The Animal

How is everybody doing? Hope well! We had a nice holiday season and enjoyed our time together.

My other blog is down - I did something horrible while updating the software (I deleted an important part by accident) and now it is gone. Cross your fingers that L. will be able to restore it. In the meantime I will take care of our neclected blog here. Here is a video I took of Niles- I made some fun about him ;-)

Sadly enough Joe and Shelly left yesterday. It was a great time - we had a lot of fun - too bad though that both of them got sick. We hope they still enjoyed the trip and will come back. We miss our friends here!

Here are some photos - sorry Karen - yep - we did some things equal to what we did with you guys- this doesn't mean you aren't special - LOL - all our friends are special :-)

Stade - Church


In the center of Stade - canal



Speicherstadt Hamburg- after we went to Dialogue in the Dark



Joe making Käsespätzle



Shelly making Gravy on Turkey Day



Our yummie 11 pound turkey- brined and stuffed



At the market underneath the subway (which goes upway there - LOL)



And how cool are wii??? We got a wii from Joe and Shelly- so much fun!



Hamburg Carnval - Jim and Shell are in the second waggon while Joe and I are waiting (we know what is good for us :-) )



Some fun Graffity photo shoots





Doing the Narwhal right now ;-)

Some Hamburg Impressions

Had a great day with Circe - we acted like tourists and went with a boat to Ballinstadt- a museum dedicated to the emmigrants who started from Hamburg mostly to the United States. It was very interesting though the Museum needs some improvements. We were really lucky as the sun was shining!

Here are some photos from the harbour




No Human Being is illegal









ahhh - I love Hamburg!

Halloween makes it tour to Germany

Unbelievable - ten years ago Germany would only know about Halloween from certain American movies or some student exchanges - now it is fully arrived here. Well at least in the shops. Halloween decoration everywhere. The households are rarely decorated and only a handful little kids is ringing bells and asking with shreeky voices for some candy. I spied some shaving cream on some windows here and there- but all quite low. So it seems it is more a marketing from the shops.

But...of course we had a pumpkin as usual - althoug it was pretty hard to find a good one this year.


Other than that we can't wait to see Joe and Shelly who will come for a visit in two weeks!

Adulthood Piece of Furniture

Presenting...the new sofa....:-)
This saturday we finally bit the bullet. Got Christian's car, carried down Niles little second litter box, the old sofa from Jim's room (yep- mind you six floors), drove to the recycling place and watched the sofa being crashed by a huge sofa eater (no kidding).
We made it to IKEA with our plan to order the new sofa which was marked as not being available at the moment and got surprised by the fact that it was indeed available and ready to take with us. Mhhhh - alright - we payed and had several attempts to get those three huge packages into the car. It was like playing Tetris - with real people around giving unwanted advices and loosing about three lifes trying to get the stuff into the car. We made it:


























The seats far in front and our noses on the windshield we drove very slowly home- I think Jim had a quite uncomfortable position- hahahha


We had quite fun getting these packages upstairs- with a little help by a neighbor - and managed to put the sofa together in a couple of hours - We love it. We do tell us about every other half hour how cool we are and how cool this sofa is ;-)



How cool are we? LOL.

Alright, Alright!

I had to promise Bill to post a new photo - as he get's scrared by Jim's photo - LOL. I believe Bill is the only one still reading our blog - everybody else gave up - so I will once again try to update regularly and send out an email ;-)

So - first of all - Jim's book is finished - we are very happy about it!!!! It was a very hard time for him - and a little bit for me :-) I'm still in awe and proud of him how he managed to write this book every evening after a stressful fulltime job and on the weekends - yet remaining a patient and wonderful husband - I'm a very happy person ! (gotta sneak this post otherwise he will rub this under my nose for the next years. "And who is a very patiend and wonderful husband????"

One of the well deserved treats Jim got himself for this is this beautiful contrabass - he plays a lot and I love it. The band renamed themselfes into "Helmut and the Lampshades" - anyone get's the reference? Helmut and the lampshades played at Endric's (saxophonist) wedding and everybody liked them a lot. Jim did an awesome job on transforming some Neil Young Songs into Jazz songs. There is even a singer there now - Louise - and she adds beautifully to the band. They will have another gig in November - I'll keep you posted ;-)

Other than that Jim has to travel a lot in the past months - a couple weeks ago he even went to Barcelona -he hadn't had too much time to check out the city but from what he saw - we gotta go there soon!!!!

I had a big workshop weekend two weeks ago which I organized with four other friends. It was a great success and it was a lot of fun - althoug also a lot of work.

My new job is fun - I like it a lot. Scrapbooking Related I do have a lot of fun but nowadays work too. I'm on a Designteam for the first German Scrapbookmagazine, writing articles and doing layouts for the. I'm also on a designteam for an American Kit Club- Scrapmuse - which sends me a wonderful package each month to work with and this month I'm also a guest designer for a paper manufacturer in the US. Not to bragg to much - but I have fun with this and getting published makes it even more fun. In February I will be a featured artist in a big American Magazine (Somerset Memories) for Mixed Media and Scrapbooking. So - you see- this adds to my job and I like it!

Last week we had a week vacation - we stayed it home which was a very very good idea. We finally added some paint to two of our walls- one in the livingroom and one in the bed room. The color is not easy to describe- kind of like a sand tone with some green in it.


And Niles....? Well....he is doing good - I guess he wishes the boxes the Scrapstuff comes in would be bigger :-)

Alrighty- leave a comment- that adds to the fun of blogging and updating regularly ;-) I promise I will try to update at least once a week ;-)

Square is the new Circle

Some of you tried to reach Jim for his birthday but we had been on a trip to Paris - and that was an awesome idea to celebrate his birthday!

I share some photos with you - but first look at this crazy guy - LOL - do you realize the difference?

Friday afternoon we spent at the Louvre - absolutley mind blowing!


from the inside through the pyramide.


La Venus da Milo


More Art


We spent the evening with a nice collegue of Jim and had several french beers. Saturday we went to Rue Mouffetard to the market, had breakfast and walked the whole day around.

Notre Dame
Picnic at the Seine with fresh baguette, mimolette and patè

Sacre Couer

Street performances everywhere- here Breakdance

We had an unbelievable dinner at Graind d'orge which we found via MartinT. Secret place ;-) you gotta be nice if you want to know where it is. Besides the the art of cuisine the interior and the restaurant itself in art decò was just eyecandy!

Today we went to the museum of decorations and pretty much after this I had to leave for the airport.
It was a great trip!