Merry Christmas!

Well, I know that I am putting this up on the 26th, but I was quite busy with actual Christmas activities until now. I thought I would start of the Christmas picture extravaganza by showing our lovely display.

Despite the fact we spent Christmas with Claudia's family in Augsburg, we still decorated our place and set up a tree. Claudia decided to theme decorate the house this year, using only red and white ornaments and trying to have as many moose and snowflakes as possible in these colours. When it came to the tree, the red and white stuck.
I think all in all it turned out very well. Here is a shot of the final product, with our Franz-build nativity next to it, everything illuminated.
I hope everyone had a nice time over Christmas and I can assure you have accumulated lots of content for upcoming posts.

Winter Boy

Well, this is my last day in the office until Jan 2, so I am not sure how many posts I will make between now and then. Probably some since I will have some time with not much to do I am sure, and I will most likely take a whole bunch of photos over the Christmas visit.

Christmas always provides lots of photo content.

In the meantime, here is a frosty little man in his cool had driving his bobby car along the road in our neighbourhood. What a happy dude.

Helping out

Liam likes to help out around the house. When I am vacuuming, he is following me around with a little broom doing some sweeping up. He thinks he is helping, when I think normally he is just knocking stuff over and getting in the way.

It is the thought that counts though.

A Nice Gift

Last night was my work Christmas dinner and we went out to a nice local restaurant. After dinner, the boss gave us all a very nice surprise in the form of a nice jacket as a gift. Here is what it looks like. We were all pretty impressed as it is a pretty nice ski/trekking jacket from Jack Wolfskin. Funny enough, I was looking for a winter jacket recently and this has now saved me the pain of having to actually shop for one.

It does not even have any HP logo on it, so I am not branded as a corporate stooge when out in public. I did point out that now we look odd outside since our group is all wearing exactly the same thing and it could also make some confusion at the coat rack at the end of the day. 20 people with identical coats....

Party boy

Not much to say about this one, but here is the party boy:

Liam in the News

Liam's media coverage has begun... In yesterday's amazing edition of the "Ammerbuch Aktuelle" Liam's daycare was in a story because a dude donated (built) a nice wooden bench for them. Below is the image from the paper of all the little people sitting on this bench. Liam is in the front row, 2nd from left, and he is the only one with a big smile for the camera.

Now, I think this also speaks volumes about our local paper... this is the community newspaper, at least 3/4 of which is filled with news about local clubs, organizations and community events. It is not really a proper newspaper. There is only town news, and since our "town" is made up of 4 villages populated between 1000-4000 people, you don't really expect much on world events.

There was an exciting story last year when all the wild pigs escaped from the park.... I never did find out if they got them back.

click on the photo for a larger version where you can better see the little faces.

Mystery Box

I returned from a meeting today to find an enormous cooler on my desk. It had been brought over by the mail folks and I was surprised to see anything there. It was massive and my first worry that it was a kidney or perhaps human head inside, some sort of bizarre warning from paper competitors....

When I looked at the shipping label, I was relieved... then curious.... then very very happy.

Addressed to me, Mr. Fraser Anderson. Ok that is indeed me.

From...Inge de Braekeleir Never heard that name in my life.

address... Godiva Belgium. hmmmmm

I opened it up and hoorah! it was a massive basked of chocolate treats!
Wine, coffee, chocolates, cookies, some nutella like stuff, all from the wonderful Godiva chocolate house. It was even in a nice looking leather basket type thing. As excited as I was, I was not really expecting anything, so I had to open it right up to see the card.
Well thank you "HP Everyday Paper Team Europe" unexpected and awesome. This is the company that makes the uncoated HP office paper. The regular paper that you would be using most often. Now they are my favorite people on earth. At least until the basket is empty.

The Clever Niece

Not much news today, here is an amusing picture of my Niece, Claire. My mother brought this one over on her last visit. Look at the little astronomer.

The Little Hockey Star

Liam and I were playing in the basement yesterday and he made me a happy daddy. He wanted to play with my hockey stick. He had seen me with it before, shooting some of the little bean bag balls around the basement for him, and he wanted to try it out.


Sometimes he is not quite the smartest guy, he wanted to take the stick into the other room, but of course he tried to take it out sideways through the door. He really could not figure out why he was stuck. So like most problems, he tried to solve it by hitting the wall then yelling at me.


Just to round out my whole proud hockey daddy experience, here is a film of Liam giving it a try.

Christmas Decorations

Well, we are into December now and our house is all Christmassed up. Claudia spent a day last weekend putting up all the nice things and now we have a holiday feeling to the house.

First, we have the display of Christmas Munchins. Including nutcrackers, smoking men and a nice wooden bear.
Next, we have the big advent calendar with even more munchkins:
Claudia was all crafty and made some stockings. She did an excellent job, nice fun fur and snowflake motif.
The Key box has our little tree ornaments with our names on them that my Mum has gifted us with in past years...
And finally, the advent wreath type device in the centre of the dining table, also assembled by Claudia.
To reward herself for this impressive display, she enjoyed a small gluhwein

Another Super Toy

We were just in Augsburg over the weekend and Liam's Opa had another special treat for him. He had built him a little oven to play with. Little kids like to do the same things that Mummy and Daddy are doing, and now Liam can cook along with us. He is often making a pest of himself in the kitchen, and little play stoves are very common toys here.

Of course, Franz had to spend some weeks designing and building it himself, and you can see that it looks really great. We need to go get him some play food to cook on it now. He keeps cooking the potholders at the moment. You can see them in the oven in this image.