Christmas in Germany...

...was actually more fun than I thought it would be. I did miss my family though (and the first white christmas in 5 years in Kansas which was actually a blizzard that shut down our annual christmas eve celebration).


We did have a bit of snow here. Made for some pretty pictures.



Nora's back yard


We met Daniel's parents, brothers and the Trautner family for a goose dinner on the 23rd. Here's Daniel with Nora and Walter.




Christmas eve we did our last minute shopping (the line for the checkout at REWE grocery began at the front door and snaked around the store) and then headed over to Nora's. Here's an ornament on her tree - Daniel drew it when he was 11 years old.



The major drama was when Chou Chou attacked Carl's hand.



The victim



The perp


When all the guests arrived, we did our gift exchange. I ended up with a basket of homemade goodies from Nora's friend Hardi and Daniel got a Vanessa Paridis CD from Nora's friend Doris. Ruth's daughter Rebekah got Daniel's gift of chocolate and Helga's son HW got my gift of dessert tea, hot chocolate and a mug. Then we had fondue for dinner.


Florian, HW, and Daniel relax after the meal



Christmas day we hosted a lunch for Daniel's father Micha, stepmother Mietzie and all 4 brothers. I made sweet potato cassarole, baked potatoes, and brownies and Micha made steaks and brought salad. We had drawn names for this gift exchange and we opened them youngest to oldest and I took a picture of each.



Frederick (and a good view of our tree!)




Carl


Florian




Daniel


Steffen (with his Zombie from Daniel)



Micha





(according to Daniel, Mietzie does not want her pic to be posted, so I am honoring her wishes)


Next Christmas, Frederick will be in pilot school in Phoenix so not only will I be home for christmas but we might just bring the whole German crowd with us again.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and thanks for reading my blog this year.

Happy Birthday Dad!

We love you! Hope you had a great day despite being practically snowed in.

Last christmas..

Just wanted to share a funny photo from last christmas day at my father's house.

That's Hans (with the bow) and Sydney on christmas day after they've ripped into all the wrapping paper. Silke wanted no part of the action and sat on Sandy's lap. Wild dogs!

Busy December

There is always a lot going on in December, hence the lack of updates.

Monday the 10th we went to the "leaving Franfurt" party of my former boss at Ogilvy, Folker Wrage. Folker is German but he is one of the few German copywriters that I have met here that can also write copy in English. He was a copywriting mentor for me at my first copywriting position and I learned a lot from him. He's not going too far - just to Hamburg.



On Wednesday and Thursday (Andrea's birthday) we were over at Andrea and Oli's to visit them and little Levi. Daniel totally monopolized Levi's time.





Friday I went to Neue Digitale's christmas party. My first ND christmas party was 5 years ago and it's amazing how much has changed. At that time there were 40 employees and now there are 150 in two locations. There are only about 7 people (including me and Roanne - below) that were around 5 years ago. The dinner was delicious and the company amusing - but since it was a private party, smoking was allowed which I am totally not used to anymore.

Roanne and me


On Saturday we visted Daniel's father and stepmother in Wiesbaden and we went out to Hausen to eat rabbit at Daniel's mother's place. There were two big pieces. Nora, Daniel and I ate one. Then we went to look at christmas trees. We picked out a small one and Henning (the employee there) cut it down for us (soooo sad!!). Nora picked out hers and we drove back. Then we discovered that we had left out the other piece of rabbit and the dog had eaten it. Oops!

On Sunday we went to Butzbach to visit Daniel's friend Florian and his wife and twin sons. Daniel is their godfather. Florian has a cafe there where parents can have a drink while their children play. Daniel did the logo for him (as seen below). I tried to get pictures of the twins, but they were just too fast for me.




Daniel was in the hospital for three days for a routine surgery. He got out yesterday is kind of puttering around now, but is happy to be back at home.

La Coruna, Spain

Last weekend we went to Spain to visit Weina who works there at Zara Home designing rugs. Daniel had a cold so we didn't do much on our first day, besides flying in on Iberia (Friday).

Saturday, Daniel felt somewhat better. We went to the main shopping street in La Coruna and walked around. Then we went to the beach for lunch and a walk around. There was a kitten there who was all over us trying to get our food. We took many pictures of it which are hilarious!

Weina and the cat

Daniel on the beach

Sunday we went first to a place to eat Churros - donut like pastries that you dip into hot chocolate.

Then we went to Santiago de Compostela where we visited the church and sat in on the end of the service. A nun was singing and the acoustics were amazing - what a special experience. Here's the outside of the cathedral, an UNESCO world heritage site:

By the time we got back to Weina's apartment that afternoon, I was feeling quite sick. I stayed in and watched a couple of movies from her collection - Hollywoodland, Casanova and Star Dust - while Daniel and Weina went out with a few of her friends.

Monday we flew back with Iberia, and this time we checked in one bag of stuff we bought in Spain (on the way there, we were strictly carry-on) and prayed they wouldn't lose it. Iberia has a very bad rep for losing luggage, so we were wary (Weina's luggage has been lost 5 out the 10 times she's flown with them). Fortunatly, our bag made it. Not that I would book on Iberia again unless I had to.

MIA

I haven't posted in a while for 3 reasons:
1. On Monday November 26th, my 4 1/2 year old HP laptop gave up the ghost
2. From Nov 30-Dec 3rd, Daniel and I were in La Coruna, Spain
3. I am sick with a nasty flu - fever, cold and the whole works

Hope to be back soon :)

In the meantime, I do want to congratulate the Mullins family on the birth of their 3rd daughter Miriam and Andrea and Olli on the birth of their son Levi.