Germany trip

We spent the past four days in Germany visiting some of our American friends who live there. They had been to visit us twice since last October, so it was our turn this time.

On Thursday they took us to Cochem, a typical European city with a castle.

Friday, we visited Luxembourg City, which was only about 45 minutes from where they live.

Benjamin was a little bit scared of our friends' Great Dane because it was so much bigger than he was, but he didn't mind petting him as long as Mommy or Daddy was close enough to rescue him if he got too scared.

Now we have 2 weeks before our trip home - and a lot to get done between now and then!

Sneak Preview

To finish the guest room, we now only lack a light fixture (yeah, we've been in this house for over a year now and haven't done that yet... French people take light fixtures and even light BULBS with them when they move, so we've had the bare-bulb decor going on for quite some time now) and the new furniture, which I don't know when we are going to have to time to buy.

So in the meantime, here's a sneak preview of the new laminate Frederic put down. We love it! I'll do before & after pictures once we are all done.

The downside is, of course, that the rest of our house now looks even worse in comparison. Whoops!

Next on the list is the bathroom. Since the marble top of the vanity broke off over a month ago, we finally ordered a new vanity which we hope to be able to pick up by 2 weeks from now. They don't tend to keep these things in stock here, apparently. And while we are waiting on that, Frederic can work on the bathroom walls, then we will attack the hallway and the other wall we have yet to remove.

And that is just the house - there is also the yard to contend with. Benjamin and Frederic removed the tomato plants a few days ago and all the hedges need to be trimmed.

I don't anticipate us getting very far on all of that before we go home for November since we're also going on a 4-day trip to Germany next week and need to have an ultrasound, see my OB, and Frederic needs to see his ENT all before we fly home.

Mission accomplished!

Well, almost. The walls are painted! It's most definitely more cream than taupe, but we are going to live with it. I still need to do the doorframe and door, and Frederic can work on the floor anytime now, and then finish the bathroom.

We had a lot of green tomatoes that weren't going to ripen since it's gotten too cold here, so we had fried green tomatoes for the very first time tonight, and Frederic is going to try a few other recipes (green tomato pie, green tomato cake, green tomato pickles maybe) so they don't go to waste.

Should I stay or should I go?

That's what the morning sickness has been singing lately. It went, but only for a couple of weeks, then it decided to creep around here again. Thanks a lot. It's not as bad as it was, but it's still there which is bad enough. I'm already tired of being pregnant which is too bad since I have about six more months to go.

In home improvement land, we bought paint for the guest room & office (color: "linen" which I'm afraid is going to be an off-white rather than a light taupe), and laminate flooring & baseboards for the guest room & office. Now if we just had time to paint... and then we might have to figure out closet doors before doing the floor since we're already working with 1 cm or so less than standard height rooms and adding the flooring will take away another 9 mm, which could make fitting the doors in problematic.

The issue? We haven't bought the doors yet.

First things first, we'll paint.

But at the moment Frederic is in the hospital having a nose job. Well, having a deviated septum fixed. He's doing this in the interest of marital harmony and in the hopes of not having to sleep outside for the next 50 years.

Benjamin's new favorite word is "apple". He was calling everything "apple", so Frederic finally bought some apples so he could at least be right some of the time. He even eats them, he doesn't just talk about them. He prefers to eat them (and everything else, including hard butter cookies) with a fork.

We got him a little table & chairs from Ikea when my mom was here, and every now & then he actually sits there & plays nicely in my office while I work.