Home Sweet Home

Well, we've been here almost 3 months now...it might be more "home sweet home" if we had all of our stuff...but we are still waiting for most of it.  The good news is that we just found out it's coming on the 27th or 28th!  And our air shipment came last a few weeks ago, which was mostly full of toys, some linens, kitchen items and winter clothing.  We had a 1000 lb weight limit and came in at around 950 lbs.  Not bad considering we had no idea what we were doing back in September when we were trying to divvy up piles. Oh, and we also got our SUV last week!  I am starting to feel complete.  I actually started writing this post in November and kept getting sidetracked...I'm almost to the point now where I could have just waited until we had all of our stuff to show you, but eh, whatever.  I can check off this box now.
So, our house will hopefully look a little less sterile in a few weeks, but until then, here is a look at where we are living.

The outside - we live on a corner.  The street in front of the house is quite busy.  Fortunately we have a gate that surrounds the entire property.

This is what you see when you walk through the front door (ok, so maybe not the most awe-inspiring photo to start with...).  This is the main floor - the kitchen and living room are through the doorway to the right.  On the left, there is the office, a bathroom and the playroom.

 

Here is our living room.  We are anxious to get our own couches and our big tv.  For as big of a house this is, it's design is lacking.  The main living space (living room/dining/kitchen) is quite cramped.  That is a wood burning fireplace you see.  And the white walls carry throughout the entire house.  We're anxious to get some things hung up on the walls, though we won't be able to do it ourselves.  The walls are all cement, so we need to submit a work order into the Embassy to do the job.  This gives my indecisive self a small anxiety attack...but I'm going to have to march on.

So here's the kitchen and dining area.  The overhead lighting is, um, interesting.  And there's a 2nd oven floating in space.  See it there to the right of the window?  It would be nice to have a 2nd oven, if I could actually reach it and not sustain 3rd degree burns by trying to pull scalding bakeware out from over my head.  Ah well, so a decorative piece it will have to be.  We do have a "normal" size fridge, along with a separate wine fridge and beer fridge.  We can barely fit the family at the dining room table.  This house is not good for entertaining.  Which gives us a good excuse, I guess, not to do it.

On the opposite side of the house is the office, a bathroom and the playroom.  I have a wonderful view of the hillside from my office...as well as a convenient way to spy on my Zagrebian neighbors who are always walking by.

Ava has taken over this desk that was left for us and made it into her own little art station.  She has been busily producing works of art and decorating the walls with them.  There is a book series that she loves to get from the school library called The Rainbow Fairies.  I don't know, there must be about 87 fairies (Even a Seal fairy.  Yeah, I don't really get it either, especially since it's part of the "Pet Fairy" subseries.  Who has a seal for a pet?) and she has drawn about 73 of them.



The upstairs has 3 bedrooms and a bath. 

Here is our master.  I will be so happy when our bed comes.  (Disclaimor: Guests - you'll be fine.  This is a fine bed for a week...but it certainly was not made to comfort anyone for longer than that)

Ava's room - Bedding is from, where else, Target.  The door on the right opens up to a balcony which she and Reese share.

Reese's room - Her balcony door is on the left forefront.  Again, bedding from Target.

And, finally the basement.  What may be lacking in bedtime comfort is made up for in the bathroom.  Am I right?  Have you ever seen anything so um, pink?  And industrial?  And large?

And the spare room - I promise it will be a little more spruced up for our guests!  The bed that's in there now will get moved out and the one we are using upstairs will go down here.  There's another room downstairs that we are going to use as a tv room.  It doesn't really have anything in there right now, so I'm not going to attach a picture of an empty room.

 

There you have it!

Few dull moments

This has been a busy, busy week for the social calendar...which was generally not the case back in Minnesota.  :-)

A Christmas party for the kids was originally scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 8th at the Ambassador's House.  But we got about 12 inches of snow that day, so it was canceled.  We managed to still have a good time playing outside in the snow that day and in the evening we trekked down the (unplowed) hill to Kim and Rob's house for some chili and mulled wine (which is really the best thing ever - they even sell it outside on the square...there are so many good things about Zagreb!).  Kim and I watched a movie while the kids played and the guys drank beer.  We trudged back up the hill around 9:30, and then Scot went back down to watch the Army-Navy football game with Rob. 

Anyway, so the Christmas party was rescheduled for Monday evening.  It was a really nice event and Santa showed up with labeled gifts for all the kids!  And I finally met the current US Ambassador (Ken Mertens) - he actually just started in October and was previously the US Ambassador in Haiti (notably during the earthquake).  In the living area, there are framed pictures of him and his family with George Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary, the Obamas, the Carters, etc....so kind of an important guy.  ;-)  So, it was especially awesome that my first interaction with him was less than inspiring.  I had taken Ava to the bathroom and was waiting outside the door for her.  She finished up and then she couldn't unlock the door.  Couldn't get it open.  And was starting to get frantic.  So I was trying to talk through the bathroom door to help her.  "Just turn the lock to the right..."  Then I started getting more flustered as she continued to struggle.  Scot came over.  And then I could see that the Ambassador was just around the corner checking his cell phone.  He asked if everything was ok.  Sigh...yes, except for my 7 year old locking herself in the bathroom.   A little bit later, Scot officially introduced me to Ken and he asked me if we had everybody accounted for.  Yep. 

On Tuesday, Reese and I went to the mall in the afternoon and I searched frantically for a dress for Wednesday night.  I didn't just figuratively have anyhing to wear...I literally had nothing to wear. Have I mentioned that the malls here have free babysitting up to 2 hours?  Jackpot.  In the evening, I sat in on my first school board meeting.

Wednesday came.  In the afternoon, Reese and I went to Ava's Christmas Sing a Long and then later in the evening we had a party (grownups only) at Colonel Carlson's house.  Colonel Carlson is Army and is Scot's boss's boss.  He and his wife Christine are extremely nice and down to earth - he will be retiring in the spring and they'll be moving back to their home in Virginia.  It was a fun party - probably about 50 people were there (mostly with some kind of US or Croatian military connection), it was catered and they had a bar with waitstaff. 

And then last night we were back at their house again for another Christmas party, this time it was much more casual.  It was just the military people from the Embassy (13 people including spouses).  Christine made chicken curry, which was awesome, and we had a great time visiting and drinking and eating.  We also did a White Elephant gift exchange at the end of the night.  It was a really fun time!  Also glad I found such a great babysitter, we're getting a lot of use out of her.

Today we have 2 school parties - Reese's school (she started last week!) is having a Christmas program.  All I know is she is going to be "Blitzen" and has 2 lines, which I have no doubt, she will not say :-)  We shall see..they are also having a potluck and we were asked to bring a dish that is special to our country.  This was especially challenging, given that so many American ingredients are just not here.  I finally decided to make "Cowboy Caviar", served with tortilla chips.  I could get everything but the celery.  Well, and I'm not really sure about the various beans/corn, but it's close enough.  Then, Ava's class is having a party this morning as well.  Scot is taking the day off and we'll divide and conquer. 

Tonight Scot and I are going to go out downtown by ourselves.  I'm not sure that we need another night out this week, but Reese's school is having a "Pajama Night" so we will drop the girls off from 4:30 - 9:00 and enjoy a quiet dinner and the Christmas market.  They have all sorts of fun stuff planned at the school- the girls are excited!

On Saturday, I think I will take a nap. :-)

Christmas in Vienna

We are going to travel to Vienna, Austria next weekend for an early Christmas getaway.  Vienna is about a 4 hour drive from Zagreb.  We are going to stay here:
http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/austria/hilton-vienna-danube-VIEHAHI/index.html

Can't wait!

Sretan Bozic!

Sretan Bozic = Merry Christmas (pronounced Sray-ton Bozh-each)

Ava's school had their Christmas sing a long program this afternoon.  It was wonderful.  It reminded me a lot of the Christmas program scene in Love Actually, which is one of my favorite movies.

Ava's school only has about 250 kids in grades K-12 and everyone participated in the concert.  Each of the lower elementary grades sang a song and then were several other combined performances.  Ava ended up singing 3 songs:
1) The 2 first grade classes combined to sing "Dreidel, Dreidel" (a Hanukah song) in English
2) Kids in Croatian Culture (grades 1-4) combined to sing a Croatian Christmas song, in Croatian
3) All students taking French (grades 1-12) sang a French Christmas song, in French

Two other songs were sung in German and Spanish, among several more in English.

I just love the school community here, seeing all those kids performing together in 90 minutes was really heartwarming, so much more intimate than what we have back at home.

In other school related news, I was appointed to be a member of the school board during our stay here!  They asked for volunteers about a month ago, so I submitted my name, credentials and my hopes for the position.  In the end, I was selected by the school board and the Ambassador (and well, there were only 3 "competitors")...but I'm looking forward to being more involved in the school community.  I went to my first board meeting last night and will become a voting member in March.

St. Nicholas Came!

St. Nicholas comes on December 5th in Croatia (and many other parts of the world)...it wasn't a tradition I was completely familiar with.  But Ava came home from school overjoyed with the prospect of another occasion to receive a few gifts.  St. Nicholas even made an appearance in her classroom yesterday!  She also got to hear the story of Kraumpus, who is St. Nick's "evil" counterpart.  Either Ava and Reese will get some goodies for being "nice", or a stick/coal for being "naughty". 

So, I was out of the house at my wine drinking/painting class from about 7-10 pm and didn't get the complete scoop about what was supposed to happen overnight. So when I got home I asked Scot, "Now what are we supposed to do?"  Put the toys in their boots.  "Are they supposed to be by the chimney?  Somewhere else?"  Not sure.  We didn't know.  I suppose I could have spent more time being a good mom and less time drinking wine last night...but eh, it was more fun the way I did it.  We improvised. We put their boots by the front door and they each got an orange and a fairy doll.  Luckily, I had a few on hand that I was planning on using as stocking stuffers.

When I came downstairs this morning, I was expecting to be met with squeals of delight.  Instead, I got glum looks.  Ava pronounced, "St. Nicholas didn't come."  Huh?  I looked at the boots neatly aligned near the front door with the presents still in them.  Ava said, "The boots aren't on the windowsill, that's where they are supposed to be."   Again, information I would have had if I hadn't been out drinking wine and painting.  Scot jumped in with, "Well, did you put your boots on the windowsill?"  Ava: "No."  Me:  "Well, maybe you should look around the house and see if St. Nicholas found your boots." 

They found the boots and the oranges and the fairies and were bright-eyed with excitement at the magic of St. Nicholas.  Oh, how I will miss this innocence and faith some day.  Sretan Bozic!