Silvester

GUTEN RUTSCH / FROHES NEUES JAHR...

bei uns hat es heute wieder angefangen zu schneien und wir haben eine WUNDERSCHOENE Aussicht in den Garten :).

Nachher geht's los in einen Club... feiern... wir wuenschen Euch ein FROHES NEUES Jahr aus den Staaten...

Museum of Science and Industry

Today the three of us went down town to the museum of science and industry. It was amazing. There was an exhibit about christmas trees around the world. This was the German one:Some planes hanging from the ceiling:The U-505 was there and an incredible exhibit about it :). John and I will go back later and do the inside tour too. It was sold out :(
John next to a tire of the John Deere tractor:

Down Town Chicago

Donnerstag sind Rene und ich losgezogen um Chicago Down Town unsicher zu machen. Nachdem wir erst einmal 1.5 Stunden beim deutschen Konsulat warten mussten um nur eine Unterschrift zu bekommen... sind wir rein ins Vergnuegen... war etwas kalt... also warm einpacken war angesagt :)

My Birthday Party :)

Some friends came over and we had a GREAT time. Here you can see: Jared and Sandra, Steph and Marty: ... the whole group... except me *lol*.
Rene, Sandra and Sean:
Marty, John and I:
ULLU: The Julischka was awesome... as you can see *l0l* :) THANK YOU so much...
time to go to bed... Merry Christmas...

2. Christmas Day - MY BIRTHDAY :)

Huhu, here I am... turning into another number of my life *lol*. John hat mein Apartment dekoriert waehrend Rene ein paar leckere Haeppchen gemacht hat, Teigtaschen. Wenn die Freunde nicht bald kommen, sind die wohl alle weggegessen *lol*.

1. Christmas Day

Den ersten Weihnachtstag haben Rene und ich bei Steph verbracht. Trish, Angel und natuerlich Marty waren auch mit dabei. Steph hat einen super Turkey gezaubert... LECKERDanach bin ich noch fix rueber zu John's Familie gefahren und habe dort noch ein Stuendchen verbracht:

FROHE WEIHNACHTEN

wuensche Euch allen ein wunderschoenes Weihnachtsfest...
alles Liebe, Eure Rona

Merry X-Mas

... nach unserem Shopping Trip haben wir dann hier in meiner Wohnung schon ein wenig das AbendMahl vorbereitet und um 6 sind wir dann rueber zu Steph mit allen Dingen und haben uns ans 'Kochen' rangemacht. MAN war das LECKER :)... wir haben irgendwie soviel gegessen, dass wir schon so schnell muede waren (vielleicht lag das auch an den stressigen Arbeitswochen und dem JetLag).
Bailey hatte auch eine Menge Spass... und ne Menge Streicheleinheiten konnte sich der kleine Frechdachs auch einheimsen :)...

Rene in Chicago

... am 23. ist Rene nun in Chicago gelandet. Mitgebracht hat er Geschenke von meinen lieben Freunden aus Deutschland *FREU*... habe mich riesig gefreut ueber die Ueberraschung. Total LECKER :).
Da die Woche ueber schon so stressig war konnte ich nicht wirklich viel vorbereiten drum mussten wir am Sonntag Abend noch eben einkaufen gehen fuer unsere Festtage. War aber alles kein Problem, hier kann man ja rund um die Uhr :)... am naechsten morgen (unser Heilig Abend) sind wir dann schoen gemuetlich aufgestanden und haben noch den Rest an Lebensmitteln besorgt...

Minneapolis - Mall of America

A business trip to Minneapolis was due again :)... Stephanie and I went shopping with Stacy after a nice dinner in the Mall of America:

Route 66 in Chicago, IL

Baby... I'm coming :)... look what we've found on our way back! Since my Harley is just sold :) :(... I'll save my money for a new one here in the US...
ROUTE 66...

Union Station Chicago

We took the Metra down town to avoid so much traffic jam... especially because the addtional new inches of snow won't make it less jammiger!!!
This is the Union Station in Chicago...

Christmas Market

Last Sunday we went with Sandra and Jared down town to see the Christmas Market. It was a blast... all the good German Food :)... John fell in love with the chocolate covered fruits. We took a lot of them home :).

... more snow

Guck Guck,
this was my baby this morning... we got a couple of inches snow over the night... how terrific...

bowling and karaoke

Tonight John and I met with Steph and Marty for bowling. Finally my bowling ball was being used again :). We had great games and a lot of fun. Especially afterwards in the bar where they had karaoke.
Ok, this is how it looks like when some people don't wanna have their picture taken *lol*:
Steph and Marty:Some of the karaoke singers were pretty bad... it was a lot of fun though :)...

first snow in Chicago for the season

Today the first snowflakes came down in our area. That's how it looked a few minutes ago in front of John's apartment:
It just started snowing so we're excited how much will come down in the next couple of hours :)...

Sioux Fall, SD to Chicago, IL

Today we started a little bit later :)... about... 1 PM... WE'RE STILL ON VACATION :) plus we needed to have a nice breakfast... at noon :).
Here some pics from... 'in the car'... :)... fun fun fun...
And here a few facts about our trip:
... to Montana we drove 1626.8 miles (2618KM) in 3 days (incl. sightseeing)
... to Chicago we drove 1394.7 miles (2244.5KM) in 2 days (trip streight)
which is an amount of total: 3021.5 miles (4862.6KM)

Itwas a wonderful week of vacation... we're looking forward to the next roadtrip that we're already planning on having in the beginning of 2008.

Livingston, MT to Sioux Fall, SD

The red lamp went off so we needed to find a gas station in the middle of nowhere... and in the middle of the night. We still wanted to make our way to Sioux Fall by midnight so we left the I-90 a few miles before Sioux Fall. John filled up the car... it seems to be very cold outside :)... ... after I made fun of him standing outside in the cold: *g*

leaving Livingston...

Saturday, 11:30AM we left Livingston with a full tank of gas...
This time the weather was perfect. In Livingston it was very windy but totally ok to drive and in Montana we had only a few spots with snow mud on the road... for us totally fine.

Thanksgiving and a flat tire!

Hi Folks, this is how some people look a little bit strange while watching a special edition of SHREK :)... our Thanksgiving dinner was soooo delicous... thank you Doug! We had too much food left and a lot of fun. The little girl from Monica and Brandon kept us all entertained :).

Today John and I wanted to bring back a chair. We just left the street where Doug and Dana live in... this sound was too strange... a flat tire :(... luckily I've checked the airpressure before the trip on ALL tires (incl. the 'donut' in the trunk). John replaced the flat tire into the 'donat' at the icy street in this cold. And after we've brought back the chair, John and Doug brought the car to a shop where they unfortunately couldn't repair the flat tire. Since I needed one new... I bought two new ones for the front and the car was fixed within 2 hrs. So no worries for our way back home tomorrow... :)
Here is a funny tree with a lot of birds inside it :)

In the afternoon John and I made our way to Bozeman, MT where we did a little shopping at Murdoch's :).
Isn't the view amazing?
Tomorrow after breakfast we'll make our way back home. The plan is to drive through... 20 hrs till Chicago... but if we won't be able to... we'll stay over in a Motel... let's see how fit we'll be :)... This was a great vacation so far... :)... I look forward to our next one :)...

ruff... ruff...

Yesterday Dana and Doug showed us their chickens while the dogs were playing outside in the snow.

aren't they look cute? Agatha in black, Barkley in dark brown and Chester in light brown...
in the afternoon we played Monopoly and after dinner we played Poker... :)... a few of us were pretty drunk but from what I've heard... that's normal in here *lol*... or am I wrong Daddy??? *G*
Chester: The dogs love John. I'm pretty happy about it so he has all the dogs on his lap and they're not coming to me... even though they still try to. But John is the better part... Especially Agatha loves him a lot! Should I become jealous??? Hhhhmmm... I have to talk to Agatha in a quiet moment, I guess!