More X-Mas photos

And here are a few more great pictures taken by Helga.

Hohoho!

Coffee and cake from Pix Patisserie (yum!),

fondue 

and presents under the tree!

Merry Christmas!

Helga & Wolfgang     Jule, Juri & Soso     Michaela & Jan

Christmas tree!

Yesterday we drove to the place where we picked our tree last year and found a really nice one. They are extremely cheap ($15!) and the tree looks awesome. While choosing the perfect tree we also ran into the owner's cat - oh my, what a fat cat (think ~3-4 Abbys!!!). Poor thing.

Anyways, we found a really nice looking tree. But upon arriving at home we discovered that it was unfortunately the home of several spiders and bugs and other small crawly things (Yikes!). Well, we left it in the garage over night, gave it several really good shakes and checked it over and over again. I hope we got rid of most of them!

It's now in our house, all shiny and decorated and ready for the big day!

Never again!

So we got one of those Febreze Scented Shades a few weeks ago and put it in the living room. It's a little flickering LED inside a quadratic mount and the scented shade fits right around it - it basically looks like a small candle. Looks nice and actually smelled good too. HOWEVER, after about a week or so I noticed bald spots on Abby's front legs. We first did not even think that the candle could be the reason - after all we had used Febreze before and the cats were fine with it.

The first thought was that Abby was over-grooming because something was stressing her. We added Feliway (feline pheromones) in the kitchen and bedroom, we moved the chair back to where it was (we've seen her sleep on it every once in a while and thought maybe she was upset that her sleeping spot had been removed), we separated George and Abby during play time as George is definitely the dominant player. Nothing helped, on the contrary, she got more bald spots. Then we added fiber to her food to see if it's a food issue - this gave her diarrhea. After almost two weeks we finally thought of that candle. And - drum roll - after tossing it she did not get any new bald spots and we can now see some fur growing back. Yay! And never again Scented Shades!

Christmas lights

And here are the Christmas lights that go with the rest of the decoration.

Christmas time is here

After successfully completing "Operation Cookie" (Check!), we decorated our house last night. Lots of lights, mostly.

 
 

New Bathroom - take two

Here are some pics of the newly painted lower bathroom. Love the new color!

I love Thanksgiving!

What a great day it has been. After sleeping in (well, Jan did) and a nice breakfast I began painting our second bathroom. Unfortunately we didn't have enough of the paint left, but at least I managed to cover all the dark paint with a thin layer of the new kiwi splash. I'm looking forward to seeing the final result (pictures will be posted)!

Jan stirring the chocolate

Dinner's ready... in 6 hours.

In the mean time, our slow cooker did all the work for tonight's dinner while we were busy baking goodies for Christmas. This year, we went for Vanillekipferl, Chocolate-Orange Cookies, Sugar Cookies, and Nussecken. We might add some truffles later (they only last about a week in the fridge).

New piano and new bathroom color

This year, Jan and I decided to get a piano for Christmas. After some serious research we picked the Yamaha YDP 140 and we were not disappointed. It plays and looks GREAT. Although my fingers are not as quick as they once were, I am having a blast, and Jan is also getting better and better!

Yesterday morning, after going to the market for the last time this year (sniff 

:( ), we went to Lowes and bought some new paint for the guest bathroom. Instead of the light-brown, it is now a light-blue with a touch of green (kiwi splash - sounds yummy, eh?). 

Awwwwww!

Ready for some serious cuteness?

A tight fit, but they made it work! I guess it was a bit chilly in the house...

Elk Mountain, Oregon

Saturday was gorgeous! Crisp air, blue sky - the picture-perfect Fall. So we headed to Tillamook Forest, about an hour to the northwest from us, and hiked Elk Mountain (elevation 2800 feet). 

The ascend was pretty brutal (and that although we were just carrying a light backpack), but the view was worth it.

This was not yet at the top (not even close!), but the view was quite breathtaking already.  

 At the top we met two women (one from Chile, one from Switzerland) - perfect timing to get a nice picture of the both of us at the peak. By the way, those were the only human beings we met near the mountain (we met two more (and their dog) when we were almost back at the parking lot). That's it. Four. Others. Wow... 

The descend had challenging parts as well (rock climbing anyone?), but with a light pack it was no problem. I wouldn't want to climb that part with a heavy pack, though!

And of course: There had to be waterfalls (although this one is still a baby!).