Heike also built a Yoga meditation table. Here are a few pics of it.

Heike spent yesterday and today painting the Kitchen and Dining Room. The color of the paint was kind of a sand/coral color. It looks great!

Don’t have alot to say right now. I did think this Yahoo article was interesting though.

A Hallmark Illuminations star to be exact. We purchased one in November, and about mid-December, it started having defective issues. To be exact, it stopped the illuminating and fading illumination on the ceiling and just remained steadfast. The lights stopped blinking and it was no longer ‘as advertised’. I returned it, they replaced it with another …. 2 days later, it stopped flashing again. This was with a new star and new adapter. So we returned it as well. It’s a nice idea, but doesn’t seem reliable. Kind of sad, seeing how Hallmark had all their illumination commercials about what a great thing this was supposed to be. The product does have a 3 year warranty, so I guess we could of risked it and replaced it with a 3rd. But really, after 2 failures during one Christmas season??? I don’t think so.

My wife took down all the Christmas decorations today. She’s like that though. She likes to put up the decorations as early as possible, then remove them as soon as Christmas is over.

Tomorrow I return to work, how quickly the days off went by. – Tim

Took it easy today. Played darts with one of my sons on our new dartboard. Went on a bicycle ride with my wife on my new bicycle. And then we played table tennis on our new ping pong table. For this Christmas my wife and I decided to purchase more outside presents. The bicycle was so that my wife, myself, and the kids could go on rides together since I didn’t have one. It’s not an expensive one, kind of an old style with a comfortable seat so that we can go for long rides. We drove by a new subdivision that’s being built. The houses were so huge! Anyways we stopped for a moment and we could hear the ocean in the distance.

Tonight we drove around and looked at Christmas lights around various neighborhoods. It’s a tradition that we started years ago. The children loved it. There were a few houses who decorated immensely, but we didn’t find any of the outrageous ones we’ve seen in the Denver area years ago.

Also called my parents and the kid’s spoke to them on the phone. My parents also saw the kids over the video camera using MSN Messenger.

- Tim

In Germany they celebrate Weinachten today! So Froehe Weinachten to all. This is the day that we traditionally celebrate Christmas as well in our family, keeping with my wife’s German traditions. My wife has started cooking the Rolladen (I’m not sure of the spelling). And we’ll have a wonderful celebration, remembering that Jesus Christ is the reason for the season! – Tim

Yesterday we ventured out to Walmart for some last minute Christmas shopping. It amazes me how Walmart thinks that they want to win over the typical Target shopper simply by improving their product offerings. You can see that they simply don’t get it. It’s not just the selection. There are other things that makes Walmart such a terrible place to shop. It has much more to do with the shopping experience. Walmart has created an atmosphere that really increases stress levels.

• Lighting and color choices, (white floors, white walls, flourescent lighting) it starts there and it looks cheap and uninviting.
• Excessive (an understatement) use of the intercom.
• Aisles too narrow

The idea is to create an environment where people want to stay. The longer they linger, the more they’ll possibly buy. Think of Barnes and Nobles, Starbucks, etc…. they understand this concept. Instead, whenever we make the mistake of going there … regretting it later. We’re in such a rush to get in and out as quickly as possible.

- Tim

It’s kind of like a first journal entry or whatever you want to call it. But that’s where you have that sense of … “why did I decide to even do this?” But here it is, without much to say.