Where the He** ARE You Guys???

That's maybe what some of you have wondered. Where on earth IS that Burney place, and what does it look like. Well, lemme tell ya. Mostly, it looks like a forest. Because we're IN the forest. Burney is a tiny town of 3,200 people nestled in the foresty mountains of Northern California. The next biggest town is Redding, which is about 50 miles away (it takes an hour, because the road down to Redding is rather curvey and you simply can only go so fast...).

That's where we are now. We're renting a little house right next to Henry's parents. It's been great so far. Sophia just runs over to Grandma and Grandpa whenever things get too boring at home. And we get to share all kinds of stuff with Henry's parents (like the internet, garbage and food - which ends up saving us all kinds of money). It's definitely a change being in such a tiny town. But there are several things I already really like: wonderful outdoors, like "Waldwege" (forest paths) right behind our house, the smell of burning wood (luckily not the forest, but the fireplaces basically every house here has), Henry being so close to work that he can come home for lunch every day (the practice is 3/4 miles away from our house), grandparents next door, simplicity, and safety (not a lot of traffic or other crazy stuff to worry about).

Henry has not yet purchased the practice we're planning on buying out here. We still have to sort out some financing, but hopefully in the next few months we can work that out, and Henry will earn a little more than now. Right now he's simply working for the doctor who still owns the practice. Since she only works 3 days a week, that's all Henry is doing, and it's not quite enough for now to make ends meet (well, it's enough as long as we don't have to repay our student loans...). We're really hoping that Henry can find some extra work in the area soon to ease the financial burden just a wee bit. In the mean time though, we're just enjoying our new home.

And so you'd all know where we are, I took pictures for you.

First you have to look at the pictures of Alba's crushed little toe though. Because I need to capture that on my blog as well. Poor Alba pulled a 5lbs weight off of our couch a few weeks ago (Dec. 26) and dropped it right on her toe. I was just about to work out, and was only in my garments (that's how I work out, at least at home). So, when I saw blood coming through her pajamas, I knew something was really wrong. I took of her clothes, and blood was just gushing out. I saw a nail tangling, and Alba was screaming like crazy while I was swearing like crazy. It was all a bit whacky. But I managed to find someone to watch Sophia while I ran off to the ER with the baby. I think Sophia was a little traumatized by my panic and swearing. I had asked her to call Papa on my cell phone (which she is well capable of). However, she just opened the phone, pushed  a button and then left the opened phone behind the TV and walked away. Poor thing. And poor Alba. Luckily everything was fine though. Her toe was not broken, and now several weeks later, the new toe nail has already regrown.Phhewww...

Ok, and now the pictures...

Alba's bloody, crushed little toe

If you think this picture is blurry, you need to see your optometrist (or come visit us, and see Henry)

Forest behind our house

Still the forest behind our house

Us, behind our house in the forest...

The street we live on

The little house we're renting

Henry's parents live in the white house on the left

Playground at the end of our street. It also has the community pool to the right, which you cannot see. All that matters is that we HAVE a community pool.

Main street. And it really is MAIN. Also sporting one of the two traffic lights in town. If you enlarge the picture, and look on the right side a little behind the traffic light, you should see a brown-ish sign. That's where the practice is.

The sign looks like this.

This is the practice.

This is a nice house around the corner from where we live. Just so you know there are nice houses out here, too.

More nice houses.

Another nice house.

The view on the way to Church

On the way to Church

On the way to Church. This is not a little stream, by the way. This is a river at the bottom of a gorge. I'm taking this picture from very high up.

Burney Waterfalls. A few miles outside of Burney.

At the Burney Waterfall Statepark

Still in the park

The living room (with Henry working out, and Alba rolling around of the floor)

Kitchen (the door goes out to the garage)

Dining area

Hallway (the two doors in the front are closets)

Kid's room

Our room...