Sunday, November 3, 2013

Halloween 2013

We just moved into our new house in Bryant-Ravenna. It's a really cool neighborhood and we can walk to a couple of cool restaurants and bars. Glad to be closer to the city again.

Anyway, this year Halloween was exceptionally warm. Leila is now 4 and she is really into Halloween. She didn't quite get it last year and the year before she had to stay home with Melissa.

Now she is old enough and she went trick or treating with much enthusiasm. Watson is mid-stride, loving it and cashing in big time on the candy.
Milo is probably on his last legs and I assume next year he will only go out by himself to see if he can run into any girls or something.

Some pics:























Sunday, October 20, 2013

Oktoberfest Berghaus 2013

After our work party on August 23rd, the idea was born to have another camp trip before the year is over. The problem with camping in the Fall is that you just can't count on the weather. It also gets dark sooner so the time at the camp fire just isn't as magical as in the summer when we stay up late and tell scary stories.

So the idea was to remedy that by staying at the Berghaus and there, it's quite plausible to stay up outside with even less then summery weather and then later retreat to the dormitories.

After some brainstorming we thought it may be a good idea to do an Oktoberfest. Since we're all German it made total sense. Alex had purchased Dirndls the women/grils could wear. The guys could wear Lederhos'n. We'd make real German food. we'd go for a hike.

Oh, and the coolest thing was that we found out about the Goldmeyr hotsprings, which is a 9 mile drive and 5 mile hike into the cascade mountains. It's maintained by one of the "friends of" societies with a year round care taker. They only allow 20 people a day to visit, so Said had kindly organized the permits a couple of weeks in advance.

Pics below!

Me in my lederhos'n

Enjoying a cold brew on the balcony.

The mountain peaks are already beginning to be snow covered


Double rainbow!

Took the kids to hike up to the ski lift

Donauwelle courtesy Valerie

Bretz'n with home made Obatzda

The kids and I made Pretzels from scratch. They all enjoyed rolling and folding the dough.
As you can see some of the Pretzels are really rolls from the littler ones.

All the delicious German food!


Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit!

Off to Golfmeyr!

Crystal clear water






The caretaker's office




Amazing pools at different temperatures



That cave goes back about 7 meters, awesomest hottub ever!

Time to chill.


Saturday, October 5, 2013

Views

Hier könnt ihr sehen, wie gut die Aussicht von unserem neuen Haus ist. Man kann die olympics im Westen sehen, und man kann die Cascade Mountains bei uns im Osten sehen. danach sind Leila und ich in die Küche gegangen, um Brezen zu backen.









Meine wunderschöne neunter 73 CB 350. Sie läuft doch ganz gut, leider ist Melissa einmal mit dem Auto drüber gefahren.








Die Brezen sind super rausgekommen. Ich musste Lauge bestellen, die sehr schwer zu organisieren war. Aber nur mit der Lauge schmecken die Brezeln richtig gut

Location:33rd Ave NE,Seattle,United States

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Leila said...

We were eating out at the German Restaurant.

it was really cute and the children's menu had a section of "Learn your German vocabulary".

So I start to ask her if she knows the translations.

Me:"Wie sagt man 'mom' auf Deutsch?"
Leila:"Mama!"
Me:"Wie sagt man 'dad' auf Deutsch?"
Leila:"Papa!"
Me:"Wie sagt man 'brother' auf Deutsch?"
Leila:"Bruder"
Me:"Wie sagt man 'sister' auf Deutsch?"
Leila:"Leila!"

Leila said...

Again the concept of "Best friend" from My Little Pony.

Of course that doesn't translate well to German. So the "best friend" is "meine beste Freundin".

So she says to me:"Papa, Du bist meine beste Freundin"!

Leila said...

Leila is so into My Little Pony. She loves this video about "Shining Armor", the big pony brother (my big brother best friend forever).

It's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtO9YaKUdHc

There are so many things she takes from that video. And she transfers everything onto me. I am, in her world, her "Shining Armor", big brother best friend forever.

She always says "Papi and I share our dreams!"

Or she said in the scene, where Shining Armor goes away, "Geht der ins Buero?"

I also have to do all the things Shining Armor does in the video, like teach her to fly a kite and such.


Thursday, September 5, 2013