German Winter....so freaking cold!

So, it's winter (duh!) and here in Germany, it is freaking cold! However, the past couple of days have been really gorgeous, despite the cold. Markus and I went out yesterday on a "Winterspaziergang" (a winter walk...but it just sounds fancier in German) and I brought along the trusty ol' Nikon. The picture below was from a frozen creek that leads into an almost frozen river. These were some pretty ice flake formations and they were all over this one part of the creek. I just had to get a picture!
The second picture is of Charlie's favorite creek (a different one than the one above). This is where, in Summer, every time we walk past this creek, he just has to jump in over and over and over and....well, you get the picture.

Charlie is showing off his mad frisbee skillz with his birthday present...the red frisbee. It is now his favorite toy.

The ducks walking on ice/swiming in the part of the river that isn't frozen.

This is the Naab. It flows near our house and we always go with Charlie there. This photo was taken on Jan. 10, 2009, but today, on the 11th, it was close to being completely frozen over in parts! How cool is that!

Weihnachts Packet

Hello again. Every year, ATU, the company that Markus works for, takes part in a charity even called "Die Weihnachtstrucker", literally, Christmas Truckers. They team up with Antenne Bayern (a radio station here), Rewe (a supermarket here), Die Johanniter (kinda like the Red Cross) and some others and collect packages containing basic nutrition needs. They send these all over Eastern Europe, and this year, the 4 ATU trucks went to Albania. Pretty cool. Last year we packed only one packet. This year though, we were a bit extra blessed, so we decided to pack 2. In total, there were close to 59,000 packets going to different places around Eastern Europe.

This is all the stuff to go into the packet!



The 4 ATU trucks that went to Albania...each with two trailers!!!



The truckers who gave up some of their vacation time to drive the packets to Albania. They are really a great group of guys...

Markus wanting to be a trucker...one day my love :)

Charlie in the Snow...

So, here is the best shot of Charlie in the snow. How freaking adorable is he? Markus took this shot, but I was holding the snowball on top of the camera...teamwork. I love the bit of snow on his nose! He is an absolute snow dog. Whenever it snows, he cannot wait to get outside!

Here is a more regal shot of Charlie. He just looks like he is such a good boy, and he is, don't get me wrong. However, shortly (about 2 seconds) after this picture was taken, his best friend came around the corner and the attention went to her.The snow was perfect for packing. In Texas, I was never able to make a snowman bigger than a foot, but here, we were able to make these roll things that were about 3 feet high! It was pretty fun, and Charlie had fun trying to destroy the balls as Markus rolled them.

Here is Charlie sitting on top of the large snow rolls. Later, we had about 7 of these things and he had to jump from one to the other. He had a blast!

Jumping off the rolls...

How adorable can one pup be???

So, this was our weekend. Playing in the snow, but also practicing what we learned at puppy school. Charlie still has a lot to learn, but he's already improving, and that is important.