We are now down to just three “free” weekends before we come back to the U.S. And probably the last really lazy weekend we’ll have in Germany!

I got through only 24 pages of the 86 page masterpiece I had agreed to review. It was quite the long, lengthy document. I am sure I spent at least 8 hours and only got through 24 pages, if that tells you anything about the contents Although the work was quite good for someone who isn’t a native speaker; I can’t even begin to imagine penning an entire thesis in a second language.

We* also repaired my bike tire, but thanks to a Friday night/Saturday morning blizzard, there was no training time.  Our weather has taken a turn back to winter, from 50-degree days to now not even breaking freezing again. I hope that changes. Last summer we did a few Sunday Rides of about 50 km, and the season starts again on Sunday. This would be the only Sunday Ride we could do before leaving, but if the weather is below 40 degrees, I think I will cop out.

Since it is a slow week, I probably won’t have much to post this week. But if anything exciting** (like an unexplained bill in German) shows up, I will be sure to share

* We = Travis. My only contribution was “Please change my bike tire.”

** Definition of something that is NOT exciting: Our kitchen sink now spits out water that is scalding hot when you have it turned in the middle or higher range. Travis burned himself probably 12 times this weekend, forgetting about the new temperature, and I told him there was probably a camera on us to see how long it took us to learn - kind of like training monkeys. Travis said, “The water in the kitchen will make a great blog on Monday.” I said, “Define great? It sounds kind of boring to me.” But here I am writing about it anyway. )

My computer at work has a nasty virus so I’m at home trying to be productive without most of the tools I need. Hopefully I’ll have my computer back tomorrow.

In the meantime, enjoy this picture that Travis took from the office window of a little visitor…

Yes, I realize it is only four months until we leave, and that means we’ve gone 20 months without one of these:

But since one really cool Santa brought Travis a PS3 for Christmas, we had to have it. (Santa was kinda thinking the PS3 could stay in Denver until we returned, but Santa was wrong!)

So Tuesday night we ventured out in the cold and picked up this bargain. I don’t know if it counts as having a t.v. since it’s more of just a PS3 monitor and not capable of receiving any, well, t.v., but hey! It’s there.

Now that it is 2010, we have to plan our move back in only four short months. I spent the last day of 2009 looking for a new home in Denver. Travis had to work, but I finagled his brother, Chris, into accompanying me and off we went!

Our realtor set up about 10 appointments and we did them all in two hours. We were exhausted afterward. But we saw some really cool properties. We still aren’t sure if we want a loft/condo downtown, or a house in an older neighborhood (i.e. “with character”) like our old place. There is much discussion to be had!

I am sad to see this year finally here and realize with each day that we’re closer to leaving behind the friends and fun we’ve had here in Germany, but we’re also excited to get back to Denver and pick back up where we left off.

Last week, I mentioned our niece Sammi coming to see us. Her plane should be landing any minute, in fact! And although when I WROTE that, she was the last planned visitor, we now have a few more to anticipate.

First up, Travis’ brother and wife are going to be coming in just two weeks. They planned that trip on short notice They’re spending 10 days or so in Croatia and will be heading our way at the end of July.

Then, way off in the distance, we’ve semi-convinced Travis’ mom and nephew to come out (on separate visits, I imagine). So we’ve still got some excitement to look forward to! Unless we get some surprise visitors we’re not expecting, that means we’ll have had 20 different people stay at our Casa in 2009. Not bad, considering we had far fewer visitors to Denver, a much closer destination for most people!

I realize it is kind of hard to tell from this picture (two bites), but the “personal mosquito repellent” that “protects for up to 12 hours” failed me drastically last night. I woke up this morning with NINE bites. Travis thinks the product must only works for American mosquitoes.

I am a walking sucker for anything remotely mosquito repellent related. In the past month, I purchased not only the OFF! Clip-On unit (and a number of refills), but also was suckered into new spray (you should have seen mom, dad and me at Target taste-smelling every single bottle for something that I could wear to bed without making my sheets reek the next day). In addition, we also purchased some kind of German plug-in thingy that hasn’t been tested yet, only because I can’t read the instructions and am not sure exactly what needs to be done.

In addition to these remedies, we’ve also coated all of our windows and doorframes with Listerine, which was recommended to us by my step-mother-in-law Sandy. (And now that I google it, I see this.)

I’m really longing for bug-free Denver these days!

* I should add that when I woke up this morning the little OFF! unit had its power switched off. I thought the batteries were dead, but they still worked. Apparently I turned it off (turned OFF! off, ha) at some point in my sleep. Which isn’t surprising because I also moved it around in my sleep from one side of the bed to the other. So maybe I need to give it another shot.

Well, unfortunately it’s official. Those pesky flying critters have returned.

I killed one in the shower yesterday morning and had a sighting of one this morning (unable to catch him, in spite of my frantic efforts).I have five bites on my arms today, and this is AFTER a spray of OFF! before bed and a 4 a.m. wake up to apply more.

I have no idea where they’re coming from. The weather has been so cool that we haven’t opened any windows, and we don’t have an outside door (just one from our apartment to a hallway to a door). There’s no standing water anywhere for them to nest in. I’m completely stumped.

And itchy.

How do you define home? I still think of my home as the house I grew up in in Iowa, and being in Denver this week has also felt like home. I have never thought of Germany as “home” but, since that’s where Milli and all of our stuff is, it feels like we’re heading home-ish. Our flight leaves tomorrow at noon and we arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (in theory) at 9:15 in the morning on Saturday.

We’ve had a good time in Denver so far and have stocked up on all of the “neccesities” like Spaghetio’s and chocolate chips. Hopefully this will last us until our next trip the the U.S. at the end of May!

Before our trip, the weather was getting pretty cool (40-degree range) but our house seemed to stay relatively warm, in spite of the outside temps. But, since our return, the temps have dropped and it’s been rainy or snowy every day, making the last few nights pretty cold. So cold that I started wearing my new gloves, thick socks, AND using hand warmers from dad at night and I’ve STILL been cold.

We’re energy-conscious to begin with, and always kept our house in Denver a few degrees above freezing in the winter. But, since we haven’t had the heat on yet this year, I thought we were well do for a little artificial warmth.

We have small, steam heat in each room that we can control to our desires. But, to our surprise, almost none of the heaters in the house worked. Especially not the most important ones, like the one in the office where Travis spends his days, and the one in our bedroom. And seeing that it is now December, heat is a nice thing to have.

Well, good news! Yesterday, workers came out and fixed our heaters and turned them all on high. So when I came home last night, it was quite similar to walking into a sauna. A large, house-sized sauna. And it was awesome. I laid my mittens out on the vents in the office to have toasty fingers when I left this morning. And I laid all of my clothes that I was going to wear today on the vent in the bedroom.

This good idea was in vain, though, as my clothes and mittens were cold this morning. No, the heaters didn’t stop working overnight. Apparently, Travis thought it was TOO warm and turned them all off. What’s wrong with that guy?

Everyone has told me that snowfall is pretty rare here in Frankfurt. Last year, it reportedly only snowed three times, and none of those times did it “stick.” So, imagine my surprise to hear that it was snowing last week while we were gone! I figured it would be months before any more of the white stuff appeared. And then I woke up to this:

Sure, it’s not a lot of snow, and it didn’t stick to the pavement. But my car had a good inch of it on the windows, and luckily I had snazzy new mittens (thanks, mom!) to wipe down the snow in absence of a snow brush.

Travis says it’s still snowing at home, but here at the office, a short four miles away, it’s not even raining.