Hotel Platzl, Munich Germany

We stayed in a really nice hotel in Munich's old town. The location couldn't be better since everyone seems to walk EVERYWHERE. No wonder I never saw a fat person! Some intersting things though, that I found were that you had to insert your room key card into something on the wall in the room in order to get the electricity to work. That way, when you left, you had to take your card and your electricity would be turned off. That's fine except that the laptop which was plugged in would be completely dead and drained of it's battery if we left the room for any extended period of time. That was kind of annoying. Also, there's no air conditioning. If you don't like the amount of heat that's coming into your room, you open the window. (Might I add this is a LUXURY hotel. I would truly hate to see what a budget hotel offered.) You also have to have converters to plug into the outlets here because your electronics won't fit into their outlets. And if they did, they would burn up because they put out twice the amount of electricity. Oh, and I'll try to post a photo later, but the king size beds are two twin mattresses pushed together with separate blankets and all. We LOVED it. There was no problem with the other person being a "cover hog".

The Patent Team

Mark had a big trial in Europe for a couple of days so we decided to just make it a full week and take a vacation too. Why not? Here's a picture of the attorneys, the chemist, and me (the only female) in a pub in Munich. It was a celebratory dinner we were heading to as they WON their trial!! Yay!! The victory dinner was delicious and we even left there and headed to a fancy cafe for dessert afterwards. It was a late night.

Dachau, Germany

After a very very long flight and getting absolutely no sleep on it, we bought train tickets to go see Dachau. It's one of the most famous concentration camps in Germany. Sad thing was that once we got there we found out that they were closed on Mondays--the one day we chose to go. So, we took a few photos before getting back on the train and heading to Olympia Park.

Where in the World Are We?

By the time you are reading this we're en route home on an 10 hour flight. Any guesses where we've been for the past eight days? Well, I'll give you a hint: chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. If you can't figure it out, the receipt at the bottom will tell you. It even has chocolate on it too.

First trick or treater

I had meant to post this before now, but just kind of forgot. Here's a pic of our little neighbor Simon trick or treating for the first time. We tried to give him somehting that he really could use and absolutely LOVES: jars of butternut squash. LOL He really didn't know what to think of being in his costume.

Work Pumpkin Decorating Contest

Mark's office had a pumpkin decorating contest to benefit United Way. He, his secretary, and a fellow attorney went to work on their "mad scientist" pumpkin. Here's a peek at the finished product:

I have wanted this for a long time.

A plate rack. But thought we had nowhere to put one in our kitchen. We had this useless desk in the kitchen area. It just collected stuff on it's counter top and I'd had enough of it. So, Mark ripped it out. I wanted a Butler's Pantry type area there with a plate rack above it.

Apparently my husband was a carpenter in his former life because he made it all happen!

The former island in the middle of our kitchen is in progrees getting a facelift and some legs and is going to be underneath the plate rack, so ignore what's currently there.

Under cabinet lighting

This area of our kitchen cabinets was rather dark. And I don't really use this area at all except when we host dinners. Then I put most of the food over there and think about how you really can't see that well. Well, it's fixed now! Mark added some really fantastic lighting. It has three levels too low, mid, and really bright.

New Floors!

Well, the floors are finally done. And well worth the wait. I absolutely LOVE them. Maybe a little too much. As in.....we still have down the paper in the heavy traffic areas. That's going to have to come up soon. Never mind me exiting the back door.

Casings

The dining room entrance was a bit blah, so Mark spiced it up by building these casings that look like columns to the entrance. Doesn't it look really nice?

NaBloPoMo

This is going to shock you all so you'd better sit down before you read the next line. I am joining NaBloPoMo. What is it? It's National Blog Posting Month. You post every. single. day. for the entire month of November. Yep, you heard me right! I am going to post every day for the entire month of November. Gulp. Even if all I get up is a picture. That counts. (I think.)

Halloween 2009

Here is the pumpkin Mark carved so we could have a real Jack O'Lantern. Again for the second year in a row, I do not have a basic pillar candle or tea light and end up using a scented candle (meant for in the house) and end up smelling up the outside.....albeit very nice smelling!

We decided it was entirely too tiresome to get up every two seconds and go to the door so we just camped out on the front steps with tons of candy to hand out to kids. And boy did we get a lot! The weather was incredibly nice too.

Sprinkles absolutely LOVED having all of those people coming up to the house and watching them. But then he got tired, so he came up and laid behind the candy.

And when the candy in the basket was all gone, he used the basket as his bed. It was just him and the box of Ring Pops that were left.

Wainscotting

Mark did this beautiful job on the wainscotting in the dining room. Also, a peek at the finished floors!

Sanding and Polyurethaning (total guess on spelling)

We actually got this done a week and a half ago, but I'm behind--as usual.
We didn't put a stain on it. Just left it natural with polyurethane. We like a lighter look.

Where have I been?

In pain. That's where. I had my second laser eye surgery last Thursday morning. My first surgery gave me 20/20 vision in my right eye, but I had 20/60 vision in my left eye. So, it was still not very sharp and the astigmatism was not corrected either. Thankfully when I purchased the package I got the one that allows me to have free "touch ups" for a lifetime. My left eye unfortunately doesn't have enough tissue to have a third touch up though. But that's fine.

I can truly say that laser eye surgery has changed my life. Prior to this, my eyes were so bad that I had to hold a big alarm clock with huge numbers smack up to my face to even make out the numbers. I was really really blind.

I had PRK done, which gives you the same results as Lasik does but is typically reserved for those who don't have a whole lot of corneal tissue and you can't cut a flap for lasik. So instead, they SCRAPE the cornea off and then laser it. Sheesh, it hurts. BAD. I can't even describe it. And narcotics don't even help. Seriously. I tried them the first time around and didn't even ask for any the second time because they just made me nauseated. So, I took tons of Ibuprofen and Tylenol and stayed in bed for THREE whole days. I had to cancel dinner club and another couple's invitation to dinner Saturday due to the pain. But Sunday morning? I woke up completely pain free! My left eye was totally blurry, but so what? I had no pain!! So, Mark suggested that we go have brunch at a nice restaurant in Chapel Hill called the Weathervane. It was lots of fun! And afterwards we stopped in four or five houses on the Raleigh Parade of Homes. You pick up all kinds of ideas from that place! Then to make it even better our neighbors who we couldn't eat with Saturday night came over and invited us to dinner that night. What fun!!!

I'll update our house progress soon!!

New base boards

We had to rip out the old baseboards which were't very high and so we thought it was a good time to replace them with wider baseboards. It has made SUCH a huge difference. The room just looks so much fresher too.
The hardwood people are coming back on Wednesday and it will possibly be a several day job of sanding down and finishing the floors.

A very weird conversation

Our door bell rang today and it was the guy that normally cleans out our gutters. He said it was time to clean them out.

Mark responded with "Before the leaves fall?"

The gutter guy's response: "Yeah, cause that stuff just gets in there and clogs them up"

Uhm, am I missing something here? Isn't that the point of getting them cleaned out? To mostly get dead leaves out? We think the man must need some money, so we're letting him pseudo clean them out today. Guess he'll stop and want to clean them out again once the leaves fall. He came in March too and didn't get anything out when he cleaned them, but got a bunch out in December. Oh well. We got a pretty good laugh out of it.