Quick Update

Just a short bulleted update for those of you who care to know what we are up to:

• Wrapping up the school year. "Sport day" aka Field Day will be next week. The kids both have short musical theater performances they have been working on that will be performed next week. The following week is end of year parties and last day of school July 9.
• Planning for our trip home! Trying to arrange the calendar so we can see dozens of friends and family in Missoula, Atlanta and Birmingham. It will be a whirlwind but we are looking forward to checking in with loved ones.
• Attempting to plan for next year. 
• I had hoped to line up the kids' activities for the fall, but I think I'm going to have to let that one go. The kids' school offers lots of after school activities and Carter and Haley have both done a few of these this year. But next year we hoped to branch out and figure out the German sport club system and allow the kids to pursue more than just a recreational level of something. Carter thinks he would like to play tennis and Haley would like to ride horses. I have looked into both activities but haven't been able to nail down a plan.
• I have mentioned before that Europeans plan vacations really far in advance, presumably because there are so many of them and they all seem to like to go to the same places. So we really do need to book next year's vacations NOW in order to secure a spot for ourselves. Yesterday I started preliminary research for our February ski vacation and was very frustrated to find that many of the places I looked at are ALREADY BOOKED FULL. Ugh. One of the surprises for me in living here has been the amount of time I spend doing the job of travel agent. The ability to travel in Europe was one of the reasons why we accepted this assignment, but I didn't really think about how much work it is to plan trips. The kids have so many long school breaks and we want to take advantage of them to see as much as possible, but each trip takes days or even weeks of planning and researching. The options are seemingly endless and there is information overload on the internet on the one hand, and on the other hand it's still really hard to determine what is marketing and what is reality unless you have a personal recommendation from someone. We are hoping to travel in France for fall break, [somewhere] for Christmas break, ski somewhere in February, and do something for Easter break. One of those trips will be to Africa, at least for Dan and me, which will require lots of coordination. So, that's 4 large trips to plan, which will be an enormous amount of work, and the longer I wait the fewer options we will have.
• Still working on the house! 
• After my last post about the unproductive day, I did actually locate two new pieces of furniture for my office that will hold all my books and scrapbooking supplies. I have assembled them both but haven't had the time to stock their shelves. Those boxes are the last ones in the house that remain unpacked. I hope I can get to that so we can be completely unpacked before we head home at the end of our first year!! 
• I have purchased several ceiling light fixtures and I finally got mirrors for the two bathrooms. But installing them is a big job and Dan doesn't have time/doesn't want to spend all his free time doing it. So I need to hire someone to come do all this for me. Yesterday I located a handyman who speaks English and serves the expat community, so I've sent him a message. Hopefully he will have time to come get this done for us, and it will be good to have an English speaking guy who can help us with house projects if needed.
• Two weeks ago we had a super hard and heavy rain and our basement flooded. I spent the week moving everything out and laying it out to dry, borrowing fans from neighbors, contacting the landlord about water damage, etc. We have mostly moved past that episode, but we need to have our gutters cleaned and have some landscaping work done in the backyard to prevent this happening again. Our landlord lives out of town and has asked me to arrange it all. I'm trying to push back and have her do it; that's a lot of burden to put on me and it should really be her job.
• Shopping! I got some birthday money to spend and have been exploring the Berlin shops and brands a little. Fun!
• Property management. I won't bore you with the details but I spend a good amount of my time managing the properties we own in Montana. I'm currently trying to arrange from afar for some windows to be replaced in our Butte duplex. This is incredibly expensive and I've been sending out inquiries about historic building renovation grants or low-interest loans. 
• Haley's choir performed last Saturday at the Berlin Philharmonie. It was a bit anti-climactic after many months of work, but still a nice experience for her. 
• Carter's last baseball game is Saturday. He has actually had a good season after a bit of a rough start. Dan has been working hard with him on his hitting and in the last game he was a total star, hitting in both at-bats, a single and a double. The level of play in this league is fairly low, so it gives him a nice opportunity to be one of the better players. This weekend he will go camping with the cub scouts for his first camping trip in Berlin. The weather isn't supposed to be nice, but hopefully the forecast will change.
• And lots of other stuff, but those are some highlights. I have lots of "reflective" - type blogs in my head that I was hoping to write as we wrap up our first year here, but I won't have time before we go. Hopefully I can do a bunch of writing on the long trip home.