Finally - Pictures of the New House

Of course, when I finally get around to taking some pictures of the house, the place is an absolute disaster. See, we just returned from Rome yesterday and still haven't fully unpacked. Before we left for Rome, we hosted an early Thanksgiving with many of our friends. We never got the chance to fully clean up before heading off to Italy either. So, excuse the mess in the pictures, please. We usually are much cleaner people! On top of the dorm room-esque look of our house, we received our first big snowfall of the season last night (and it continues to come down as I type this). So, instead of seeing our nice green lawn and the various rosebushes and other plants, you can really only see a blanket of white surrounding the exterior of our place. I'll make sure to take more pictures in the spring, especially after we plant our garden.

It's probably been evident that both Dawn and I have been very busy these past few months. It's made it really hard to post much to the blog lately. It's also been hard for me to find any time to put many new pictures up from the trips we have taken. Hopefully I'll be able to get some of them up soon, however -especially for the bigger trips we've taken. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these pictures from the house - you can find them on my Flickr Site (<----- click on that link)

ps - I've created many, many new posters and placed them on my Taku Posters and Photography Site. Please take some time to look through them and tell me what you think! A lot of the posters are from trips we've taken, so it will give you some idea of what we've been up to!

All moved in!

We’ve finally got all moved into the new house. It’s all setup and ready to go, except a few parts of the kitchen, not bad for a week and a half. We’ve got new rugs, since most of the house is tile or laminate, tons of wall space, and a nice big yard. Osu is adjusting well, although he wasn’t sure if he was going to be left here.

We went out exploring a bit this weekend. Nate got the bikes all ready to go, and Osu was happy to follow along. We started in our town and headed through the woods towards Mausdorf and then rounded back passed Godlricht and back to our house. Osu was pretty tired afterwards, but very happy. He is still recovering from the ride, which has made him run a little slower on our trip through the woods a different direction yesterday.

Currently, Nate is out in Austria. He’s headed down to Grossglockner, then driving the Grossglockner high Alpine road, and stopping in Hintertux to ski and head home. It is all for work, so he says J Nate will also be stopping in Innsbruck to get some cityscape pictures.

If all works out well we want to head to Strasbourg, France this weekend. The city looks beautiful and has a lot of history as well. But, you should read the history yourself; I don’t remember ANY history for very long.

The View Has Indeed Changed!

Greetings All!

This past weekend we made the move to our new locale in Ursulapoppenricht (yes, it's a mouthful).  We have actually managed to get a lot done in the last few days, although a lot of work yet remains until the pictures are hung, shelves are stocked, and things are organized.  Slowly but surely, things are getting accomplished, however. 

The picture at the top of the page was taken from the office/workout room in the new house.  We don't really have a front porch anymore, so I figured the most interesting view would make the best banner for this page.  Yes, that is a train that passes the house, but luckily, it is not a commuter line.  I've noticed that the train comes by two to three times a day, and also luckily, not at horrific hours.  You may also notice that we have no neighbors on this side of the house - just fields of corn, rapeseed plants and some other unidentified green stuff.  It's quiet (except for the train passing a few times a day), peaceful, and a nice change from the 'city life' of Parsberg. 

We'll start to update this blog a little more often as we get further settled in.  Finally, things are starting to calm down for us.  It's a nice change!

The view from our front porch will be changing very soon

Unfortunately, that view won't be as scenic as the castle from our current yard, but we are both very excited about the move! Yes, it's finally happening. On October 1st, the movers come to haul our stuff 53.2 kilometers to the north. I've been alluding to the fact that a move might be imminent for the past couple of months, but I haven't been very forthcoming as to why. Basically, I am not renewing my government work contract and will be free from the constraints of a cubicle, 12 demanding bosses, irrational work demands, and performing tasks that I have found boring and unchallenging for the past 10 plus years. Instead, I will be doing my art, photography, writing, and web work fulltime from home. I have a few solid things in the bag right now, but also have 1,000 other ideas to implement and try out. I am really looking forward to these new challenges and opportunities!

As for Dawn, she has renewed her contract and will continue working at her current position where she is very well-liked and is doing a great job. The best part of all this is that she will no longer have to make the one hour slog each way to work every day. Instead, a 20 minute, very easy drive, will put her at the front door of her office. No more 4:30am alarms, no more getting home at 6:30pm after a long day, no more cramming in workouts and exercise in to her already busy schedule. We are both looking forward to her having much more free time after the move.

I will update our situation a bit more in the days to come - and when I'm more coherent. The last month of travel and work has left me a little thin on energy! The remaining weeks of September will not provide any respite either. We'll get through it, however, and very much look forward to kicking back in our new digs and enjoying our new lives starting in October. Yes, things are looking up!

In the rush of things, I almost forgot about.....Amsterdam

Once things settle down in a month or two or three, I'll sit down and actually write a bit about our trips we have taken this summer.  I 'think' I've got some interesting things to say about each place we've been.  If not, it will at least give me something to do when the inevitable shit weather of October/November hits Germany.  As for now, free time just doesn't exist.  We leave for the States on Sunday, spending a week in Chicago and then a week in Minnesota.  We're really looking forward to the trips.  Upon our return to Euroland, we immediately depart the next weekend for Chamonix, France.  The next weekend, Jef and I will be doing a CPR class.  The weekend after that is our anniversery weekend which Dawn and I will be spending in the Neuschwanstein area of Germany.  After that, it's down to Berchtesgaden for the weekend.  We may even try to fit in a trip to Oktoberfest somewhere in there.  So, yes, it's going to be a busy five or six weeks for us coming up!  I can't complain one bit, though.

So, on to Amsterdam.  I'll keep this very brief - I LOVE that city!  Is that brief enough for you?  Great, so how about some pictures...... :)

Our penthouse apartment in A-dam.  Yes, that is Jef sleeping.  Dawn and I had the loft above.  This apartment was awesome!  However, getting up to it was not easy!  Five flights of very twisty stairs in an old canal house.... not easy with luggage.

         

(L)  Canal houses in central A-dam  (R) Jef checking out the view from our kitchen window

         

(L) Dawn on the water taxi  (R)  Tour boat makes a turn on to the Amstel River Canal

A lot more pictures from this trip can be found HERE

and..... I almost forgot - a few 'people' pictures from the Italy trip

I don't just take scenery shots.  Okay, so a good portion of my shots usually are landscapes and scenery, but I also like to point my camera at people as well.  Two of my favorite subjects to shoot in Italy - Dawn and Jef.  A few fun pictures that I'd like to share.

1) Dawn Above Manarola, Italy  2)  Jef in Levanto, Italy  3)  Dawn and Jef cooking dinner in the Val di Fleres, Italy  4)  Walking along the harbor in Vernazza, Italy

More can be found HERE

A Few More Pictures from our Trip to Italy

The poor weather this past weekend gave me a chance to go through more of my backlogged photos taken on trips earlier this summer.  Slowly, but surely, I'm getting through them all.  Below are some various pictures taken while on our trip to Cinque Terre, Italy at the beginning of July.  Besides staying along the Italian Riveria, we also spent a couple of days in the Alps of Italy in the Brenner Pass region.  I really liked this area.  Although busy with tourists, it was tame compared to a lot of places in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.  I'd really like to go back to this area in the future to do a bit more exploring.  There are also a few pictures from Mutters, Austria, where we stayed the first night of the trip on the way down to Tuscany, and I've included a link to some pictures from Mittenwald, Germany, where we stopped on our drive back home.  Here are the links to each set: 

Colle Isarco, Italy (Brenner Alps)
Mutters, Austria
Mittenwald, Germany