zauber-a

Monday, November 27, 2006

Spaghetti Betty...

I've never liked pictures of babies with spaghetti-covered faces...

yah, totally gross, right? it's the flash, the flash just makes it that much more disgusting. No flash gave me blurry photos that weren't as gross, but they were well, blurry.

So why take the photos in the first place? Because after giving me hell about eating...anything at all, she wouldn't STOP eating the spaghetti...and after I stopped doing it for her, she proceeded to pick up every last noodle herself, thus: spaghetti face. Oh yah, but why did I take pictures of the grossness? Because while doing it, she kept giving me this totally 'frech' grin and giggling - and that needed to be recorded.

We went to our first Weihnachtsmarkt this weekend. Bad Tölz opened early (the rest open next weekend with the first of advent) and we headed over to have a look. We maybe should have stayed at home, as Georgia was coming down with a nasty cold, but I couldn't abide the thought of listening to her whine all day (had enough of that today...) so off we went. Weather so warm, people were eating ice cream - at a Christmas Market. You're supposed to drink glühwein at a Christmas Market, not eat ice cream!

Of course, Georgia refused to sit in her stroller and had to run around. Bad Tölz's main street however, is on a hill and paved with very uneven cobblestones, so Sven brought her up to this stage and let her run around on that instead. She had fun. We got tired out.

A few photos here.

Oh, and Cara blogged Scrapaganza (finally!) and put up some really fun photos (Cara, I want that one of G and me, pretty please?), so if you want to see some more shots of G, head on over to Cest la Vie.

Good night!

Currently watching bits and pieces (in German) of:
Lost - The Complete Second Season
Staring Lost

Posted at 11:03 pm by zauber-a
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Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving

from the folks who don't get any turkey OR stuffing Or a day off!!

Posted at 02:33 pm by zauber-a
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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Keychains - Myspace - huh?

okay, so I finally caved and actually registered at Myspace, right? It goes like this:
I was listening to Top of the Pods the other week when they played an audio comment from 'Matt in Wisconsin' and the voice sounded so much like my old friend Matt Howie, that I decided I needed to do a search for him (his old Email is turning up a big blank on answers) and went to google. Google spit out a ton of stuff about a Matt Howie in CA whose real name is NOT Matt Howie, so I don't know why he decided to pose as Matt Howie online and confuse the heck out of those of us trying to find the real Matt Howie...but other than that, no success. So since I was in the google-search-mode for Matts from Germany, I decided to look for another Matt I knew way back when in Munich, and this one I found - on Myspace. Great. Myspace will let you contact a person, but only if you are registered ON myspace. so I registered. Just to say hi to this other Matt. I'm a nerd.

Now what I want to know is this: WHAT is the purpose of Myspace? Are any of my two blogreaders on Myspace? Can you clue me in? I just don't get it. I see profiles and comments and 'friends'. But other than that? What can you DO there? What is the point? I have a blog (here) and I have Email, so what do I use myspace for? I'm thinking, for nothing. I just ignore it, forget about it and that was that.

So now I am totally going to embarrass Sven (but he never reads, so that's okay) because of something Georgia did this morning. First, she followed him around all morning, back and forth, always at his heels, just like a little puppy dog. Then, when they were both stopped and Sven was talking to me in the hall, she put up her arms for him to pick her up (this was right after she's bitten into my peanutbutter toast, and LIKED it) and when he picked her up, she leaned right up close to him and gave him a big kiss right on the mouth. Sven, was so surprised and taken aback and moved, he started to cry! Given, she's never done that to him, and has often to me, so he was allowed to be so surprised. I have told him again and again that she just adores him. Maybe now he'll believe me!

So, done embarrassing Sven. See G in her boots (Kylene, I LOVE those boots, she may look ridiculously funny in her boots, but they are so easy to slip on, and so thick and fuzzy and warm) and the keychain nearly touching the floor? Here's the thing about that keychain, she goes and finds it herself and then puts it OVER her head around her neck and pads around the apartment wearing it. I don't know why, because I don't wear a key around my neck anymore...ah, but Sven does. His carkey. maybe that's where she gets it from. Anyway. No worries, I don't leave her unattended with that thing around her neck!!!! It has a little book on the end that you can put two teeny pictures in. I did that today and we took it with us to kindersport and every once in a while, I'd open it up and show her the pics inside. I think she looks at them and is saying her name - at least, she always repeats the same sounds when she sees pictures of herself and they sound eerily like 'georgia' in baby talk...

She's down and out now. So exhausted after sport today that she couldn't even eat lunch. She was having trouble spearing chickpeas and couldn't get the green beans off the fork into her mouth, so she'd get frustrated, throw her fork and lash out at anything near her. I SO know that feeling...

Would someone like to help me figure out what needs to go on my todo list? I know there is plenty, but I'm drawing a total and complete blank.

Posted at 01:28 pm by zauber-a
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Monday, November 20, 2006

dr. sandy

okay, so I've never actually called her that - but she IS a doctor - a dentist to be exact, and I think that is so cool. Anyway. My point being, we went to visit Sandy and Emma today, and Michaela and Kilian came as well, so we had quite a party over in Neubiberg. Georgia did well - but she usually does when we are visiting or being visited. She eventually got tired so we headed home and had dinner and then it was bedtime. how wonderfully FAST the day went!

And speaking of dr. sandy...she picked me up on saturday to go to a flea market so i could look for a bobby car (no luck) and drove me all of one block. Yah. Oops. Maybe I should learn the street names around here...Shortly after arriving, we left again. There wasn't much there, so no reason to stick around. I was telling Sandy that there was really no reason to drive me back home as the flea market was just around the corner from Schlecker and well, that's not far at all, is it? When we decided to take full advantage of our morning without babies and we went to Starbucks and had mochas and muffins. Would you believe it? You can get a peppermint mocha here. I don't know a single German who LIKES peppermint, and esp. not in their mochas...so I was excited to see it, and ordered a grande. The other holiday flavor was toffee nut - no gingerbread, pumpkin or eggnog. Oh well.

When I got home, Sven and G were gone. Turns out, they too, were in PEP, buying me printer paper and looking at the Christmas decorations.

Speaking of Christmas decorations, did you know that this Thursday is Thanksgiving? Probably sooner than I did. It's a long November, so Turkey-day is early. We will not be celebrating here as we do NOT get a four-day weekend and this coming weekend will be my last free weekend before we take off for Seattle.

First weekend in Advent is now planned in Lübbenau with a visit to the Striezelmarkt (english) in Dresden and the weekend following, we are hoping to get together with Liz, Julia and Patrick, give the girls to the boys and just have fun all day Saturday doing whatever (scrapbooking. Okay, Liz wants to scrapbook and who am I to turn that down?!)

And the weekend following we are headed to Seattle *knock on wood*.
My to do list, actually looks good (of course, I never could figure out what all was supposed to be ON the to do list, but I can cross off 4 gifts and my Christmas cards because yes, in our lovely spring-warm weather, we took Georgia out in her mrs. santa's sister's daughter dress (okay, possibly an inside joke, but half referring to a movie - know which one? do tell, brownie points to you!) and took pictures. So she's all red and sparkly with some white fur with a background of green. Yah. Not very wintery, but the cute baby makes up for it. I ended up with four versions of the Christmas card. Only three will go out, the fourth I am doing only for myself. So you might not get the same card as HER...

Tired, so I'm checking out and getting to bed before midnight for a change. Sport in the morning, no longer enjoy it quite as much, Dr. Sandy (hey, it's the theme of the entry okay?) leaves with Emma a good 20 mins before the class ends and Heike hasn't made it the past three times. And then there was an influx of new mommies and their kiddos the past two weeks, so the class is bursting at the seams with kids closer to 3 years than 1. So I get bored, but Georgia has fun running around or playing on the big mats. Guess it's worth it in the end.

And just let me end with Lost. I'm a whole season behind, which irks...but I am trying VERY hard not to read anything to spoil what will happen. Like, I already knew ahead of time that they were going to find more survivors, so that wasn't a surprise, and I accidentally (while looking for links) read another spoiler on the delta park project gets lost website. Tonight's episode - not so great. Totally totally irritated me because it didn't seem to take the story anywhere, and I am in the minority, I like Charlie so I want to know what posessed him to kidnap Aaron, since they totally left us in the dark on why he did it. But I won't get into it. Need to get on iTunes, and get the podcast to that ep on my iPod for the trip to the gym tomorrow.

night!

Posted at 10:43 pm by zauber-a
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Friday, November 17, 2006

@*!~

I have tried and tried and tried to reinstall dreamweaver on my computer with absolutely NO luck. I hate blogging without it. I can. I can use the blogdrive editor, and I can even program in html if I absolutely have to...but I prefer the comfort of dreamweaver. So now I have to decide if I want ugly blog entries or no blog entries...

Real quick on pictures. The (of course) most important picture of the event:

nice and big so you can see just how insanely happy we are...Cara (smart girl) made Sven put everything down (incl. Georgia) and snap some shots of us on Saturday night. Bad lighting (flash - ick) and posed shots. dumb, but then she said something, or I said something and we both started laughing so hard we knew it was going to be a teethy shot...but then in the end, it's my favorite, despite my closed eyes...

More shots from the event are HERE. But to tide you over...here are a few of my little monkey, who thought it was fun to try and climb up on the stage, and who made a beeline for some woman's tote-ally...

So Jessica wrote and thinks that our chaotic lifestyle, including leaving too late and arriving barely on time, has to do with a baby. Jessica, that was our life before Georgia as well. That is Sven, he flies by the seat of his pants...so no worries that babies can make your life total chaos...we do that quite well on our own!

Anyway, we left late on Thursday, not because of Georgia, but because of crashed computers and my stubborn insistence on printing out the pictures I needed for the Art Warehouse class I was taking. I mean come on, that was the only reason I was going to this convention, was for this class, right? Well, that and to see Cara.

Getting to Thionville took years. Mapquest lied and told us we'd need just under five hours to get there. Well, add in an hour for lunch and that should be just under six, right? Right? Yah, whatever. Figure in at least 6 hours, and more likely 7 in future.

But we've covered this. Finally got to Eindhoven Friday around 6ish and while Sven went off shopping in Dutch grocery stores, Cara and I scanned the place for registration, frisked our goodie bag (the bag itself was probably the best thing about the goodie bag) and ran to the restaurant for a quick bite to eat before our class started. Dinner was so good - it was seriously the best ceasar salad I have ever had, and it wasn't even a real ceasar!!

We were so exhausted that night in class - we were truly walking zombies, excited, giggling zombies, but zombies nevertheless. We walked in to the class from the back and were wondering why there was only one other person waiting to get in...that's how we met Suzanne, who's partner-in-crime lost her passport right before it was time to leave for the event and so left her to travel alone. We figured out that we needed to find the other door to the classroom and ran around, huffing and puffing with heavy bags up and down the many stairs and made it in time for Cara to greet Melodee (long time friend she was meeting for the first time in person) and get seats in the middleish.

Class was okay. again, we were dazed and planning on crashing in our rooms as soon as it was over - so imagine our dismay when we learned there was a very important crop to attend THAT NIGHT. We had some mass production work to do on our albums before we could start with the fun stuff and that meant hanging down in the crop room until midnight, waiting for the damn corner rounder. Not just any corner rounder will punch through chipboard you know...

So yah. it was after midnight before we finally got to bed and then up again the next morning for more classes. Cara and I booked everything together this time, except for 2 classes she booked that I did not (more on that later) and so we met up for breakfast - with Suzanne - and then headed out to do the mini album track with Lida de Witt. Such a cool class. Such a cool teacher. That woman has amazing ideas in her head. That class was about 3 hours or so long, we booked the two tracks right after the other so we could just stay there without having to move all our STUFF and got quite a bit done before meeting up with Suzanne and Sven for lunch. Suzanne, bless her, gave us her missing roommate's food tickets, so Sven and Georgia could eat in the rest. with us. Yay.

After lunch we had two more Art Warehouse classes where we did nothing but scrap for like 3 (was it really 3?) hours and walked around and looked at other people's work while Melodee walked around and snapped pictures. And I bring this up, because she finally had a chance to post her pictures here. But I'll cheat and sneak a few onto my blog as well, anyone recognize themself?

(pictures taken by Melodee Langworthy)

I was supposed to be done with classes on Saturday after the AW classes, free until Sunday, except for the make n takes. Better this time. Used all my tickets. finished two - one is in pieces. By the time we sat down to take it, it was almost 8pm and I was starting to lose energy and momentum. I kept measuring wrong and ruining my paper. and I glued paper to the bottom of the tin instead of the top...um. Yah. So I gave up and put the whole thing away. What I did do, was be crazy and sign up for another workshop at 8:30pm with Cara.

I won't even get into this one. The project was a mini album for the 12 days of Christmas - a neat idea generally speaking, but poorly taught. We left with nothing done and no real clear idea of what we were supposed to have learned, or get out of the class, nor what we were supposed to do with the material packet we hadn't even opened!

Basically left with a painted cover and inside left page. I did a bit more with the album this week:

Cara charmingly described the style of this album as: Heidi Swapp 'gone wrong'. I do agree, but think both of us believe that the album still looks pretty cool - at least, the finished one that we saw. We are both sort of waiting to finish it after Christmas this year with the idea of journaling about the 12 days of THIS coming Christmas and taking pics with this album in mind. At least, that is our story, and we are sticking to it!

Back to the crop room after the class to work on our AW albums some more (we only had use of stamps in class or at the crops unless we wanted to shell out 20 euros PER SET, and we were using 6 different sets!). Only surprise: they decided to play games at the crop and turn down the lights. So we scrapped in dimmed lighting (not so good for scrapping) with so much noise going on around us, we couldn't hear ourselves thinking...Another late night.

Next morning breakfast and then off to our advent calendar class - another class with Lida de Witt. Did I mention that she is brilliant? This advent calendar was so cool. I guess, if you were expecting something with doors and treats, then it would have been a big disappointment, but if you went in with no expectations, then it was just plain cool. We painted a doll, gave her a skirt and Cara dubbed her 'Lida'. She is holding a cube in each of her two hands (held on with magnets) and as the days count up to Christmas, you rotate the cubes to read the current date, so '01' for Dec. 1st, '12' for Dec. 12th, '25' for Dec. 25th, etc. Such a cool idea.

See her? My Lida doll? One of the few projects I've finished. Okay, her skirt is too short and the waistband is too taped...but she's done. And she's pretty adorable.

So anyway, after that class, we should have had lunch and I should have been done, but while at the crop on Saturday night, we happened to see a really cool class that the Irish girls next to us had done - an AAM calendar that later turns into a mini album. So Cara and I jumped up impulsively and asked about getting the kit and ended up signing up for a class that was starting at 3:30pm on Sunday when she had a train to catch at 4pm and we were done and planning to leave around 1pm...So after lunch on Sunday, and after lots of chit chatting and photo-taking of Cara and Melodee and Nicola...we trotted off to the 'smoking room' to grab our kits for the class and then headed home.

Drive home was terrible. Dark. Wet. Georgia slept a couple hours and then complained and fussed and threw things over the side of her carseat. Why do I mention this? Because one of the things she threw over was her copy of 'The Monster at the end of the Book' which she had just started to get into...and how much do I love that book too? Well, she threw it over, when we stopped for dinner, I took her out of the seat and out of the car on MY side and forgot when I later put her back in the car on HER side, to watch for falling objects. It didn't occur to me until much late,r that we might have left a few things behind. And we did indeed, lose the book. In the dark, rainy night, I never saw nor heard it fall to the ground. Now Georgia doesn't know it's gone, but I do and am seriously bummed.

So. That's that. Scrapaganza Eindhoven. Quick.

Best part of the trip? Hanging with Cara. hand's down. Will you believe me if I tell you I peppered her inbox with about 20 emails the day after because I missed having her to talk with? yah.

Seacrest Out (brownie points if you know what that's from)

Posted at 12:05 am by zauber-a
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Monday, November 13, 2006

aaaaaaaaack!

major computer crash wed. night. it went like this: restart, load up to windows loading screen, restart, load up to windows loading screen, restart............in an unending cycle. I tried repairing the XP system but at 2:30am gave up and went to bed. back up again at 5:30am to continue fighting, no luck with the repair, so reinstalled XP which led to new users and old users with no connection between the two. ALL programs still installed, but none working...

By the time we left the house at 11:00am for France, I had managed to reinstall the printer and print out the pictures I needed for my Art Warehouse workshop at SAG.

We were expecting a 5 hour drive to Lorraine on Thursday morning, but did not arrive until after 6pm. EXHASTED, G didn't go to sleep until 11pm or so. She was totally wired playing with Jacques and Anthony (she ignored Phee mostly because he was too quiet and stayed down on the floor, she went after the action...poor phee!)

Left Thionville for Eindhoven later than expected (due to a grocery store stop for Sven) and arrived in Eindhoven sometime around 6pm (I think) only to discover (after successfully checking in) that we had (you better believe it) once again FORGOTTEN the diapers. They made it to the front hall this time, but not into the car. So while Cara and i had a delicious dinner and headed to class, Sven and Georgia had to go back out and find a dutch grocery store for diapers...

Anyway. Fabulous weekend, over way too soon, we got back at 10:30pm last night and I worked today to get this computer back online and with functioning anti-virus, firewall and photoshop (photoshop was first - see where my priorities lie?)

And now i need to get ready for G's playdate in about 15 mins (she's been asleep nearly 3 hours!) so off I go. Will be back as soon as the rest of the programs are reloaded with pictures and more detailed stories of our trip. Unfortunately NO pics of Cara's boys. VERY irritated at myself for that.

Posted at 02:38 pm by zauber-a
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Sunday, November 05, 2006

Lovin' Life, and Cats

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We spent the past 24 hours or so in Rankweil, Austria visiting Tanja and Markus - and no, I have no pictures of the two of them becuase I'm a dork. We arrived Saturday after one or two mishaps, one resulting in me finding Miss G in the middle of a pile of sugar she had dumped on her head and was happily eating, the other being me forgetting to bring her diapers, resulting in us making a last-minute-stop at Hofer...

It went like this: we meant to leave around 10am on Saturday morning. We always have good intentions of when we are going to leave...honest. We got up just before 7am (because G has not adjusted to going off DST yet) and got dressed and had breakfast (french toast, yum) and were in the process of packing up when I saw that it was 11am. Oops. And Sven? well, he was down doing something with his tires. He thought he could do it quickly before we took off, just as I thought I could quickly pack all three of us up and get off in the car by ten...While Sven was down playing with tires, I was having a peaceful pee, no babies toddling in after me...and I started to wonder just why Georgia was so quiet, when she had been fussing something terrible just minutes before...walked into the kitchen to find that she had managed to knock my bowl of sugar (the sugar i'd been using for my french toast) onto the floor and was happily cleaning the bowl with her fingers and tongue. Yes. Yum. Was cleaning sugar off of her in all kinds of crazy spots for the rest of the day.

Finally on the road, on the way, air in the tires checked, loaded down with cold meat, grapes, crackers and soft pretzels, as well as a bottle of milk and a cup of watered apple juice for G, and a thermos of coffee for Sven. G fell asleep the minute we started out and I was chatting to Sven when it hit me that I had left the bag of diapers in the rocking chair in the nursery. Great.

Arrived in Rankweil, G had a good cry at Markus and the guinea pigs and then we headed out to Hofer (austrian aldi) for diapers and Shoe4You for some G shoes, as she hadn't any real ones yet, and well, it has been snowing...we tried boots first, nice warm ones that were lined with fleecy wool. Put them on her and set her up to see how she'd walk in them. She proceeded to take the biggest step ever, knee almost hitting her chin, before falling flat on her face. We decided to skip boots and go for highish tennis shoes. Happy day - the shoes at shoe4you cost 60 euros LESS than the ones we looked at at Tretter in Germany...

A walk around Feldkirch (I think) and cocoa at a café and then back home for Raclette. Some play time with guinea pigs and the neighbor's cat (before it got too dark - at which time, the black cat in the black night with two glowy eyes, just plain scared G to death so that we could not even open the back door without her starting to cry) before putting G down for bed, where she slept like a rock. Her favorite game? Throwing her shoes over the barrier on the stairs and watching them plop, plop, plop down to the basement...

This morning we got up, had bfast and I took G for a swing outside, then we all went to a wildpark in Feldkirch (pictures here) where we tired G out with tons of fresh, mountain air and fall leaves and funny animals before heading back to Rankweil in order to eat Kaiserschmarrn (yum) and pack up to leave. While packing, one of the black cats stopped by again and G had a fabulous time petting, chasing, squeeking and playing in the cat's milk bowl...

Next trip: France (to pick up Cara) and on to Eindhoven for Mini Scrap-a-ganza.

And to end today's blog: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Posted at 10:55 pm by zauber-a
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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

13 Months

Dear Georgie,
13 months. you made it to and past 1 year. and i think you did more in the 13th month than the whole first 12 put together. at least, it sure seemed like it! First, just 1 day after your birthday, you pulled up for the first time. Then you got crawling down pat, fast and furious, you could get from a to b in a flash. Then you started to eat with a fork, yes a fork. You stopped waving it around, sucking on it and playing with it just long enough to spear your lunch and aim for your mouth - with success. But of course, the biggest and most amazing thing you learned to do, was to walk. You'd been wanting to walk for months, but as with everything else, you took your time before doing it until you knew you could do it and then you did it 100%. Barely a fall, just that one where you pitched into the bookcase and gave yourself a lump and a bruise that you STILL have.

What I have noticed this past month about you is how you do things. I have since seen babies much younger than you, doing the milestones much quicker, and I think: sure, a 4-month old can maybe roll over from back to front, but that 4-month old is moving on reflex, it has no idea what it has just done or why. When you first rolled over, you did it with purpose. You knew that you did not want to be on your stomach, so you put all your effort into rolling onto your back. Yes, it took months and months. You never tried to do it earlier, you would just lay on your tummy and yell. You waited. you waited until the exact moment when you KNEW you coudl do it. And you did.

Then there was the 7-month old we met who could already pull herself up onto her feet and crawl all over the place. While crawling was something she did with obvious purpose and delight, the whole pulling up at 7 months was strange. She just did it, she pulled up and sat down again, like a little automaton a robot. A reflex. She didn't seem aware of what she was doing, she just did it. I have no back history, I don't know if she tried it first before figuring it out, or if she just did it in one go one day. No matter, you took your time with it. You would give it a practice try every once in a while, but when you saw you couldn't do it yet, you stopped. It took the right object, at the right heighth for you to pull up, and once you did that, and saw that you could, that was it. You did it, and still do, with purpose. There is always a reason to stand, to get from a to be, to reach something better, to see something better.

Walking. You took your time, although 12.5 months is pretty good, I'd say. You insisted on walking with help for months and knew the routine, it was just a matter of finding your balance. And then you took off, and you rarely fall, and you do not drop back to your knees and crawl because it is easier. Nope, you walk.

And that is you, Georgia. You take your time, think it through, and then you take off, and leave us in your dust!

Posted at 10:54 pm by zauber-a
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Halloween...

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Happy Halloween!!!

Posted at 12:18 am by zauber-a
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Sunday, October 29, 2006

still walking

Well, it's been a week and 1 day since Georgia started walking. She woke up every morning this week and had to be reminded that she could walk, and each day she walked a little more on her own, and waited just a little longer before bee-lining for something to hang on to. Yesterday we went to Aldi to do our weekly grocery shopping and she didn't want to sit in the stroller, so Sven had her out and was holding her (Aldi is scary in the early afternoons on Saturday). This worked up until we hit the register, then he put her up on a counter and was watching her while I wrestled with the groceries and the stroller. We switched and I put G down, thinking she'd turn around and grab my legs. What a surprise when she took off! Walked right out the front door and kept on going (me right on her heels). Later that evening, we were at a different Aldi (Sven was hoping for the LKW with the airplanes - negative) and she insisted on walking the whole store.

Yup. Definetly progress. And therefore, another walking layout:

Credits to Tracy Robinson - used her new 'i grow' kit...

Unfortunately, she and Sven are both sick. He seems to have had a bout of laryngitis and she's got a very nasty nose and a pathetic little cough. Crossing fingers I don't pick any of it up (ha).

Posted at 10:15 pm by zauber-a
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