Summer !

I'm glad winter is over and I don't want to complain, but its been over 80 for the past few days here and I feel like we skipped spring and went stratight to summer. Here are some pictures of Miran doing summery things outside - like watering our new tree in the handy bag the city gave us and washing his car.

And here is a picture of my car covered in pollen ... the day after Miran washed it. I guess that was a waste of time. And seeing this one days worth of pollen on the car explains why both of us are so overwhelmed by allergies right now .... stuffy nose, itchy eyes, scratchy throat ... everything!

Azra's Room

Well I finally finished putting together furniture and decorating Azra's bedroom and bathroom. Miran helped me hang the mirror over the dresser and get some stubborn screws in the desk and then I could call accessorize! The walls are a bit bare, but she can pick out her own posters or other wall hangings.  I sure hope she likes it when she arrives on Thursday evening. We can't believe that in just three days she'll be here!

Hello from Berlin!

I'm in Berlin with a colleague and 27 students. We have been very busy our first few days seeing all sorts of interesting things ... like the Brandenburg Gate and the Olympic Stadium, as you'll see in the attached group photos. We saw the stadium and Corb's Unite Berlin this afternoon after spending the first half of the day at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. We had a great private tour of the Reichstag on Sunday, including Norman Foster's dome. We've also already explored the main boulevard, Unter den Linden, and the Museum Island, including Schinkel's Altes Museum and the amazing treasures of the Pergamom Museum. We went up in the TV tower yesterday for panoramic views of the city. Tomorrow we are off to explore the newly redeveloped Potsdamer Platz and Eisemann's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. We are also going to see the film Metropolis tomorrow night in the Babylon Theatre with live piano.

Team Makas is gaining a new member!

No, its not what you think. We won't make that annoucement on the blog!

On April 1, Miran's sister Azra is FINALLY coming to live with us and study here in Charlotte. She got her student visa from the US Embassy in Sarajevo last week and we bought her plane ticket today, so its official. We can hardly believe it. We've been talking about this and planning this for 5 years its hard to believe she'll be here in less than 5 weeks. We can't wait and are very excited about having her here.

Of course its also a little bittersweet because we all feel bad and worried about Miran's mom being "home alone." Fortunately she's been doing really well for quite a while now, good enough that Azra (and we) feel its ok for Azra to come, but she and Azra will really miss each other. We'll work on getting Milada here next. Azra is also quite sad about leaving her longtime boyfriend Almin, but I'm sure they'll be on skype every night!

We've been working on a room for Azra slowly for awhile now, but now we have to finish it up. Miran built a headboard and I upholstered it, and Azra and I exchanged a few emails images to pick out the bedding.

She also picked out the yellow paint color. We still need to get her a desk and a dresser (and clean a bunch of our junk out of her closet). On Sunday Miran and Dad will work on her bathroom - we bought a new medicine cabinet and light fixture three months ago but still haven't installed them. We also need to replace the sink and vanity, but that will have to happen later.

Vet Adventure !

We at Team Makas are delighted to know that our brother-in-law Harald's emergency back surgery went perfectly this morning and that he is resting and recovering in the hospital tonight and should be home tomorrow. We are looking forward to hearing stories about how Cecilia takes care of an immobile husband and the twins by herself!

We oursleves had an emergency trip to the vet yesterday with Suljo, who was trying to lay an egg all day but couldn't get it out. We didn't realize how dangerous it was, but finally called the vet to find out what we should do, and they told us to come in immediately. So we did. Apparently, because little cockatiels are so fragile, eventually her utirine wall would tear from all the pushing and the egg would fall out into the body cavity and she'd die. So the vet put her under general anesthesia, and tried to help her push, but that wasn't working, so then the vet used tools to go up in her and collapse the egg and pull it and all the pieces out. The vet told us there was only a 75% chance she could save her, so Miran was of course very upset while we waited, but everything turned out perfectly and we brought her right home. She also got a hormone shot to discourage her from producing any more eggs right now.

She has some antibiotics and pain killers that we have to give her for the next few days and a follow-up appointment next week with the vet. We are also supposed to keep her separated from the other birds and in a small cage so she won't fly or climb too much and stress herself. And we are especially supposed to keep her away from her boyfriend, Tito so she won't be thinking about egg-laying and he won't be trying you-know-what. So we have her in small cage upstairs in the office, and she is enjoying spending so much time with Miran, I think she actually likes him more than Tito. Tito on the other hand is very upset about this arrangement and has screamed for a day and a half now. We can't even sit downstairs to watch TV because he makes so much noice. Its very sweet that he misses her so much, but also a little annoying. Miran brough Tito up to see her yesterday for a few minutes so he would know she was ok, and that actually seemed to quieten him, but only for about an hour.

Here is a picture of Suljo convalescing: