The hills are alive...

After we returned from a few days in Minneapolis and Stevens Point, we had a chance to enjoy our Austrian Christmas celebration. On Friday, we hustled home from work to put together our meal and settle in to watch "The Sound of Music."

I had consulted a few Austrian cookbooks, but because of time -- and taste -- constraints, I opted to buy some beef tenderloin instead of trying to boil beef. Colin took charge of making the meat and it was delicious. We also enjoyed an Austrian potato and apple salad, as well as a gurkensalat (cucumber salad). For dessert, we savored some butterhornchen (Viennese butter cookies).

After dinner we were transported from Vienna to Salzberg and the world of the von Trapps. One of the reasons we picked Austria for Christmas this year was so we could watch "The Sound of Music," which Colin had never seen...and which I've seen at least two dozen times. He was surprised at how much he knew about the story -- he kept saying, "I didn't know this song was from this movie!" He also now gets why my sister-in-law, Molly, has been teasing him that she's going to make him some pajama pants out of her living room curtains. But he was a very good sport and even put up with my singing.

Here are some pictures from our night -- Fröhlich Weihnachts und Glückliches Neujahr!

(P.S. In the car last night, we were discussing possibilities for next year's holiday selection -- Colin wants to get out of Europe...we're taking any suggestions if you have them!)

Frohe Weihnachten!

That's Merry Christmas to you and me. We're well into our Austrian holiday celebration. Here's a shot of our Adventkranz, a wreath with four candles, one of which we'll light every Sunday until Christmas.

We also cheated a little bit and decorated our tree well before Christmas. In Austria, the parents decorate the tree and surprise the children with it on Christmas Eve.

We'll also be baking some hornchen cookies -- those are buttery Viennese nut crescents. Mmm...And with all the snow we've had in the last week, Madison is a regular winter wonderland, the kind we wish for every Christmas.

Christmas 2007: It's Austria

As loyal StalinBenester readers might know, we decided a year ago that every Christmas, we'll pick a different country and celebrate that nation's holiday traditions. In 2006, we chose Italy because we'd traveled there for our honeymoon that summer and wanted to remember warm, sunny walks in Positano and leisurely afternoons in Tuscany.

This year, we didn't travel much beyond Minneapolis, so there was no natural pick for us. We talked about doing something familiar, like Sweden or England; we thought about something much less conventional, like Syria or Brazil. In the end, we chose something in between and opted for Austria. (I've since realized that Austria and Switzerland are hosting the 2008 Euro Cup, so I suppose we could argue we're looking forward to that.)

This central European country's Christmas traditions mirror those of its neighbor, Germany, but it also is proud to be the home of the holiday classic, "Silent Night." There are some conflicting tales about the song's history, but by the time Christmas rolls around, we'll know the real story. In the meantime, we'll be getting ready for Santaklausen, crafting an Advent kranz (wreath) and making butterhornchen (Viennesse nut crescents.)

I also made Colin promise to watch "The Sound of Music," set in Austria (he's never seen it!) To me, that movie just feels like Christmas, probably because NBC used to show it every year over the holidays. The first year we had a VCR I taped it and watched it every day of Christmas vacation, going so far as to name my new Cabbage Patch Kid Brigitta...I think my Grandma Forster was about ready to break the tape by the end of her visit.

Fall -- all in one post

I guess we shouldn't consider ourselves bloggers with how little we post. After you see what we've done, you be the judge about whether we were busy enough to claim lack of time for regular postings.

I kicked off the fall with a trip to New York with my friend Jenny so I could visit my favorite spot, the Magnolia Bakery. Oh, and we went to see the Broadway production of "Grease!" and spent the weekend catching up with some of my friends there.

A few weeks later, we enjoyed wine, food and time with friends in Sonoma, where we rented a home for the weekend and toured wine country in a minivan.We also had a visit from my brother Sean and his wife, Molly, as well as the star of the show -- their daughter, Taylor. She loved watching football (the English kind) with her dad and Crazy Uncle Colin.

In between all that, we cooked up a storm in our new kitchen, watched football of all kinds, as well as played soccer on two teams. Colin also went to Florida for some management training now that he's the boss at his station.

Oh, and that 5% of work we still need to finish on our kitchen? We're working on it.

Our kitchen is (almost) done!

For those of you who've been following the progress of our kitchen, the latest update is that we're almost done! At this point, it's 95% complete, with just a few small details such as some new trim and baseboards that have yet to go in. After a summer of eating out, we're thrilled to have our kitchen back. (Colin cooked up a batch of white chicken chili in the crockpot today...mmm.) Thanks again to Bob and Ron who helped us by doing beautiful work on the floor, walls and just about everything else.

Here's a slideshow with some before and after shots -- it should be pretty easy to tell which is which!



In other news, we've been playing a lot of soccer this fall. It was a high scoring weekend for the StalinBenesters -- five goals in two games. On one of her goals today, Stacy broke her shoe -- fortunately one of the other team's players was willing to loan some tape so she could play the second half.

More pictures of the progress

The installers came back on Friday to finish up with the cabinets. Here's the final product!

More progress!

Today was a very exciting day in the StalinBenester household, as we not only regained use of our living room -- which had been home to boxes and boxes full of cabinets -- but the installers came to actually put them in. Wow. That's all I can say. What an amazing difference, a completely different kitchen. They still have a few doors to put on and some molding to put on the top, but it looks fantastic. They'll be back tomorrow, as will the electrician and the person to measure the countertops.
We'll post more pictures as more things get done!

Getting closer

Barring any major surprises today (I'm crossing my fingers here), our friends from Home Depot are due Thursday to install all of our cabinets, which have taken over our house. Thanks again to Bob and Ron for getting the place in shape -- they do amazing work and we are eternally grateful.

Progress, finally!

StalinBenester readers might have wondered why we haven't posted any new pictures of our kitchen project for a couple of weeks. We can tell you that until today, we hadn't made a ton of progress. The only major development was having the asbestos abatement company come out a week and a half ago to take out the old floor, and after that, Stacy's parents helped scrape off the last of the wallpaper.

However, today we took a major step forward with the help of Bob and Ron. We have a tile floor! They are in the middle of laying the tile right now and we are so happy with how it looks.



In other news, we've got some beautiful hibiscus in our front garden and we just shook some Critter Be Gone around the tomato plants in our latest attempt to keep the squirrels and chipmunks away. We hope that will do the trick!

Demolition -- The Olive Garden Day

I call today "Olive Garden Day" because of the lovely smell wafting through what was -- and what will be -- our kitchen. We learned that the only way to get off the old wallpaper was to thoroughly soak the paper and all of its under layers with our vinegar and water mixture. Colin is a wallpaper removing pro, developing his "patented spray and spread" technique that makes scraping the paper like cutting through butter. Here are a few before and after shots -- I meant to get some of the scraping action, but frankly got so caught up in the task that I forgot to take some pictures. No worry, we've still got another whole section to take off.

I also can't believe we've been an aunt and uncle for two whole weeks and we haven't blogged yet about our niece, Taylor. We spent some time in Minneapolis last weekend and got to spend some time with her and her exhausted but excited parents. You can see she's already taken with her Uncle Colin, and he's pretty taken with her.

Demolition Day #2

Thanks to Bob, we got all of the old cabinets out of the kitchen, along with the sink and dishwasher. He also gets the award for taking on the most unpleasant task of cleaning below and behind the stove. (Colin says: Yuck!) What would we do without him? And let us know if you have any restaurant recommendations or tips with cooking with a microwave and electric fry pan -- we've got limited options for the next few weeks.

We're pretty happy with the progress we've made so far and now we're on to a couple more steps in the project. Tomorrow, we'll dust off our wallpaper scrapers and get that off a couple of the walls. We also think we've settled on a tile, but we have to wait for our sample to get tested by the State Hygiene Lab to be sure there's not any asbestos under there.

On to Wednesday, Day 3!

Demolition Day No. 1

We spent a couple of days in Minneapolis getting relaxed and ready to come back to Madison to start our kitchen remodeling project. The first day was pretty major, with us losing half a wall.

Here are some before and after shots:















Next on the list are tearing out the cabinets and replacing the floor...good thing we have about two weeks to get the kitchen ready for the cabinets to be installed.

The current state of youth soccer

I started playing soccer in about 1979 when I was six years old or so. It was pretty simple -- I showed up at Flying Cloud fields for games wearing a little yellow T-shirt with my name ironed on the back.

But as I learned this weekend while working as a field marshal for the Badger State games, a lot of things have changed in the last 28 years. I snapped this picture of a team of 10-year-olds, who not only have full unform kits, but their own traveling bench of fold-up chairs. And while my elementary school games never took me beyond Flying Cloud, teams of 8-year-olds were traveling hundreds of miles and staying overnight in hotels to be part of the tournament.

What was most unbelievable were the comments hollered at the kids by coaches and parents. (And when I say "hollered," I mean literally screaming direction at the kids from the sidelines. It's amazing the kids could concentrate on the game.) It's been a while since I did any serious coaching, but I feel like I could offer a few pointers:

* Think about holding your breath. One of the most common things you'll hear coming from the sideline is the exhortation to "Boot it!" I've been playing soccer for nearly 30 years and I have no idea what that player is supposed to do, but it certainly isn't to play with any finesse or purpose. Indiscriminately yelling "Kick it!", "Get it to the net!", or "Good boot" doesn't help much. Neither does telling a young player who just had a ball kicked into his hand that he "should know better." It's soccer -- unintentional hand balls happen. And a player who drills a hard shot on goal should maybe be praised instead of immediately being told he should keep his head down next time.
* Let them play. You've probably tried to instill some skills or strategy in practice, but once it gets to game day, it's up to the kids to bring it to the field. Yelling at a player to do something and following it up with "...we practiced that!" means you haven't done your job teaching them.
* Remember they're playing soccer. Not football -- that means that coaches don't wander on to the field. Nor is it hockey -- one coach yelled at a player for not having his "line" ready to go.
* Give good direction. If you do need to scream at a player, try to give some useful advice or guidance. Yelling, "Go, Hunter, Go!" in the same breath as you yell "Stay, Hunter, Stay!" will only strain your voice.

Other developments

One of the fun things about the spring and summer has been to discover all of the plants that have popped up. The previous owner promised us the garden would flourish on its own, and it didn't disappoint. Here's a shot of the latest in the front yard.



In another exciting development, Stacy has been spending much of her weekends working in the basement, trying to make it a place we might actually spend time and not just store boxes. We think the mice have relocated, so Stacy has braved the cabinets in the laundry area and put some things away there (safely stored in Rubbermaid boxes, just in case). Once we get the kitchen remodeled, we should be able to get rid of the rest of the boxes.

Lots of work around the house

We've been working hard to finish the last bits of our move (a few months later) and get the house looking sharp. Colin has become a pro with the lawn mower and we've planted some tomatoes at the end of the backyard. We'll see if Stacy's thumb has gotten any greener. (If anyone has tips for taking care of tomatoes, please send them along!)

Musings on the Midwest

Yes, we are Midwesterners -- we had a garage sale. Here's a shot of Colin during one of the quieter moments of our two-day sale earlier this month. We really did have more activity than this! All in all, we made about $120, and most importantly, we cleared out a lot of stuff that we didn't need any more. There's still some things that didn't sell that still need to go to Goodwill. But we're getting closer and closer to being able to park in our garage.

Every part of the country must have its own version of the garage sale. In New York City, the spring cleaning staple is the stoop sale -- they're much smaller versions than we have in the Midwest, probably because the living spaces are so much smaller and simply can't hold as much stuff, and obviously people don't have garages or yards. I'm assuming the garage sale is featured in this cool Encyclopedia of the Midwest I read about a few weeks ago. I'm going to have to get a copy of this book -- I hope there's a whole chapter on Jell-O salads and funeral hotdish.

He shovels too!

Some StalinBenester readers were amused and surprised by Colin's yard work. Well, here's proof that he shovels snow from driveways, too.

Easter

Just a few pictures from the first holiday we spent in our new place -- we really enjoyed having all the Benedicts join us!





Unfortunately for Steph, her departure turned into a different kind of Easter egg hunt, as her jellybeans took a spill on our driveway. Colin thought he had picked them all up, but I found one of these plastic eggs in the snow (!) a few days later.

Here's the Proof

For all of you that thought I would never do yardwork (i.e. Mike and my Dad), here's proof that I have been raking leaves in the backyard. It was a big project. So there!!!

The big move

Thanks to our fantastic family and friends, our move went quickly and we look pretty well settled in after our first week at home.













Here's our first official gathering in our new home, as our movers enjoyed some post-work pizza and beer.

The downstairs

We had the dining room painted before we moved in (thanks, Bob & Ron!) and are already thinking about remodeling the kitchen. But we love the main living space and don't have many ideas (yet) for changing it.

Here's Colin in his favorite spot.

The upstairs

Here's a peek at our bedroom and the guest room.

Don't look in this room!

This smaller bedroom is still a work in progress.

Catching Up -- Buon Natale

Despite a new year that's well underway, I wanted to go back to to Christmas No. 4 that we celebrated when we got back to Madison. This was the start of a new tradition for the StalinBenesters -- each year, we're going to celebrate the Christmas traditions of a different country.

Because of our trip earlier this year, we started with Italia -- Buon Natale! I borrowed my mom's Swedish Christmas tree, which functioned as our ceppo, a wooden pyramid that holds ornaments, candy and fruit on its shelves. I improvised by hanging some of our favorite ornaments.



For dinner we enjoyed some ravioli over broth (the Italian way of serving it), some Italian vino and for dessert, a panforte, a really rich and chewy cake. La Befana -- the witch who brings toys to Italian children (sort of like Santa Claus) -- visited, too, when we exchanged our gifts to each other. I gave Colin a photo book from our honeymoon, and he painted some pottery cups for us to use for our holiday celebrations. He also got a bottle of really nice wine that we'll put aside for our 30th Christmas together!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa

Yesterday, I listened to Wisconsin’s Gov. Jim Doyle talk during his inaugural speech about Hank Aaron’s arrival in the state to play for the Eau Claire Braves in the early 1950s.

And immediately, my thoughts went to my Grandpa Maher’s own time with the Eau Claire Bears in 1937. He went for spring training, but didn’t stay for summer – as I’ve always heard it, he missed my grandma and Minneapolis too much, so he came home. It seems fitting that those would be the two things to draw him away from baseball, because they are inseparable from my image of him.

Today would have been his 90th birthday. I mentioned to Colin last night during dinner that I thought of my grandpa during Doyle’s speech, and he said he had the same thought.

Colin asked me how I thought my grandpa was going to celebrate his 90th birthday. By watching every great baseball game he’d ever watched? By replaying one of his own games, going four for four or five for five, and knocking in a couple of runs? By revisiting his week at Cubs fantasy camp? By kicking back with all of us and enjoying a cup of coffee and cupcake from Paradise Bakery? By splashing with Sean and me in the lake, as we did the day someone took my favorite picture of us together?

I hope whatever it is, he’s cracking a joke, smiling with that twinkle in his eye and knowing that he’s missed dearly.