The Beginning of the End: Last Construction

Here we are at week 8...*le sigh*


Tuesday was my birthday and along with a wonderful googley-eye-glasses wake up from my roommate, my fellows planned an executed a surprise party for me at the Lavender Palace, complete with toilette paper streamers, balloons and impromptu dance lessons. I felt very celebrated cared for. Also last week was Thanksgiving and we asked the kitchen staff if they could cook us a turkey, then we each made our own dishes and brought them down to the dining hall for dinner. We had almost all the students, faculty, and even our favorite volunteer from the job site come to the meal. There was lots of hugging, laughing and thankfulness. With dessert (and my specialty chocolate banana cream pie), mulled wine and eggnog.
All in all it was a warm and fuzzy kind of week.


I'm sorry my friends at home, I love you, but I really don't want to leave. The project is coming together, it's at a point of completion where I want to hang out in it all the time (and so do the patients). The paving is finished, the stone walls have been finished for quite awhile now. We just put the mosaic in the water feature (and I put in an octopus, yay!)

 the dirt for the planting beds arrived and we planted the two main beds today, right now the big project is helping weld the metal pieces for the structure and putting up the columns, beams, rafters etc.

I'm enjoying watching the last major features on the site get finished, the structure and the water feature. The structure is two structures, a smaller, completely covered one on the middle level of the seating area and a very very large arbor on the upper seating area that covers the entire upper paved area. We treated all the wood with preservative this week in preparation for putting it up this weekend.

That's me with a drill - be proud Mom!

We poured the concrete footings for the structures a million years ago. Since we poured them a lot about the structures has changed because of materials, budget, comments from a structural engineer, Vesna and various other reason. But since we have these footings already we had to make them work and found a way, sometimes designing as we went. The columns were put up a few days ago, set into the post anchors (the metal cradles stuck in the concrete) made level and held in with support boards until they were bolted into place. Then with the help of ladders and scaffolding and a few strong people we put up the 6"x6" beams and sandwich beams and bolted them to the columns, then put the thinner rafters on in the other direction, then sheeting boards, then waterproofing fabric and metal sheeting.

Watching the process is really interesting. I saw four thick pieces of wood become the outline of a cube, then something more or less like a jungle gym, then obviously a structure, then a finished structure. All over the course of a couple days.

The structures look awesome, and with their profile on site it's beginning to look finished. We are still working hard but there are fewer jobs to do as one by one projects get completed. It's exciting, to watch it all come together, now just last details and cleanup type work is left (and making sure the water feature actually works. We'll see that one tomorrow.)

Next week we have the dedication, which will be some kind of ceremony involving some big-wigs from the hospital, a ribbon cutting, slide show, and maybe a performance in the site. After that we are off to Split and Zagreb for the final leg of our journey.
In two weeks I'll be on a plane home.


Caitlin's Chocolate Banana Cream Pie:

You need:
A pie plate
Cinnamon Graham Crackers,
1 1/2 sticks butter,
chocolate bars/ baker's chocolate(but with lots of powdered sugar)
bananas,
vanilla pudding, (sugar, mix, milk)
1 cup heavy whipping cream,
A few handfuls of powdered sugar
a little vanilla

- Crush graham crackers in a bowl into crumbs, - melt down the butter and add to crumbs and mix until all are coated and sticky,
-Press the crumbs/butter into the pie dish making a thin layer on the bottom and up the sides to the edge -put in freezer
-Make the pudding as directed, or if you are even more awesome and have time, from scratch.  - set aside to firm up a bit.
-Melt the chocolate with a little bit of cream and spread it onto the now firm crust
-Slice a banana and set the pieces into the chocolate
-Pour the pudding over the bananas and chocolate, smooth it out,
-Add powdered sugar, vanilla and cream and whip it! A lot! Until the "stiff peaks" form and you've got whipped cream but stop before you get butter.
-Scoop it out on top of the pudding, smooth it, make it pretty, clean the edges of the pie plate and let it set in the fridge for awhile before eating.
(you can also add more bananas to the top with drizzled chocolate on top)
-Eat your sweet banana deliciousness, sharing encouraged but not required ;)