Thirtieth and Thirty-First Week in Germany

This week has obviously been a week of preparing and gearing up for Christmas or Weihnachtstag. We have been anxiously awaiting some packages from the States from the Grandparents...as of Wednesday, still not here. Bryn decided instead of taking naps this week she was more into playing in my bathroom with my eye liner and the toilet paper. Whew, that is fun.

Thursday and Friday the girls received a "Christmas Miracle," that is what they called it anyway. Everyone told us here not to get our hopes up for snow at Christmas time. It has something to do with the Rhein River effect. But, we had quite a dusting of snow, so Bailey went right out and made snow angels in the snow and made a 2-dimensional snowman out of rocks.

We finally received 2 of the four packages we were waiting for on Friday afternoon at 4:30pm. We were grateful as one of the most crucial packages arrived in time.

We have started receiving some friends' Christmas Cards and are flattered that you would send them all the way here. We are so excited to get them, so thanks to whoever has sent one.

We went to Burg Eltz castle when it snowed. It is really amazing especially with snow. Unfortunately it was closed but we felt like we still got something out of the experience of seeing it covered with snow, and being the only people there.

Sunday, we had the pleasure of having some friends from Church over to our house for cookies and hot chocolate. One family just moved here from Sierra Leone - what incredibly interesting stories they have about their country. The other family has become our regular holiday get together friends as we have been together for 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and now pre-Christmas Eve.

We were not sure about what to do for Christmas Eve Dinner this year. Usually we go to Greg's parents that night. We decided to have Christmas goose. We didn't want to go with turkey again. It was great. We had a nice family dinner, did our annual Christmas pageant but used the Little People nativity this year because we didn't have enough people to do all of the parts and there was a bit of a disagreement about who should play Mary. I don't think I will post the video as it is a bit of a disaster. Apparently Avery, who was assigned to play the Wise men, was not leading them in the correct direction. And, Bryn just wanted to steal baby Jesus and run off with him. I have faith that Heavenly Father knows we had the best of intentions and some of the spirituality of trying to celebrate what is really important has gotten through to them.

Christmas Eve was a late night for Greg and I but Christmas morning was great. We lost our internet access on Christmas Eve due to an outside line problem. That put a bit of a damper on the holiday because we had to cancel the video conferences we had planned with family and friends. It is amazing how attached we have become to the technology resources we have here.

Here they celebrate Heilig Abend (Christmas Eve), Erste Weihnachtstag (1st Christmas), and Zweiter Weihnachtstag (second Christmas). It was really nice to have that extra day with nothing open to just relax and spend with family.

My mother, sister and her family, arrived on the afternoon of the 28th. We took a walk down town Bad Godesberg and had some easy things for dinner. The kids were very excited to see each other. Saturday, we took the train to Köln where we visited the Dom and the Chocolate Museum. Sunday, we left for Heidelberg which has a very cool castle overlooking the city and it is a fun University town. The German version of Ann Arbor, with just slightly older history. We stayed the night in a very quaint hotel called the Holländer Hof. It was in a perfect location right in front of the famous Heidelberg Gate and Bridge.

Heidelberg Castle in the distance.

The next day we took off early for Dinkelsbühl and Rothenburg, which has the most famous Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas store. Really cute towns and they get more snow than we do in Bonn. We tried some schneeballen which we are not sure if it was a New Years Eve thing or just a town thing. But, they were tasty. We had a slight separation from my sister and her family but found each other in the end which worked out well. We drove home which took about three hours and had raclette for dinner. We put the kids to bed because they were so tired, but the adults managed to stay up until Midnight. We were watching the movie, "The Holiday," when all of a sudden we started seeing some fireworks outside. Pretty soon, when midnight struck, everyone was lighting some of the most amazing fireworks. Everyone from our neighborhood were standing outside in the street lighting fireworks all around our house. I mean everyone. It was amazing, we had to run to the windows and see. Then, we felt compelled to go outside and watch them. My niece and nephew woke up and were enthralled with the fireworks display. What we thought was going to be an average New Year's Eve turned out to be something spectacular.