a busy saturday

Saturday was a full and very busy day. First thing in the morning Howard, together with our landlords, cleaned up all the fall cuttings and hauled those away. Howard then went off to a meeting and I went up to the dorm to help the girls get ready for the Christmas banquet.

Right before the banquet was the traditional photo time and then it was off to the banquet...
...to help serve in the kitchen. It was far too busy to get a picture while we were dishing up the food, but this is what we served out 280 times! (Plus the salad on separate plates.)
I had the job of cutting all the cheesecakes. This is about half of them.

Our very efficient team.
And the elves that really did the running! Needless to say we were all bushed at the end of the clean-up.

advent season

Celebrating Advent is a very important tradition in Europe. And it's very important to have the advent wreath ready for the first Advent Sunday, a celebration of the coming of Christ, which happens to be tomorrow.

I was really on the ball this year, and it helped a lot that our tree was cut down....that story again... Howard cut me off some beautiful branches before the men came to finish the job so I had some lovely material from which to make my wreath.

Everything else for the wreath itself I gathered from the yard.

a new home

I rounded the corner and there it was...I gasped. It looked absolutely beautiful sitting there in the Blumenplatz. It does have lights so I'll have to get a picture some evening. At any rate, there it is and it almost made me feel happy...almost...

the beginning and the end

I decided that it was getting to be time to get at the Christmas decorations so I hauled out one of the boxes today and got the stairs looking festive...

A few hours later I heard a pretty major commotion outside (a chain saw will definitely cause that!) and I realized the time had come to say good bye to our lovely tree.
The men came prepared. They had obviously planned it out and they were ready.





It was a pretty simple procedure...
...but also a bit painful...at least for me.


The men were very nice and told me that the tree would be downtown in the Blumenplatz and that we could go and see it there. I thought that was kind of them.


We definitely have a better view of the street now, but I'm not sure that we really wanted that.

thanksgiving

Last Thursday was the day set aside to celebrate Thanksgiving in the dorms. Those of us who sub at Palmgarten pitched in and helped to prepare the food. My task was baking the buns. My double recipe netted us 89 lovely round buns. The convection oven played some tricks with the shape of some of them but they still tasted great!

Sanna received a care package from her sister. She was pleased!

The oven was packed full with wonderfully delicious food.

Time to dig in!

Too much to eat and subsequently, too much eaten. This is often a problem with turkey dinners!
And then there's dessert on top of that!


The big and happy family at Palmgarten.
The dorm dad introduced the girls to an interesting activity. Fill your hand with whipping cream and then flip it up and try to catch it...
...in your mouth! Seems to work!