Our Suprise Bon Voyage Party

Last weekend, Emily and family were visiting us and we'd planned to hang out with Kerstin on Saturday so Emily could meet wee Hanna and we three ladies could drink and chat while the menfolk watched one of the five million soccer championship games that takes place in May (seriously, why are there so many different ones? Is one trophy not enough??).

So you can imagine our surprise when Micha and I walked into Kerstin's backyard to see a giant tent set up...

...and all of our friends there waiting for us!

Kerstin and Emily had been planning a bon voyage party for us for months!! As you may or may not know, Micha and I will be embarking on a 7-month around-the-world trip in July (yippee!!) - and if you didn't know, surprise! - and the funny thing is, I'd been whining to Kerstin for weeks about how I wanted to plan a goodbye party for us but just couldn't get my act together enough yet to do so.

Wee best friend and I have fun together, even if our expressions tells a different story

Teaching the rugrats (Mia and Aron) how to properly smile for a picture

Aron's a pro: that's his typical picture expression - I taught him well early on!

But that's what great friends are for, right? To know what you want before you want it and to take the party planning load off your shoulders (when you've got enough packing and visa-obtaining and route planning to deal with) and give you the biggest, happiest surprise when you're least expecting it!

There were map garlands all over, a kickass map tablecloth that Emily whipped up, sweet make-your-own banners personalized just for us (Kerstin is as big a fan of Papermash as I am), and the coolest homemade sign listing some of our destinations and their distance on it planted right into the backyard (in the first picture). You bet your ass I'll be stealing and keeping that sign for years to come.

My favorite part about the party - and they really went all out - was that everybody contributed a dish from one of the countries we'll be visiting on our route! How awesome is that idea?! And how much more awesome are our friends for all playing along?

Sara and Christoph made a vegetarian dish decorated with pictures of cooked cuy

The weather was complete crap - it did not stop raining for even a second the entire day - but it happily did not matter even one little bit. Everyone stayed until the bitter end, eating, drinking, laughing, listening to us blabber about our travel plans, and, of course, playing with the adorable little ones.

Micha and his Keule | Photobombed!

Little Mara | Sara and Hanna bonded in the warm indoors

How cute (and adorably jolly) is this little nugget? (Also, please note giggly Charlie in the background)

I really can't thank Kerstin and Emily enough for giving us the perfect send-off before we leave our friends and home behind for 7 months of adventure and who-knows-what-else! Ladies, I tip my hat to you. You rock my world.

And if you want to follow our travel adventures starting in July, you can find Micha and me over here: Flip Flops and Wanderschuhe, where we'll be sharing our adventures as much as we possibly can on the road. All the details about our trip can be found there, too (soon enough :)! 

Our Long Weekend with Liz!

So, I'm finally over the flu (yay!), our visitor has left us (boooo!), and I at long last have a free minute away from my Half-Year of Improvement (Spanish class being my newest evening endeavor) to blog again. Yippee!

Liz arrived here - on her way to Rome - on Friday and in a very happy turn of events, brought the sunshine with her (thanks again, lady!). She was only staying for a short four days, so we had precious little time to pack in lots of fun and shenanigans.

The theme of the weekend turned out to be sunshine and microbreweries, though of the second we have few pictures. On Friday, we headed first to an Eisbären game - she also brought hockey luck to them! which promptly disappeared once she left... - then to Hops & Barley in Friedrichshain for some beers with friends.

After a leisurely breakfast on Saturday morning, we headed to our neighborhood weekly market for some of their gorgeous flowers (tulips and ranunculus, but of course) and then to the bigger farmer's market at Kollwitzplatz to bask in the newly arrived sunshine (seriously, it hadn't come out in months before this).

Who doesn't have Lust auf Käse (desire for cheese) at all times? | A wannabe Gulaschkanone 

It's never too late in the season for Glühwein

Heheheheh, that yarn name still makes me giggle...

Later that day, we'd invited some folks over for the very first beer tasting of Micha's home-brewed beer, an American-style I.P.A. I may be biased, but it was damn fantastic! And not just for a first beer, for any! I'm a big fan of this new hobby of his...

Market treats and homemade beer, yummmmm

No beer tasting would be complete without a set of absolutely ridiculous, mustachioed beer googles

For some reason, pretending to give babies beer

 never gets old 

...

Liz and Hanna bonded over the wee one's love of spoons | Liz and I channeled our inner 11-year-olds with Tattly BFF tattoos

We also made our way later that night to our second microbrewery of the weekend in Wedding and yet still managed to make our 11am brunch reservations the next day at Cafe Schönbrunn. Food is clearly our priority. 

Hanna subtitle 1: "Life is so hard! Who are you and what am I doing here?!?"

Hanna subtitle 2 (one minute later): "Oh, hey dad. What's up? Life is good. Elmo is awesome."

We ladies went on a sun-riddled stroll over to Mauerpark - with an obligatory prosecco stop, of course - while the menfolk either cheered on the Eisbären again or took care of baby to let momma off the hook for an afternoon (good man!).

That night, we brought Liz to her third and final microbrewery of the trip, where we also met up with an old university friend of Micha's, Glen, who Liz met when she first visited me here 5 years ago and whom her friend called Conan for the entire night. Apparently, he looked like Conan O'Brien to her (he really kind of does) and one year later, when Liz was back, we randomly saw him on the street and he actually answered to her shout of "Conan! Hi!" So now, to him she's the random American who very frequently just shows up in Berlin and calls him Conan and to me, he's the guy that's not actually named Conan but then what actually is his real name...

I merrily took Monday off to play one extra day with Liz, which we kicked off by heading to the least exciting place on earth, the Ausländerbehörde (Foreigner's Office) to renew my visa. While it didn't go as hoped - I didn't get the permanent one, just a two-year extension, darnit! - it did end up resulting in Hanna finding her new, most favorite and delicious toy: my expired passport. Which is now covered in baby drool and I don't even mind a bit.

Our very first Hanna-and-her-favorite-auntie self portrait | A comfy lap and a yummy toy equals a happy baby

We wrapped things up with tea and oh-so-decadent cake at the adorable Princess Cheesecake in Mitte (the name was obviously very fitting for us), then whipped up some red-wine-and-leek risotto (it's good to have a foodie friend) for dinner and just like that, the weekend had to end.

I'm really lucky that Liz visits so much, I have to say. Once you live in a place long enough, you stop getting frequent visitors as the newness wears off, but she makes it out here about once a year on average and I really really really really really am so thankful that she does. As Harriet the Spy once said, "good friends are one of life's blessings. Don't give them up without a fight."

Kerstin's Baby Shower

So let's return to Kerstin's baby shower today, because I have so many (maybe too many) fun pictures to share from it!

I tried, this time around, to limit the amount of crafty projects I would work on for the shower because, well, I always overextend myself with projects and that combined with the fact that I usually procrastinate everything until the last minute equals bad news. So early on I decided that I was going to decorate with a bajillion balloons (I literally ordered 250 but Micha talked some sense into me and we ended up hanging up less than half of that. Which is still over 100 balloons.) and colorful goodies from Papermash, my go-to party supply source (they have a great selection, great prices, and ridiculously fast shipping within Europe!).

Because I really really really wanted to buy these make-your-won banners, I let the included colors decide my color scheme, which had originally been ombré pink (glad I didn't stick with just that). So springy pink, blue, green, and yellow it was.

Drinks included Sekt with elderflower syrup and mint and spiked raspberry lemonade, with alcohol-free versions of each well

My favorite moment of the whole day was when Kerstin first walked in to our giant surprise room full of girls. Her husband, Hendryk, and I had schemed to get her to our place by inviting the two of them over to grill on the balcony on that lovely Sunday. We were both embarassingly nervous that she would catch on and totally jittery that whole morning (silly, right?). Once they arrived, Micha was still there and while the men chatted in the kitchen, I managed (with shaky hands) to casually guide Kerstin over to our living room where everyone was hiding behind the closed door. And when it opened, they all blew/threw streamers and should "Überasschung" at her! Thankfully for us, Micha rushed right in to capture the great moment.

Happy, teary hugs all around

I asked Kerstin a few days later what she thought about the surprise and if she had even been surprised and, happily, she responded that, yup, she 100% was and hadn't had a clue that we'd been planning this for over two months. (Go us!) Then I asked her what she'd thought when she arrived at our apartment and she said, "well, I thought it was weird that all the doors were closed, but you know, it happens. And then I saw the balloons" (there's a little window in our living room door that I'd completely forgotten about!) "but I just figured, 'oh, it's Nicole. That's not that strange for her.'" (She knows me well...)

Bump silhouette (like how she unknowingly matched her dress to the decor?)

I did myself a favor and made food and drinks somewhat simple for this party by getting a lot of help from the other girls and by not attempting any ridiculously elaborate recipes, as I'm wont to do. (I'd plotted and plotted how I could whip up an ombré pink cake in time but in the end, let Janett and her sister, who graciously volunteered, do the cake and focused my attention instead on balloons and cocktails. They are now my specialties. I should totally add that to my resumé.)

 I'm still bitter at those peonies on the right that didn't open...

 

Conny, Kerstin's sister, worked for at least an hour on that fruit platter, bless her heart

You like how I also managed to plant myself DIRECTLY next to the bar cart? Yeah, my glass wasn't empty once.

Other than eating and drinking, we also had a few activities planned, which we just kind of started whenever it felt like the conversation came to a lull. Which wasn't very often, cuz these girls are fun.

Instead of decorating onesies - which Janett, as a mother of two wee ones, didn't really like the idea of (onesies just get dirty and moms usually have too many of them anyways, she wisely pointed out) - we decorated two cute stuffed animals, a wiener dog and an owl (which I found at Idee, because I basically lived at that store for the three weeks leading up to the shower). Baby sure was lucky to have such a creative group of girlies making these adorable toys for her. I can't wait to hear which one ends up her favorite. (I hope the wiener dog because he's my favorite. Though mullet owl is pretty sweet too...)

Deep in wiener-dog-and-owl-decorating concentration

The near finished product!

We also ended up blindfolding poor Kerstin twice - she's such a trooper. The first time, she had to take a baby product in her hand and guess what it was, which she was insanely good it. This included things such as nursing pads, changing table pads, sippy cups, q-tips, you name it. The lucky momma-to-be then got to keep everything she guessed right, which was, in fact, everything! If that's not prepared, then I don't know what is...

And for the final game, Hendryk ended up getting back earlier than expected (with Micha, who nearly fell asleep instead of joining in on the fun :), so we made him get in on the blindfold-action too. Then the lucky soon-to-be parents got to taste four different kinds of oh-so-delicious baby food and guess what the flavors were.

 They have no idea what (not-at-all) deliciousness they're in for...

 

Such troopers!

Their fave? Apple peach. Their least fave? Parsnip. Which they almost couldn't even choke down it was that nasty.

So that's it! I had a grand time and am eager to see who I'll get to plan a baby shower for next...though in the meantime, I totally can't wait for Kerstin's little munchkin to arrive so soon! Eek! Gotta get to work on my favorite auntie bribes for babies...