BIG hello in the morning when the kids gathered their presents. the laughter and joy I heard through the door at 7.15am. all that noise and sensations! and me doing the only thing I could think of right at that moment. turning around and getting some more sleep 
(this bed was just too cozy).
Later than Heidi brought her dog which stayed at here parents for the last two months to the dogwash (her brother runs a HUGE petrol station with an attached dogwash). Her dog is the black one on the right, the one on the left is his brother (with amazing eyes) and both are half-wolve.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to join “operation dogwash”¬†because I had no disposable¬† clothes with me (to wash dogs CAN be messy, believe me, Heidi got well prepared as you can see on the picture).
To my big surprise we could watch it from home, since the petrol station has many surveillance cams installed, accessible via a very good (restricted) web front end. Quite interesting system, very well done. You can drag&drop cameras, listen to the microphone and see up to 20 cams at once. quite convincing technology.
After the (amusing to watch) dogwash we moved over to her brothers house, to have some lunch there and another get to together (also a very charming house, I guess my future flat (which I am still searching for) will be as big as the closet there ).
A friend of the family showed me the area, quite interesting.¬†She was especially proud of an 150 year old church, which is a big thing in the states, but if you are from Europe, well, what can I say, the church in my hometown is 900 years old and its no big deal at all.¬†But in a “brandnew” country like this (compared to Europe) I can understand her pride and of course¬†didn’t mention my hometown.
Although the state is almost flat they have a tiny ski area with artificial snow but it was too warm to ski so it was closed. Which is a pity, because in winter it gets really cold, perfect for skiing.
(This picture is just a shot of a farm  I took on the way)
On the way back I saw some really unusual warning signs, two of them remembering quite well:
- a bobsled warning sign
- a children teeter-totter warning sign
(are they supposed to jump on the road suddenly?)
In the evening we played the board game “Life” and although I started as a police officer with a decent salary, I soon got a midlife crisis and my¬†career changed to¬†”Artist” with the lowest salary of all. During the game I got the most children, my house got destroyed by a thunderstorm, I lost all my stock options¬†and I ended up with by far the least money. Quite depressing, I can tell. But luckily its not a fortune telling, its just a game, isn’t it. ISN’T IT?
most funny thing today: getting money when catching other speeding (Police Officer / “Life”)