Happy 2010!

I haven't posted anything in 2 months! Sorry! Let's catch you up to speed...
We celebrated Thanksgiving at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Cologne with a few other American families. The turkey was pretty good, but the pumpkin pie was something I can't even describe other then, YUCK!

December was off to a good start with St. Nikolaus Day. The kids enjoyed their little gifts and Landon had a fun visit at school from St. Nikolaus himself. Then my poor little girl became very sick. For two weeks she was down and out. The Christmas market at the Junkerburg was very nice, but Alianna could not enjoy it. We actually had a house call from the doctor to check up on her because her 104 degree fever would not go down. So she could only watch out the window and it was pretty sad. Thankfully she recovered in time for Christmas and no one else in the family became ill! I love Purell!

On Christmas Eve I gave the family my special gift! I bought them a little fire kit for outside so we could make smore's! With my prayers being answered, a work friend of Larry's was coming to Cologne and he agreed to bring marshmellows, Hershey's chocolate and graham crackers! I was so excited to be able to surprise all three of them with this gift and a surprise it was. We even introduced Frau Schumacher to smore's. After a fun day of smore's and playing the kids were off to sleep to wait for Santa's arrival! He came and our presents was that the kids slept until 7:00! We spent the morning opening gifts and playing with toys. Alianna's favorite was the Wii Sing it with Hannah Montana songs. Landon loves his kitchen and Handy Mandy pj's. Larry got a terrific watch and I love my tall, brown leather boots.

Christmas dinner was also a huge success! We ordered a fresh turkey from the butcher and it turned out great! Fresh cranberry sauce, green beans and finally a great pumpkin pie! We were all fat and happy!

The next day we packed up our gear to head out to Austria for a week of skiing. We left at 6:20 am for a 6 hour drive and less then one hour into it we were at a stand-still on the Autobahn. A large accident ahead shut down the road. And German's don't believe in routing people off. No, we just sat with the car in park for another hour. In the end it took us 8.5 hours to get to Lofer. And as our usual luck when it comes to vacations... there was no snow! End of December in the Alps and NO SNOW! We skiied a little, by going up as high as we could, but it was icy and way too many people. We enjoyed the time away, but not quite the ski vacation we were hoping for. Maybe next year. We think maybe we will try the Italian Alps.

Ok, I think we are up to date. The kids are back in school, my german lessons resume tomorrow and the Christmas decorations have been replaced with karneval ones. We are hoping to escape karneval this year, but not sure yet where to go that is affordable. Landon will participate in his schools karnevalzug on the 7th of Feb. so the kids will still get some candy and get to dress up.

I have included some photos and once my computer is working properly again I will try to upload a new photoshow. Until then Happy New Year!