My Birthday

Here is an overview of the table with all my presents and flowers and cards and cake ...

Some lovely drawings from Michael and Anthony ...

A nice shot of my cake and the necklace Miran got me ...

 Posing in my new coat (from Milada) and boots (from Azra) ...

More House Projects!

We've finished up a couple projects around here lately, including spreading the rest of the gravel in the firepit (all Miran). We also moved the grill over and put it where a future bench might be located. The areas on both sides of the path around the tress will both be encircled with more edgers eventually and filled with mulch. There is also a small planter rectangle in the middle of the path.

Also, I realized I never posted a picture of the lovely corner cabinet Dad made for the living room, and which I painted a peacock blue. To match, and to have one big solid blue thing in each room, I also replaced the carpet in the living room with one of the same color. I still love the white rug look, but it was really quite dingy already after less than a year (and no shoes inside). Maybe I'll switch back out for next spring/summer, because this darker rug certainly has a warmer fall/winter feel.

Finally, I also installed a backsplash on the new side of the kitchen. I'm incredibly pleased with how it turned out, especially considering my lack of experience with tiling. Miran helped with the couple of tiles that needed to be cut, but because it was basically a simple rectangle, there wasn't too much of that thankfully. In fact, it turned out so uncomplicated and inexpensive, I am now thinking I should buy more tile and do the old side of the kitchen as well.

House and Yard Projects

In the past month or so we've also been up to a few projects in and around the house, some of which are still in progress.

Azra figured out the shampoo system on the kirby and cleaned the rug downstairs. With Kico here for the past eight months, it really needed it.

And speaking of Kico, he had his first trip to the American vet this month. We went ahead and had him tested for everything to get some baseline data on his health. He was perfectly healthy, though the vet suggested a diet. He was so excited by the whole experience - it was only his fourth car ride ever and first time in the vet's office with the other dogs (the Bosnian vet makes house calls). We thought he was going to hyperventilate he was so excited the whole time.

Today we all worked on cleaning out and organizing the carport, which was a big project, but in the end didn't take to long. Azra and I loaded up everything that needed to go to the dump and made it there at 4 minutes to closing. We got rid of the table and the wood pile and got some shelving to put against the wall. Now only the gardening and other things are very organized - and hopefully will stay that way at least for a little while!

And for the past week we've been working on a firepit complex behind the driveway. Last week Miran and I bought the stones to make the firepit itself. On Saturday we all three worked all day to lay out paper and edging stones to make a path and seating area, as well as to clear out all the sticks and leaves and junk around the trees.

The gravel arrived today and we managed to spread it in the seating area around the firepit itself, but I underestimated how much we needed and we ran out before we could do the path from driveway to seating area. There will be mulched areas around each of the trees that we haven't made yet, and the pop out on the left side of the path is for a bench.

But here is a nice shot of the area around the firepit with the gravel and our new plastic adirondack chairs in place. Last week we had a couple of fires, but after working most of the day we were too tired to start a fire and sit out there tonight, but maybe we'll test it out tomorrow.

Fall Guests

This message is a little overdo, but we've had a lot of company in the past month and I didn't take many pictures and didn't post any.

First Maggie and Dennis arrived on a Friday night. The following morning we went to the international festival on the UNC Charlotte campus. We go every year and it was fun to go with new people. Dennis got sucked in to every booth with drums ... first he joined a Brazillian band, then was having a drum-off with a woman from somewhere in Africa. I forget which booth!

Mom and Dad and Cecilia and the girls arrived that afternoon and then the whole crowd headed to the beach for the week. We stayed at home working until the following week-end, when the crowds passed back through on their way home.

Cecilia and the girls stayed for two nights so we got in a nice visit.  The girls are very into playing video games on their tablets, and also helped Uncle Miran with his games!

There were lots of outdoor games as well, including an extensive rough housing game. I finally got them to hold still for a better shot at the end.

Two weeks later, Cecilia and the girls came back for more fall fun. Friday night after they arrived, we went to an Oktoberfest at a German restaurant. There was beer hall style seating, beer, bratwurst, spaetzle, and other German food, and a polka band with lots of dancing.

The next day we went to the Renaissance festival. THere were lots of activities and Uncle Miran enjoyed participating in the maze, archery, joust and other activities. He skipped the trampolines that the girls loved!

And Sunday morning before the Andersons headed home, we did a Halloween craft - monster-themed shrinky dinks. I had no idea they still existed, but saw them the other day and couldn't resist buying them to try with the girls. It took me a few batches to master the timing so they actually came out flat. The girls seemed to enjoy them as much as Cecilia and I did! Here they are making monster faces and posing with the set up afterwards.

Lisbon Days 5 - 8

I guess I've been remiss about posting the second half of the trip. Things got busy once the conference started and we've been coming back to the hotel fairly late in the evening so I haven't had the energy to download images and post. So this will probably be a long one while I sum up the last few days.

Wednesday - Day 5

We spent the first half of the day in the hotel room and I graded a stack of papers that needed to be returned to my students. About midday we headed out to see the royal palace of Ajuda, which is back to the west in the Belem area. Apparently its closed on Wednesdays though so we just saw the outside and the impressive port cochere. This palace was built in the 19th century after the 18th century one burned down.

However the palace botanical garden was open so we walked through that and saw some amazingly interesting trees. We also had lunch in the cute little garden cafe.

We then walked the rest of the way down the hill almost to the river to check out the very amazing coach museum. The Portuguese kings seemed to have save every carriage, sedan chair, litter, and chariot they owned for 500 years and it makes for a pretty impressive display. Many were gifts or built for special occassions - weddings, baptisms, etc. The building is lovely too, but we never figured out its original purpose. Its possible it was the coach house always because it isn't far from the palace.

 And here is a random shot of tiled facades. Half the facades are stuccoed like in most of Europe, but the other half are covered in all sorts of different tiles. Its very pretty.

Thursday - Day 6

We spent the whole day at the conference and didn't really see any sites. We learned a lot from the paper sessions we attended and grabbed a quick dinner afterwards and came home.

Friday - Day 7

I gave my paper in a 9:00 session and by 11:00 we were off from the conference. We headed a bit north to see a few museums in, and on the grounds of, some palace. (There are lots of palaces here). The museum in the palace was of costume and it was very thorough. It even had rooms dedicated to historic undergarments as well as to 21st century fashion (in the chapel of the former palace!).

Across the gardens of the palace was the Portugese theater museum. It was incredibly thorough and I'm sure very interesting if we read Portuguese. They had costumes, set designs, props, playbills and posters and everything else. My favorite part was a section where they had models of famous Portuguese theaters as well as earlier historic theaters.

 Next stop the National Pantheon. This was the third time we'd tried to see it, so we were pretty happy to have success. Its a very large church on top of a hill. It has tombs of famous sons and daughters buried elsewhere (like Vasco de Gama who we saw at Jeronimos) as well as many 20th century poets, singers, politicians and other national heroes who are actually buried inside. There are great views from the roof terrace - it really shows how incredibly wide the Tagus river is. The bridge you can't really make out in this picture below is 16 km long and is the longest in Europe.

The boat cruise last night was a bit of disappointment. The main concern was that there was no dinner on the 6:30 to 9:30 pm cruise, so everyone was quite hungry. Also, it was basically a ferry boat, and we had hoped for something a little fancier. Also, the Lisbon skyline is ok, but its basically the same, and we didn't really need to look at it for 3 hours. By the time we got off the boat, found dinner, and got back to the hotel, we were pretty tired.

 Saturday - Day 8

This morning we went to the conference again until lunch time. As we were tired and it was raining off and on, we decided not to try anything ambitious and just went to the Gulbekian Art Museum, which was very near the conference venue. We had heard of the museum before the trip but hadn't prioritized it, and I am so glad we went there today. Its based on the private collection of a very wealthy Armenian from Turkey who spent most of his life in Paris buying art and retired to Portugal where he left his amazing collection. It was the really nice 1960s building and integrated exhibition design that I particularly liked. It was a dark day and a dark interior with no flashes allowed, so my photo doesn't really do justice.

 We have had a wonderful time and seen so much, but are both very ready to go home tomorrow!