

Saturday morning after the Tuesday election, MSNBC was the first (I think?) to call it. Todd had just finished making breakfast and we had the TV on (usually we are watching Lester Holt from the night before but this was obviously important.)  I can't think of ANYONE more fitting to call it than the one and only Steve Kornacki!  Please for the Love of God, go get some sleep Steve!  

We didn't have any champagne, so we celebrated with the sweetest beer we had... a Harpoon Jelly Donut IPA which is weirdly one of my new favorite beers.  The aftertaste actually tastes like a jelly donut!  

I get the Sunday paper and this was the headline.  So exciting!

Almost done with the walkway!  You'll get a picture of the completed job in December because I forgot to take one in November ha ha.

Since we still aren't going to the gym, I've been trying to keep up with my walking everyday - at least before it gets too cold to do so. I don't work in the city anymore, I work in my bedroom.  And my desk is approximatey 6 feet away from my bed so aside from getting coffee and making the kids lunch, if I don't get out and walk, I don't even get 1000 steps in a day.  And then I feel like a slug.  So I walk and lift weights.  Look at the cool clouds I saw!

We also celebrated our anniversary in November!  FIFTEEN YEARS and the guy still wanted to make me dinner.  This is a reproduction of the first meal he ever made me when we were dating in New York City: chicken piccata, broccoli and mushroom risotto.  It was actually even BETTER than the first time he made it!  He keeps getting better and better, but ladies....... he's taken!

We went to Spain on our honeymoon (and a couple of time since then) so he got us a nice Rioja to celebrate the day.

He put the rice in a measuring cup and that's how it wound up like that!  My very own fine restaurant in my own house!

Todd and I would like to announce a new additon to the family... 15 years after we got married.  It's our new child, baby Yoda, aka: Grogu.  He likes to help me when I'm at work.  And yes, I'm wearing pajama pants to work. It's 2020, you know you sometimes do too.

We have a TON of trees around us, so we spent what seemed like every weekend this fall in the front yard raking leaves. This was after what I like to call the Big Dump. And I SWEAR I wrote that before I saw that John Oliver episode about the ballots!

But you know we have the coolest neighbors ever, and Brendan lent us the big Daddy.  We cleaned up that yard so fast!

See?  I help too!

So do our kids.  In fact, weirdly, all of the neighborhood kids help!  I think they figure the faster we get done, the faster they can all play together.  Don't worry, I sent Grant down to help at Brendan and Erin's house a bit later!

BUT DOESN'T THAT LOOK SO NICE!?  My OCD though... I was out picking up every single leaf because it was driving me crazy.

Don't worry, I picked all of those up!

We also had a family night out in mid November!  We got tickets to the Mendon Twin Drive-In to see the Christmas laser light show and the movie Elf!  Did you know they have a Biergarten here????  I'm definitly coming here next summer when Covid is (hopefully mostly) gone!

Mendon has a twin drive through and since we were got one of the last parking spots for our screen, we were way in the back under the lights of the other screen.  

When we pulled in, we decided to face the car toward the screen so it would be easier to get out when the movie was over.  Some people pulled their cars in backwards so they could watch the movie out of the back of the car.  Hilariously, the person in front of us was doing that when we pulled in. When he was done parking, he got out of the car and walking toward our car, he suddenly was making faces at us.  We were like, "Who is that?"  Oh, it's just our friends Joe and Lara V!  Small world! Literally haven't seen them in a half a decade but then we see them at the random drive in!  I didn't get any pictures of us together so here is a blurry one of me and Natalie.  I'm wrapped in the same blanket I used to wear at The Weather Channel where everyone used to call me Granny!

We started out sitting in chairs next to the car, but the car was much warmer.  I promise that is Grant on the right, hat pulled down, shark mask pulled up.

The Christmas laser light show was neato (although the kids howled when they played Frosty the Snowman because they have some sadistic love of the point in the show where he melts.)  They pumped in some smoke so you could see the lasers and they were pretty cool!

Mid November US Covid 19 statistics. 

My brother and his family took their only little vacation of the year and rented a cabin in north Georgia where they stayed away from humans and went hiking.  When they left, they took their dog Einstein to a new boarding place and THIS is what they did to him.  So funny!

On one of my walks around the middle of the month, I spotted some iridescent clouds! (Nerd!)

OH and BTS put out a new album in November that is SO good!  It's not as long as Map of the Soul 7 that came out earlier this year, but still really good.  It's called "Be" and my favorite songs are "Life Goes On" and "Dis-ease."

One Saturday, my friend Heather and her family went to visit her inlaws down on the Cape but they needed someone to feed their dog Roxy and basically run her around so she would pass out in her kennel.  So of course I volunteered the kids to do this!

Who's a good baby!?

She's such a little fluff ball. And still DEFINITELY a puppy!

Grant made a new friend!

This is me admiring my clean lawn.

I know I've probably mentioned this a thousand times before, but they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Germany, so we like to pretend we are still German and put all of our decorations up several weeks before Thanksgiving, like they do!  I handed this one ball of lights to Natalie and said, "Little knot here!"  I wanted to follow it up with, "You have to check every bulb!" but I wasn't sure she would remember that I like to quote movies A LOT.

As we were going through Christmas boxes, I randomly found stuff like THIS.  Apparently the movers in Germany didn't like one of my boxes, so he threw that one away and put random stuff like this from that box in with the Christmas decorations.

YES!  Just in time for winter, George Jetta is in the garage!!!

We have two trees this year (and a big mess) since we had put a tree in storage when we lived in Germany.  This one is the "aesthetic" tree, according to Natalie.  It's just got lights and pretty bulbs on it.  The real Christmas tree has all of our personal and fun ornaments.

Let's hear it for my Big Lots SCORE!!!!!  My favorite southern treat, banana moon pies!  

One thing I CANNOT find, however... is frozen egg noodles.  I could even find them at the Commissary in Germany, but not anywhere in Massachusetts.  So Natalie and I attempted to make our own, using my grandmother's (mom's mother's) recipe.  Ummm... WTF is this mess????

Natalie actually took over the process because she is a MUCH better cook than me.  She is also more patient and diligent.  I was demoted to sous chef.

We made two batches and they were good, but we definitely learned some lessons and ways to tweak them to make them better.  Good thing we will get to try again at Christmas!

This little German ornament almost got Todd and Mary's butt kicked at a Christmas market a few years ago.  I won't go into details about those trouble makers, but "That's so German!"  

Panorama shot of my house and neighborhood.

Late November Covid stats. I took this one cause I was afraid I would forget to with the busy holiday weekend, which of course, I did.

We did not go anywhere for Thanksgiving, nor did we have anyone over.  And we were totally fine with that, especially since we had been doing it that way for the last five Thanksgivings!  We watched movies and hung out in our pajamas because it rained almost the entire day. There was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, noodles, rolls, the blueberry-pineapple-raspberry jello thing that I make that the kids can't ever get enough of (see? I'm midwestern!) and of course, my other grandmother's cranberry relish that I made.  And wine. Plenty of wine.

When our house was packed up in December, these ornaments, which have Grant's and Natalie's handprints on them were in our giant living room china cabinet at the house on Ohrenbacher Strasse.  They were not carefully packed away with the other Christmas ornaments. I spent December-May literally waking up in a cold, anxiety-filled sweat over these ornaments because I was so afraid these were going to get broken in the shipment but look!  They made it!

The kids wanted to make a gingerbread house (which I declare is because we could not visit Christmas markets and get delicious lebkuchen this year) so Todd bought a semi-premade one.  It was hilarious watching them put it together.

The final product. Nailed it.

Two cuties and their little gingerbread house.  (Grant!  Stop licking the frosting off of the roof!)

And we're on to December!

October 2020 Fun

I promise you with every ounce of me, that as soon as we are able, we are going to take off running (maybe literally) to our next travel destination!! But until then, we have spent a lot more time doing a whole lot of nothing, probably like many of you out there.

This actually happened at the end of September, but we had three large trees removed from our yard.  Two of them hung out over our neighbors house and they were very happy to see them go.   

I had to take a walk around the neighborhood while they were working on trimming the trees back because I just couldn't look!  We had a bunch of projects we are working on here at home in October including getting measurements for 8 new windows on our house that will be installed in December.

To start the month off, Grant had to have blood drawn so they could find out if he was still allergic to peanuts (spoiler: he still is.)  We spoke to his allergist about getting him into an immunotherapy program, but he's still on the fence about whether he wants to do it or not.

Oh my goodness, this boy is so funny.  "Turn this around, Grant. (Meal idea)"

Hmmm, okay, this actually sounds really good!  (Grant: "Oops, I spelled bread wrong!")  You'll be surprised to know this because he's a boy and he's second born, but Grant is actually a very good speller.  Despite the fact that he also spelled raisins wrong, ha!

This is the most colorful meal we have had in a long time!

Throw some grilled chicken on top and that's a decadent meal!  Thanks, Grant!

We had to move the kid's swing from the back yard to the front yard because the branch it was on in the back yard was removed. Todd spent several hours trying to throw the rope up with various heavy objects.  Good news, it was eventually a success!

After the swing was up and secure, our neighbor Brendan came over and was really swinging the kids all over the place - they were having a blast!

Y'all.  I am NOT artistic at all.  Like not even remotely good.  But my dear sorority sister Michelle is an artist and we all got together via Zoom to do a little Auburn door hanger project!  (This is not mine, this is Michelle's.  Mine wasn't bad, but certainly not blog worthy!)

I was so happy to see some faces that I hadn't seen in a very long time!

We did some yard work and set up some silly Halloween decorations!  Look at the big spider on the tree, ew!

The people who live behind us and through the woods had a really pretty tree in their yard.  I love it when the leaves are changing, but there's still some green on the trees.

Oh my word, we laughed so hard at this.  The vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence (above) was totally overshadowed by a fly that landed on Mike Pence's perfectly coiffed hair.  At first, I thought he was stuck there because Pence uses so much hair product.  Then Todd said, "Did the fly land there and die?"  He eventually flew away but man it was funny!

Your mid October coronavirus statistics for the US.

Look at this cute kid with this hilarious Tyrannasaurus Rex taco holder his Nana got him!  A few seconds later, he stuck his nose in the the T-Rex's mouth and said, "It's eating my nose!"

Fall has definitely arrived.  I'm holding on to any little piece of summer that I can.

In October, Natalie did ONE more theater production before she decided to take a bit of time off to focus on school.  This time, she played Martha, the house maid with a thick Yorkshire accent in The Secret Garden.  She was so funny- she actually watched YouTube videos of people with a Yorkshire accent, just so she could stay true to the character.  It was really awesome- her accent was great! As you can see, everyone had masks on.

When they were in a scene, they could drop the masks, but as you can see, the girls here are spaced far apart. It was a really great play!  The Prana pulled it off once again. 

The cast of The Secret Garden.

We have never been Booed before, so we were very excited to have that happen for the first time!  We really have the nicest neighbors!  They even remembered that Grant has a peanut allergy and didn't include anything that he couldn't eat. So sweet!

We did this, too!  

At one point this month, I remembered that I could go to World Market in Framingham and grab some our favorite German treats!  They have our favorite curry ketchup, Milka chocolate, Leibniz and even European Kit Kats!

I took this picture of the fire hydrant that sits between my neighbors house and mine because the tree in the background was the same color, but I think the best part was the little Lego (?) person that's laying on the fire hydrant!

Here's another thing I did in October... I got a mammogram, which turned into a biopsy because they found some calcifications on my right side.  I've had some issues with my right side for several years and had to have things checked out back in Germany but I never picked up my results when we left in January (just forgot that I even had it done at the Klinikum in Amberg.) Since Newton Wellesley Hospital didn't have a baseline to go on, they decided to do a biopsy just to be on the safe side.  Good news, I don't have cancer!  That was not a fun experience though. Although I always say that labor is the one true pain I measure all pain against and I'd rate this biopsy WELL below that experience!

I swear it snows EVERY October here in Massachusetts.  We got about 5 inches of snow on Grant's birthday!  What???  Meanwhile, we won't get any snow again until January.  

Grantie had a birthday at the end of October!  Hard to believe my little buddy is 11!  We had both families call in so we could sing him happy birthday and open some gifts with him. 

How is this little stinker already 11?  His request was chocolate cake with chocolate icing and cookie dough ice cream.

Opening presents on his birthday - what could it be?

When he opens presents, he jumps around A LOT.  It's hard to catch him in a halfway decent picture because this kid is always moving.

He wanted some gaming glasses to help with the headaches he sometimes gets because he sits at a computer all day (not really his fault as he does the full-time-at-home schooling this year.)

Speaking of the reason he does full time at home school... here is your late October Covd 19 statistics.

Thankfully MOST of the snow melted and the kids were allowed to go out trick or treating with the neighborhood kids.  It was cold though.  Here we have Natalie who is a zombie wooly mammouth and Grant, who went with the neighborhood theme of the wild, wild west.

Here we have Grant, AT, Natalie, AB and little Ava in the front.

Hilariously, Todd and I were sitting outside (10 feet away from the table that had candy on it) and suddenly I heard a "PLOP!"  A big hunk of snow fell out of the trees and RIGHT INTO MY DRINK.  

Todd was conveniently the plague doctor this year.

Brendan gave us some lights to light up our table because we have no street lights (or very, very few that don't shine very brightly) so no one knew we were sitting there in the dark!

We put a bunch of candy in bowls and people would grab a bowl, drop the candy in their bag, and then throw the paper bowls in the trash can.  Not eco friendly, but at least it was safe.

At one point, we could see Todd's breath through his creepy plague doctor mask - and when he shone the light on his face, it made it even creepier!  Later Grant said, "Are you smoking?"

Todd had a blast scaring the neighborhood kids from the lawn.

The kids disappeared and hit up the entire neighborhood before going to the neighborhood one street over to get even more candy.  I think they did ok!

This zombie wooly mammouth wrangler had a good night, too!  

And we're on to November!