Happy Father’s Day to my dad who is celebrating in Virginia today!  Looking forward to spending time with my dad in less than 3 weeks!  I am hoping he gets to teach our boys how to fish! Fun times to come.

This morning poor Seth’s Father’s day started WAY too early. As in 4:45 AM too early. Our youngest is giving us yet another run for our money on sleep. He did not spare Seth the agony on Father’s Day! Seth’s fathering skills are being put to the test in these days of transition with our boys. I can attest to his loving patience with them. Seth doesn’t hesitate to jump in with our boys and gives them 100% of his energy when he is with them!  You are a wonderful daddy, Seth!

We spent the morning and early afternoon taking a hike with friends and roasting hotdogs over a fire for lunch. It was so nice to get out and have some fresh air!  The visibility wasn’t great for the mountains but the view of the valleys and rolling hills was gorgeous!

{Just so you know how very tired we are Seth told me this morning that he grabbed the matches, by that he literally grabbed a few matches WITHOUT the box. So, we scrounged for a few minutes and eventually found a lady who happened to have a book of matches on her. Whew. Disaster averted. Yesterday I found the sunscreen in the fridge}

Going to miss the beautiful scenery and our dear friends!

You probably think this is going to be a deep post on thankfulness for neighbors. Sorry to disappoint! It is actually about the freebies we have gotten from our neighbors. It is common in the Spring for people to get rid of things and to put them out on the curb. They don’t really do garage sales as we all learned and most don’t have big cars to drive stuff away to donation locations so they often put things out for people to take.

Last year we scored this guy below. It is an old free standing kitchen cabinet with a counter top.  At the time I was in need of a higher changing table for Owen. We were using a dresser and not only was it getting scratched but it was breaking our backs. So I painted it a cheerful blue and made it nice and distressed and we have been using it ever since.   It is perfect because the counter top can just be wiped off and sanitized unlike the dresser.  I am thinking it may go in the laundry room of the new house or I may be on the hunt for a butcher block to replace the top and some fresh paint so I can use it in the kitchen as an island (shhh, Seth doesn’t need to hear all of my ideas just yet).

A couple of months ago I spotted this armoire up the hill on our neighbors sidewalk with a big old “gratis” sign. Seth wasn’t too thrilled because it is huge and required help but I think he is learning that my freebies are often worth it!

I actually didn’t mind the green but it needed to be freshened up. I couldn’t decide where to use it but then decided with the boys sharing a room that they could use some storage space for books, toys, etc.  So, we, I mean Seth, sanded it, removed the doors and the hanging rod and added shelves to maximize the storage. We painted it a bright barn red on the outside and refreshed the cream on the inside. I cut up maps of the places we have lived and pressed them into the back boards with mod podge. We love how it turned out! Here is a picture of it without the shelving.

(the map panels are of Bogota, Virginia, Texas and Bern. I think this piece will be a fun memory  with the maps as well as really practical!  It will house the boys toys in their *maybe* share room)

We also scored a coffee table but I forgot to snag a picture before it got packed!

In a place where things cost WAY TOO MUCH we have been so thankful to score some things for free! Thanks, neighbors!   And thanks Seth for humoring me with my freebie projects!

But for a real neighbor thank you, thank you to the neighbor that planted the poppies down the road, we have been enjoying them so much! I had to include this picture for my sister-in-law Claire! I know she loves poppies!

SO all week I waffled about if this Saturday was the day to pick strawberries. We had a group that wanted to go together, the weather was iffy and I drove by and saw that lots of the strawberries were still green. So by this morning I decided with a friend that we would pop over (it’s less than 10 mins from us) and pick a few and return with the group next week when the weather and fields were more promising. I am glad I didn’t take everyone along because the berries weren’t in their prime but I got a big bowl for the weekend and will head back.

I promised you this recipe from my friends mom, Theres! Thanks for the recipe, Theres!….

Theres’ Strawberry-Rhubarb Dessert

serves 6-8 people
750g strawberries
750g rhubarb
Einback (a very fluffy white bread, similar to Zopf) or Zopf (something like challah)
250g low fat quark (what is quark in English? it’s similar to joghurt, but firm, like a fresh cheese…)
500g semi fat quark
butter
sugar
syrup

Wash and slice the strawberries. Put them in a bowl and marinade in syrup for 30 min (Holundersyrup tastes best, but any berry or fruit syrup will do).

Wash rhubarb and cut in 1cm pieces. Add sugar and cook in the microwave until it’s soft (10 min at full power. Instead of microwaving, you can cook the rhubarb in a pan. In that case add some water.

Slice the Einback oder Zopf (challah white bread) in 1 cm slices, enough to cover the bottom of your serving dish. Butter them, add some sugar and toast in the oven until they are light golden.

Mix both quarks, add sugar to taste.

Pour strawberries and if necessary rhubarb in a sieve/strainer
Lay the toasts in the dish, cover with a layer of rhubarb. Add a layer of quark and put strawberries on top.
Enjoy!
T.

I realized that really we don’t have anything comparable to quark in the US. You can use cream cheese  whipped with sour cream and sugar I bet to get something similar.

Here are some other strawberry recipes!

*Last year we made strawberry bread…like banana bread but with strawberries!   Here is the recipe we used last year.

*In Barcelona we went to the Hard Rock cafe because you know every American abroad needs a decent burger every once in a while….the point of mentioning this useless information is that I ordered a strawberry basil lemonade and it was amazing!  This Strawberry Basil Lemonade recipe isn’t from hard rock cafe but I bet it’s similar.

*This year I plan to work our way through some of Southern Livings suggestions for strawberries that came in the April edition. Here is the link for them online if you aren’t a regular with them!  We will for sure be trying the chicken salad with strawberries, strawberry hand pies and some of the other salads!

*and of  course you can make jam! I learned last year from a friend how to can jam and also made a batch of freezer jam. If you haven’t tried freezer jam give it a go! It isn’t too tricky and you will feel oh so domestic each time you pull out a fresh jar of homemade strawberry jam.

Well we survived day 1 of our packout. For those of you that aren’t in the Foreign Service and don’t have a need for a special name for everything that just means the movers are here. Our stuff is divided into surface shipment (will take the slow boat across the ocean and will arrive in 6-8 weeks), a small air shipment of necessities that will be shipped a few days before we leave and will arrive 2 weeks after we arrive and then our suitcases that will travel with us. Follow that? I know it’s very complicated.

Before we jump in, here are the hooligans yesterday as I wrapped everything up on the prep!

This is our 5th time in 5 1/2 years in the foreign service to “packout” and I have to say I think we finally have the hang of it. We felt really good going in to today and that is a first! My goal was to have everything sorted and organized in such a way that unpacking will be easy easier.  That part is yet to be seen but so far it did help the packing to click along.  The packers plan on being here through Thursday which sounds like a crazy amount of time!  They are doing such a meticulous job that I think each wine glass practically has a box of it’s own.

The boys spent the day between school and friends and our friend Daniela brought us a delicious dinner! She even brought flowers to brighten our now very white home! After dinner the boys enjoyed racing around the big empty spaces and between boxes!

The boys are peacefully sleeping and we are finishing the day with a strawberry mojito and an episode of Hoarders (this is to make us feel better about all of our stuff).