Travelog for: Dusel

It's Christmas Eve here in Colorado! We were very much hoping to see some snow, but, alas, no.... We did see an interesting statistic though on the news tonight that said in the past 100 years, it has only ever been a "white" Christmas for a little over 30 of them and has only ever snowed ON Christmas 14 of those years. However - my host assures me that it has never been so ... brown... as long as she can remember.

It was a lovely evening tonight with an amazing sunset. What made it so cool was all the lines in the sky from the planes.





To get everyone in the mood for Christmas, we lit a fire this evening. It was quite lovely! We had to keep fighting off the small dogs for the spot in front of the fire. The Chihuahua named Chloe kept bumping us out so she could warm herself.





We are going to sleep by the Christmas tree tonight in hopes that we get to see Santa... Our host said the goodies in the stocking are for us!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS MUM!!!! It's Christmas here in Colorado for another 1 hour and 6 minutes. I had a wonderful day here with my TV friends and my hosts. When we woke up, we could see that santa had filled our stocking (but more on that later). We really wanted to open it up, but we had some things that we had to do first.

There was still some wrapping to be done before we headed over to my hosts parent's house for the evening. We were very helpful!



Our host was in such a bussel to get every thing done that she almost wrapped us.



Since it was such a nice day out, we went for a drive in the super fast car. It only gets to go out when the weather is good because its missing...uh... some essential comforts in it - like windshield wipers. A heater. And air conditioning. We were surprised to see so many people on the road today! We went to a very neat place called Daniels Park. You can see for miles in every direction.







Then, as we were driving out - we saw some big furry things in the distance. As we got closer we realized that they were BUFFALOES! They are actually quite a common animal out here to raise & buffalo meat is getting more and more popular, says my host. All *I* know is that they are quite funny looking!



As you can see - we were perched on top of a tall rock! Good thing it wasn't very windy or we could have been blown over the edge!



It was starting to get late in the day & we decided it was time to head over to my host's parents house for Christmas dinner.

Pea said that there are always festive decorations around the house - and there were!



Then we were showed a letter from my host's grandma. Instead of sending Christmas gifts this year, she made a donation in the name of her family. It was a very special donation to an organization that sends cows and livestock to third world countries so they can grow & sustain their own food. They sent a beehive and a cow to Africa. Very neat.



After everyone ate dinner, we migrated to the living room to open the gifts. Holy cow - that pile is huge! At this point I remembered that us TVs forgot to put the name tags on all the gifts we brought... It was a bit confusing trying to get everything to the right people.



Here we are in front of our host's mom's tree. This one is much easier to take care of than a real one!



When we got home it was time to open OUR *TV* stocking! Pea, Nathalie and I were so excited!



Nathalie & Pea were dressed for the occasion so I decided to make myself a hat out of some spare wrapping paper. It even came with its own cape!



Ta daaa! Can you believe all of this fit into that tiny stocking? I dont know how Santa does it - it must be magic!





Here is a closeup of the gingerbread shaped & flavored marshmellows!


Then we broke out some of the games that came in our stocking. First up was basketball.




Here is our team picture!
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Then we played a game of crazy 8s.


And Nathalie & I played a game of tic-tac-toe. But we were interrupted by a Dog Monster.



I had a great Christmas mom! I hope you did too!

Our he-host has been spending a lot of time lately  working on one of his cars. Our she-host has been anxious for him to get him done so we decided to go up there tonight and give him a hand. I'm not sure if we were very helpful though...

We are picking out our tools:


Nathalie doesn't have hands - only wings, so she was voted to hold the light. I didn't want grease stuck in my fur so I didnt want to go too deep into the car so I offered to hold one of the wrenches. Since Pea has scales, she can easily be washed off and thus she was the one who would "turn the wrench."



Here is a close up of me holding the wrench. It was a very important job.



This is one of the "projects" in the garage, but I think its a little beyond our expertise. It's a little... old...



Pea & Nathalie offered to file down some of my claws for me.



After we got in trouble for playing with the drill looking thing, we decided to go and so something really useful. It's actually snowing here!! So we offered to plow the drive way. However, we were quickly stopped. What is with these hosts not letting us use power tools??

Happy 2011! We decided to write our New Years greeting in the SNOW for everyone!



Also - unrelated to the new year, but we met quite the interesting character outside....

Just wanted to show a couple pictures of the guest house that I am staying in!

We are in the pink two story. Pea sleeps in the hammock. All those things hanging on the walls are pea's clothes! Holy cow!



Alot of the decorations in there are hand made. The blankets in our rooms are! Mine is a miniature crocheted afgahn! It's been keeping my quite warm.



Here's the top floor of Pea's house. This is where all of the geckos live! There are so many - all different colors and sizes. Some of them are over 15 years old!



Here is a close of up me with some of them. Along with Henry - the ceramic gecko.

We were watching the news the other night and saw a story about how handwriting is a lost art these days. Most people use computers so less and less children are having to learn good handwriting skills.

Pea told us that her person LOVES hand writing, so we decided to pull out some of her caligraphy supplies so we could learn how to write! Obviuosly - we know how to type - how else would we get our travel logs updated??? In case we ever got lost and needed to write home - we could write a message in a bottle by hand!

First we needed to learn the tools... This is a fountain pen:

We studied some examples:



Did lots of practice letters:
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And more letters. Repetition is the key!

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Then we practiced our signatures so that when we're famous - we can sign tons of autographs!!



I'm very excited about tomorrow - we get to go see the horses!

Hiiiiii!!!!

Sorry it's been a week or two since I have updated... I was afraid we lost our host behind a mountain of paper. We've knew she was in there as we would occasionally here a rustle of papers every now and then and her yelling when a stack would fall over. Finally - all the paper is gone and she has emerged victorious!

It has been very cold here in Colorado - so cold in fact that all the major schools in the state have been cancelled for fear that their students will get frostbitten! The high today was -1 F. We wanted to see who could last the longest outside tonight. But no one won - we all started screaming as soon as the door was shut to be let back in.

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Once our teeth stopped chattering - we went to see how cold it was outside. Holy cow! And its supposed to be even colder tomorrow! -39!!



We had bug shaped pasta for dinner this evening. I am a carnivore by nature so I wasnt too convinced with the pasta idea... I would have preferred steak. But it made Pea so happy that I went ahead and ate anyways.



We also have a new TV in the house! Diddl-Maus has come to stay. I also hear that I will be heading out to Norway this week on my next adventure! I was glad to be able to cross paths with Diddl-Maus for this short period. Thanks everyone in Colorado!

Greetings from Norway!

I was so happy to finally get out of that envelope, even though it was very large so I could stretch my legs while travelling. George was there to great me and to keep the cat away if she got to a bit to close.




I had some great treats with me and a postcard.




After having a quick sniff of me and recognizes me as a fellow feline the cat seemed fine sharing her area with me.




I even had a chat with one of her toys and he said that she was more interested in smaller objects then me. He is looking forward to get my hosts new family member home tough so he can have a pet to play with.



My host showed me some of the puppy books she's reading these days so I know what to expect.



I even got to see the puppy on the computer. Isn't she a nice fur ball? At least as far a canine goes.



But I'm happy I have a safe spot to stay inside the camera bag so the puppy can't get a hold of me. 



I also got to take a short trip outside to check out the view. It's still some traces of winter her with some snow and ice, but we are hoping spring will show up soon.



That's all for now.
Lots of hugs
Dusel