‘Twas a wet one today…which was good for the plants, and for us since we are not made of sugar and, therefore, cannot melt :)
I woke up around 8:30 this morning and then spent about 45 minutes working on getting Brandon up. He was awake most of that time. He even sang me “Happy Birthday” when he first opened his eyes. However, as has been the main issue for both of us, he was extremely comfy, so he didn’t feel like moving and grooving right away. But alas, I persisted, and we both got ourselves together and headed upstairs for breakfast, I was greeted with an exuberant “Happy Birthday!,” and a hug from Alina. Peter also came downstairs and wished me a happy birthday. My Alina-made cake was on the table waiting for me, too! We had some for breakfast, and it was an absolutely phenomenal decision! The cake looked like your “standard” chocolate cake, but it contained a special ingredient…red beets! Not only, then, was it delicious, but somewhat healthy too! It also had a cherry jam within the chocolate frosting on top. Seriously, it was such a great cake! I am an extremely fortunate lady :) Not only, though, did I get a delicious homemade cake, but a gift from Alina and Peter…a cheese slicer! I told them I had been talking with Brandon about getting one when we went back to the States, but now I have one! We will slice and eat SO MUCH CHEESE :D We hung out at the house for a little while as Alicia had a short day at school (it was the last day before break). We wanted to offer her some cake and see how her last day went. She came home just before 11 with an excellent report card and got a gift of her own for being such a good student this year: a new card binder for her Pokémon cards! She did not want any cake in the moment, so we let her know she was welcome to some and then headed out for the day. Our destination was Essen for some shopping and a movie. It was raining pretty hard while we walked to the S-bahn, but we managed. It was about a 20 minute ride to the main station, and then we caught our first ride on the U-bahn (subway) to the Limbecker Platz. It was a three-floor circle-shaped mall. They had some pretty cool stores, including one called Karstadt that reminded me a lot of a Boscov’s or JC Penney, but BIGGER. We had some Chinese food for lunch, and it was excellent! We also went to Saturn (Best Buy equivalent). We had about 3.5 hours to wander and the mall took about 1.5 of that. So, we ventured outside, where it had stopped raining, and found ourselves the IKEA! IKEA was not much different than the ones we have in the states. But, I do love to walk around them and get ideas for (hopefully) our future house. They had Frozen playing (in German) in a little viewing room near the entrance when we got there. We found a number of items that we are going to consider when we’ve got more room for them, including some closets and kitchen shelving. We ate at the restaurant in IKEA, which was incredibly extensive. I was not super hungry, so I got a strawberry shortcake-like dessert. Brandon got some meatballs and fries, and a chocolate mousse. It was all very good! After IKEA, we headed to the movie theater around the corner. We had gotten tickets to see Jurassic World: Dominion in English. We were two of about 7 or 8 people in the whole theater for it, which was nice :) The movie itself was okay. As a person who generally just watches movies without giving them too much thought, it kept me engaged for the most part. However, as a person married to another person whose background is filmmaking and being critical of movies, I give it a solid 6/10. I appreciate that I now give a little more thought to movies than I once did. For example, I felt like the start of the movie introduced a lot of different elements all at once. They got fleshed out for the most part throughout the course of the film, but there just seemed to be a lot happening too soon, for lack of better words. But, I digress… After the movie, we headed back to Hattingen. Alina, Peter, and Alicia were hanging out on the couch when we got to the house. Alicia was working to finish the ocean life puzzle we had started over a week ago. I sat down to help her finish it, and we did it! Finally! We talked with Alina and Peter a bit about some potential plans for the upcoming weeks and then headed to bed. Tomorrow, it’s better weather and some fun plans with the neighbors to be had. Until then, just a few photos today! Plus, a little clip of German Frozen :D
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