Advent

Sunke:
The first advent is already a few days ago. Time is running as it seems, unbelievable that Christmas and all our birthdays are coming up in a few weeks. The last weeks we spent once again with getting furniture, picture frames and other stuff for the house and settling even more.
Certainly there was more in the last weeks. We got introduced to a wonderful American tradition - the Thanksgiving dinner. We were invited and got treated with a perfect dinner, turkey with delicious side dishes. Especially Jonte did eat as if we forgot to provide him food for days - it all just tasted so good, from the starters to the desert!

Katrin:
The nice thing about Thanksgiving is also that it is always on the last Thursday of November and it means you basicly have free from Thursday through Sunday. Originally we planned to go on a trip, but decided to take it easy and stay home.

Sunke:
On Friday we went to a local park. The kids had a field trip there about two weeks ago to watch salmon migrate up a little creek. Since Katrin was pretty excited about the salmon, we went there again alltogether. We saw about five salmon trying to make their way upstream. Quite incredible that these large fish try to swim in a creek often less than 10cm deep. Surprisingly they die upstream after laying eggs and thus provide rare fertilizer to the surrounding forest, directly and indirectly through the food chain. Katrin heard that this is only true for the Pacific salmon, the Atlantic one does migrate back into the ocean ... suicidal these pacific ones as it seems (one dead salmon was heading downstream)! Further more we had a look at the "Ballard ladder". A fish ladder for salmon and other fish to bypass the Ballard locks. Must be very interesting to see all the fish moving up there through the thick glass windows. Unfortunately we were there to late in the day and probably as well too late in the season to see many fish.

Katrin:
The rest of the weekend was about christmas shopping, making apple pie (as a substitute for Stollen and Plaetzchen, which we haven't baked yet, but will hopefully tomorrow) and decorating the house. Theda and Jonte love to make paper snowflakes right now - we have so many now that we might have to ship some over to Europe, we don't know where to put all these. Today they even started before breakfast. Usually the first thing underneath the table is oatmeal. Today our floor was covered with paper :-).


Sunke:
Got skis for the kids, mountains are now white capped. Crosscountry so far!

Katrin:
The kids can't wait until we finally go to the mountains to try out the skis, although they still get confused with skiing and ice skating. Theda and Jonte are signed up for a cross-country class in January: every Saturday at Snoqualmie Pass - a one hour drive from Seattle. We are excited and hope to get on our skis as well during that time (at least one of us).

Sunke:
Curtains for the doors - house much warmer now, even though we had the first frosty night. This first night of frost did raise my appetite for "Gruenkohl mit Pinkel und Kassler" (curly kale with bacon, a special small cooked sausage and smoked pork chop - I don't need the smoked pig's cheek with it) Is there ANY restaurant or food market here in Washington state? I have to find out ... I am starving for it!
Katrin got her Christmas "Stollen" - I need Grünkohl! :-)

Katrin:
What else is new? First some news about Narne: After he got stuck with his crawling techniques for a while and having had a cold which bothered him, he suddenly found out the right technique two days ago and since then he is much more agile: sits up, tries to pull himself up - he is really proud and happy. He also got a friend the same age he is. It is a girl. I met her father one day in a bakery/ cafe. He turned out to be from Switzerland and told me about his daughter. We decided that it would be fun if the two of them could meet. So now we have a little playgroup and meet once a week.
We also joined a network of German families living in Seattle called "Die Kinderstube". Through this network we found out about a forest playgroup who meets twice a week in a very nice forest north of here. I and the kids always try to go on Wednesday mornings before the kids have preschool - a long day, but a great chance to be outside - and for me to talk to other Germans.
I was able to get some tickets for the kids christmas symphony concert at Benaroya Hall for Saturday. Another German offered these tickets through the Kinderstube. So I am very much looking forward to this (hopefully the kids like it too, but they have been very interested in all kinds of music lately).
Another highlight which I, Katrin, haven't mentioned before is that I got a child-free Saturday three weeks ago. I took the bus and went down to the university district - I wandered through the campus and was fascinated by the buildings reminding me of typical British colleges. From there I took another bus going downtown. I quickly ended up in the big public market: the Pike Place Market which is a great place to spend time and wander around. Here are a few of my impressions.