Christmas 2009

I would like to add photos that I will soon steal/borrow from other people :) I don't remember to pull out the camera much at Christmas, and later I wish I would have! Just like each preceding Christmas. This one was THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!

Pageant at Aunt Kay's
Mimi and Steph getting the angel ready:
Steph, me, em, and Joel in the mirror looking at the angel cousins:
THREE angels! and one missed her nap!
Little angel Olivia recovered and the three angels were a delight to all: (except when mine decided it was fun to plow into the other delicate heavenly beings!)

And then they turned into the three Santa's! With one of the CUTEST elves...whose head is invisible, but just imagine darling Harriet's face. We're missing Natalie Claus here, but I'm sure Em has a picture I will steal/borrow:
Back at the our place, I'm showing off the earrings Jorg got me :) Even though my hair's in the way:
And here is Rebecca's darling new house! Built & designed by Omi Birgit! Jim and Birgit were able to come down Christmas to spend the day and assemble the house. It's simply amazing!
We Like It!

Christmas Miracle

It came! It was on our doorstep Christmas Eve morning. And Rebecca got her "fuzzy penguin" for Christmas. Even though the bag was ripped, the contents were in tact.

Merrry Christmas!

The past several days

At Home:

We've been reading a Christmas story by the tree every night before bed.
Jorg's company party:

She was very much hoping that "Santa would Know 'bout...that she's Peter Pan." For you see, she is. Day and night (since last Sunday). I am Wendy. Jorg is Captain Hook. And she is Peter.

Santa did not know she came from NeverneverLand, but I think she forgave him.
This is the Santa that always come to our ward parties when I was a kid! He is a long time friend of my family, so it was fun for me to see him too.
Rebecca told him she wants a purse and a penguin.
The penguin we got her is in our lost luggage, so I hope we get it by tomorrow??

I was very proud of Jorg up there. He is so funny & handsome, I must say!
and we also continued the tradition of making gingerbread houses with my fam! It was fun to see those two darling cousins (Natalie and Rebecca) reunite. I will get some pictures of that night to add here.

I wanna Hippopotamus for Christmas

Horray!

photo from Nov. 2008
We made it home!
The traveling part is all a big blur. That 11.5 hour flight...but it wasn't so bad.
We were blessed to be able to have the experience!
And are blessed to be home sweet home.
One suitcase got lost. We are still hoping it turns up.
In the meantime, I put the decorations up before unpacking. Priorities, you know!
And we're Christmas-ing!
And we like it!
And we hope that you too are having a wonderful weekend and holiday season :)

"My boyfriends are here."

said Rebecca with a shy smile.
We had the Greers over for dinner last night to say goodbye.

The kids were wild for about 2 hours and then they crashed in front of Spounge Bob.
We will miss theses guys!

First Snow

(my coat sleeve, taken with the macro setting)

Christmas Decor

Is limited since we didn't bring any. But we bought a few things at the drug store! And my mom made us a darling table cloth. Just didn't get pictures yet.

we like it, of course!

bus-train-bus-plane-trolley-train-bus

and 8 hours.
that's what it took to get us to Hannover last weekend!
and then we did it all again on the way back, adding 1 train.
it was crazy to drag the luggage and the stroller
but It was cheap and it was worth it.

and Kristin and I got to have a girl's night and see New Moon!
even though we're not HUGE fans, we both liked the movie
and we're both on team Jacob.
It was my first time going to the movies in another country
It was the same but different:
they had assigned seats
sugared popcorn
and
ice cream!

Sunday Afternoon

at Kleinhesseloher See
a lake in the English Gardens

and, NO, Abby...we have not seen any naked people. Though there is a part of the garden where nudity is allowed.
And we've been there! But not on purpose. It's a good thing the weather is chilly.

Well I guess we need to come back to Europe soon so Abby can show us around the "special" part of the enlish garden here and Mar can show us around France!

Food glorious Food

I will miss the mozerella balls, spetzela, yogurt, chocolate, and bakeries the most!
Here are some of our meals at home.

There are bakeries like this everywhere. I snapped this picture inside a mall.

I like to get rolls, pretzals, try new cakes & pastries, and my favorite is: Apfel Tashen.
Rebecca and I call it our "apple treat". It's like an apple pie with a glazed flaky crust.
and We Like It!

Munich Daily Photo

Well I just think this is a cute picture of my parents from the first night they were here:

And I wanted to share a website I discovered shortly after we arrived in Munich. I really like the style of the author and I learned a lot about "our" city from reading his posts. Sometimes I would look at the daily photo and go and find that place! Pretty fun. Here is the site: click

P.S.

Re-reading the post below makes me realize how much better I can understand my adorable husband now. And how much he will miss his country, sisters, friends, language, Muller milch, sausages, cheese and weird meats ;)

And speaking of my adorable husband, GET HOME JORG! I am going crazy here. I need an adult to talk to. He was supposed to be here 3 hours ago but his plane landed at another airport, due to slippery conditions on the runway. I'm glad he's safe!! BUt this is turning into the longest day of my life!

Dear Jorg,
I took Rebecca to the "forest" (English Garden) earlier. The part by our house. It's strange how at some points, I could look around in every direction and see nothing but sky, trees, and grass. No people, cars, buildings. And I wondered, am I really in a city of 1.4 million people right now?

Rebecca imagined that Malificent was there, waiting to get us. Around every corner. And we stopped at a bench to eat Amerikaner cookies.

Just giving you the play-by-play, honey...since you aREN'T HERE! Even thought it's not your fault. Could you make the bus drive faster?

Love, EM

No Place Like Home

This was taken on our street, while waiting for bus 59.

I can't believe we're down to 2 weeks left!

I'll cry when we leave here because changes always make me emotional and sentimental. And we have made great memories to last a lifetime. I love Germany, I love Munich, I love the people, I love the parks, churches, castles, museums, and I love the food.

I'll also cry tears of joy to be HOME. With the rest of the people I love. To be back with my family, friends, ward. Back to my country. Back to my house, mountains, washer/dryer (we have coin operated here), car, cafe rio, playdates. Back to understanding the language. Back to my other shoes and clothes. Back to my own kitchen with my appliances and pans, to bake Christmas goodies. Back to my nativity set and Christmas tree. Back to a new freeway exit & road to our home in Springville. And the list goes on...

Munich/Springville...on the whole, I can't say that one or the other is a better place for people to live. They're good in different ways. I will miss it here. But
there's no place like home.

Ka-meen-go

There are many amusements for a stay at home mom and her darling daughter in Munich. Each day I have a little list in mind of where we could go, and the only problem is choosing! But boy, I can't wait to get back to boring (in comparison) Utah and have my family and friends to play with us again!
We went to the zoo again last week:
and I took this little movie at the playground there. I love this clip because it's full of some typical Rebecca.
singing, climbing on everything
"I'm busy right now"
her pronunciation of Flamingo (Ka-meen-go)
& producing a blue kitty out of thin air.

The Sign Says,

We have a blog where we keep posts of Rebecca's funnies. This morning, another funny was created and probably since it had to do with him, Jorg wanted it shared here too:

Jorg left at 6ish this morning to catch a flight to Sweden. Rebecca said goodbye to him last night. When she woke up around 8:00, she asked about her daddy. I reminded her,

"Honey, he is gone on a little trip. And he'll be back in a few days."

She paused for a minute, pointed at the blank wall, and yelled,

"NO! That sign says, STOP! STOP, daddy. NO going on trip!"

I have no idea where she got that from. Though Jorg wishes we could've gone with him, I think it made his day to know hew is missed by his little sweetheart. And we had a good laugh over her imaginary stop sign.

Thankful

A couple of weeks ago I was having, one of those days.
Long story short, I was by myself on the train, riding back from the Olympia tower where I had retrieved my lost wallet.

I was glad it was found, but miffed at myself for losing it in the first place.

Then, as I was crunching on some roasted almonds I bought since I was starved, one of my teeth cracked! In my head, I started listing off everything that was going "wrong" in my "terrible" life.
*Lost wallet
*cracked tooth
*rainy day
*it was my parent's last day
*my mom wasn't feeling well
*crowded subway train
*etc.

I let myself go on for a little bit and then a little voice said, "stop! enough! Now that you've let yourself go into this pity party, it's time to list your blessings!" so I did. It was slow at first, but once I got started, I couldn't stop.

My mood totally changed. And I noticed I felt lighter. I looked at the people around me. I hoped they were as blessed as I am. I wished they knew who they were. Why they're here. And that Heavenly Father loves them. Because I do! And I am so thankful.

Christmas is coming

The other night I went out with Rebecca. It was actually around 4 or 5 but gets dark so early now.
She likes to go to the "city". We have our usual places we always stop. She likes that predictability, as kids do (and so do I!)

So we go to the "castle" (Neues Rathaus) and go inside the courtyard where we see "Rapunzel's tower" and "the two scary lions". Then we make our way through to Statchus. And usually eat our way there, stopping for pretzels, rolls, or pastries at a bakery, or for ice cream.

Here is what we found the other night. The Christmas markets will soon open and things are starting to get Christmasy!Here is the store window of one of the department stores. So fun!

And Stachus went for this to this:

I wish she were old enough for ice skating because she was so excited about it.
At the very same time, and with all my heart, I so glad she's still my little girl

Portable DVD Players

sure come in handy with a Snow White obsessed toddler on a...

Indeed, we did join our "prince" on his trip to Frankfurt! After a 4 hour drive, the first evening was spent in the car and in McDonald's while Jorg was at his appointments. We were running late and didn't get time to check-in to the hotel. I wondered if we made the right choice to come and tried not to grumble too much, since the reason we are here in the first place is so that he can work. Frankfurt was okay but not near as nice as Munich. I saw many people who just looked...evil in their eyes. Even though Munich is a bigger city, I don't see evil-ish looking people very often. I feel really safe in Munich. If I so much as even drop a glove, someone is chasing me down to give it to me. If I need help lifting the stroller somewhere, there are many hands to help. People smile and greet you with, "Gris Got" which means "God is Good". It's a bavarian thing. I love that. Well, I didn't feel the same in Frankfurt. Jorg agreed. He actually worked in Frankfurt for a year back when he was still single and well, he agreed. While I was wondering around with Rebecca, I saw some missionaries pass by and stopped them. I didn't have much to say to them, except, "where are you from? and how's the work?" but it was so nice to see those two good faces. Other German cities are also very nice, such as Hannover, Bremen, and Kassel. I don't know why Frankfurt is such a bummer.

After Jorg's two successful meetings, it was finally family time. And we drove about 20 minutes out of Frankfurt to the Frankfurt Temple (go figure). It was pretty. Rebecca was excited. It was just great to see the place where my honey first went through the temple and where he went on youth trips.

We stayed in a fun hotel back in Frankfurt and the next day, headed home. But we took our time and stopped wherever we wanted! We found an American style outlet mall. It reminded me of the one we visited this summer in California. It was a pretty new place and they were setting up for Christmas. We didn't buy anything. We don't need anything. But it was fun to stroll around and window shop.

Then we stopped in Nuremberg. Jorg had never stopped there. We thought it would be great, but we weren't prepared for how awesome it really was! We just "had" to stop and go through the castle. Rebecca kept asking where the princess was. She has been in 2 castles and 1 palace now, and the poor one has yet to see her a real princess. We try to explain, but really...how do you explain that one to a 2 year old? "They don't really exist anymore, honey." "Huh, what?" Just too sad. So she was the princess here with the official burger king crown:

We headed into the city and I saw this cute puppet store on a quiet, narrow street. As I looked into the window, I had to think of Gapetto's shop! It was just darling, all of the dolls and trinkets in there. Too bad it was already closed for the day.then we ate some stuff:
and Jorg ate some of the famous Nuremburg sausages. They are small because they used to shove them through key holes when there was a ban on sausage selling. The ban was made so that only the restaurants could sell sausage, at least that's what Jorg said when I asked. There are some places where it looks like Venice, the water flows through the buildings. I didn't get any great pictures, the top right photo is the best I could do.They have a really famous Christmas Market here, and we saw the booths! But it doesn't start until Sunday. So glad we stopped. It was a great weekend and we even made it back for church on Sunday morning this time.
We Like It!

A Fun*fun*funny

with Omi, the ducks, and...

Just like at home, fall here brings unpredictable weather and it was in the 60's one day last week.
We like it!
(though poor Hans probably didn't last through the morning.)