Adding to the family...

At least temporarily! :) Andrew loves English Bulldogs and last weekend there was a dog adoption event in a park in Plantation, a city close by. Since in the USA, there is a rescue for every breed of dog, cat, whatsoever, there is of course one for English Bulldogs. Down here it is called Adopt-A-Bull. Since they don't work out of a shelter, they always need foster parents for their dogs... so guess what!? Yes.... we came home as foster parents of Clifford, an approx. 3 year old Bully, that is kinda ugly, but that is, what makes him totally cute!!! Due to the cost of adopting one, that is currently out of the picture. So fostering is a very good option to still have a dog around.

While Andrew is in Orlando with his mum that came down here from Alaska for a conference this week, I'm taking care of the Bully by myself and we're having lots of fun. Today Andrew got a call from the rescue that Clifford is going to be adopted this weekend by someone in Naples. YAY for that, a permanent home, but boooo for us. We'll surely miss him... but maybe we'll get a new foster bully.


Zuwachs fuer die Familie... Zumindest temporaer! :)
Andrew liebt Englische Bulldoggen und letztes Wochenende gab es hier ein Hunde-Adoptions Event in einem Park in Plantation, einer naheliegenden Stadt. Da es in den USA fuer jede denkbare Hunde-, Katzen- und Kleintier-Rasse eine eigene Hilfsorganisation gibt, ist natuerlich auch eine nur fuer Englische Bulldoggen da. Hier unten nennt sie sich Adopt-A-Bull. Da diese Organisation nicht aus einem Tierheim heraus arbeitet, braucht sie immer Pflegefamilien fuer ihre Hunde... also ratet mal!? Na klar... wir kamen also als Pflegeeltern von Clifford nach Hause, einem ca. 3-jaehrigen Bully, der ein wenig haesslich ist, was ihn aber schon wieder voll suess macht :)!!! Durch die hohen Adoptionskosten fuer einen Bully kommt eine Adoption momentan nicht fuer uns in Frage. Somit ist es toll die Option zur Pflegefamilie zu haben.

Waehrend Andrew gerade mit seiner Mutter, die aus Alaska fuer eine Konferenz angereist ist, in Orlando ist, passe ich alleine auf Clifford auf und habe eine Menge Spass. Vorhin hat Andrew einen Anruf bekommen, dass Clifford am Wochenende adoptiert wird und in sein neues Zuhause nach Naples zieht. Juhuuu fuer sein staendiges Zuhause, aber buhuuu fuer uns. Wir werden ihn sicher vermissen, aber wer weiss, vielleicht kriegen wir ja einen neuen Pflege-Bully! :)

Here is the womanizer!

My friend Tanja, the "slobber-guard-blanket" and Clifford :)

Awwwwwww! Love me, love me, I'm soooo adorable!

1. Visitors

With a delay of one day my parents made it over to the States on 10. April. But why a delay? Well, long story short... a very small mistake on their ESTA forms cost them lots of money. While in their German passport the number 0 (zero) and the letter O look exactly the same (yes, I even looked at it and it was no difference), the computer system printed them differently and so the airline wouldn't take them on-board. They tried to solve the mistake as quickly as possible with help of some airport Berlin-Tegel personnel, but didn't make it back in time before the counter was announced to be closed by a supervisor... Actually they made it back in time, because the counter guy and a guy at the security check were still there and had waited on them, but this supervisor ruled differently. :(

Well, eventually they made it over to the USA and we had a good time. Went down to Key West one day and up to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center on another day and then their short visit was already over. At least the one to Florida. When they arrived in NYC on Friday last week, their flight was canceled due to the ash cloud from Iceland. They finally made it home on Tuesday, after a flight to Barcelona, a bus ride to Karlsruhe and a train ride to Berlin. I'm glad they made it back safely!!!


1. Besuch: Mit einem Tag Verspaetung kamen meine Eltern am 10. April in den Staaten an. Aber warum Verspaetung? Nun ja, ein sehr kleiner Fehler auf dem ESTA Formular wurde zu einem sehr teuren. Waehrend in dem deutschen Pass meiner Eltern die Nummer 0 (Null) genauso ausschaut wie der Buchstabe O (ja, ich hab's mir angeschaut und da ist KEIN Unterschied), druckte das Computersystem die unterschiedlich ab und so nahm die Fluglinie meine Eltern nicht mit an Bord. Mithilfe von Personal des Flughafen Berlin-Tegels versuchten sie den Fehler so schnell wie moeglich zu beheben, schafften es aber nicht mehr rechtzeitig zurueck an den Schalter, bevor dieser von einer Schichtleiterin geschlossen wurde... Nun eigentlich schafften sie es noch rechtzeitig, denn der Mann hinter dem Schalter und ein weiterer bei der Sicherheitskontrolle hatten noch extra auf sie gewartet, aber die "gute" Frau entschied anders. :(

Nun, letztendlich schafften sie es in die USA und wir hatten eine gute Zeit. An einem Tag fuhren wir nach Key West, an einem anderen nach Cape Canaveral und ins Kennedy Space Center. Dann war der kurze Aufenthalt meiner Eltern auch schnell vorueber. Zumindest der in Florida. Als sie am Freitag in NYC eintrafen, wurde ihr Flug aufgrund der Aschewolke aus Island gestrichen. Am Dienstag trafen sie dann nach einem Flug nach Barcelona, Busreise nach Karlsruhe und Zugreise nach Berlin endlich zu Hause ein. Ich bin froh, dass sie wieder heil da sind!!!

Here some impression from the Key West trip.

Pierre's @ Islamorada. Should be familiar from the Full Moon Halloween Party. I LOVE THIS SPOT!!!

Morada Bay @ Islamorada, next to Pierre's.

Ernest Hemingway House, Key West

There's a big cat sanctuary at the Hemingway House.

Beautiful property with lots of different plants.

Key West Beach

Happy Easter!

I guess it's alright to still say that on Easter Monday! :))

Everything here in SoFlo is going great, like always. I'm back in a job in the same industry that I had just left, but work less hours than before and it's a corporate environment, so I will actually get health insurance in like 2 more weeks. It is very hard to get around the hospitality industry down here, since it is just everywhere and the money is not bad. I'm still looking around for something else, but I'm not in a hurry. Right now I just prefer the server job over a $10-12/hour office job. Some of you may have heard of Dave&Buster's before. That's my new employer. I've been there almost a month now, have 140 colleagues, it's one exit from my apartment and I really like it. The strange thing is, that I'm somehow reaaally good in this job. :) At Toss Up Salads customers would always tell me that I'm one of the best servers they have met in their lives and at D&B the managers have also already told me that they wish there would be more of my sort. Very nice!

Besides working I'm enjoying the great SoFlo weather again. At the beach or the pool - my tan is coming back!

This Friday my parents will finally come to visit me for a week. After it was impossible for my friend Henry to fly over here for XMAS due to problems with his health insurance who didn't let him fly, this will be my first visitors from Germany. I would really like to welcome some more friends down here... but yeah... I know the difficulties, especially the monetary ones.

Here is a picture from yesterday, Easter Sunday. We had come back from church and lunch and since I had to work in the evening I wanted to rest a little on the couch. Well, someone thought it was very comfy to lay on my back. His front paws were hanging down, but he didn't move for 15 minutes... Nice heating pad for my back, Smokey! :)