Bam Bam Vitamin

Christian had his first yummy Flintstone vitamin, which he calls Bam Bam vitamins, today instead of the incredibly gross liquid vitamins. He is still excited about them. :)

Valkenberg with Mette, Mads & Bella

After 5 hours of preparation, we finally made it to the Valkenberg Christmas market. Yay!! These are unique, because they are set up in caves with entrances in the middle of town.

Christian relaxing on the way to Valkenberg.

The nativity just outside the cave.

Christian and Mads looking at the nativity. Christian really wanted to go inside for a closer look.

Christian excited to see Bella.

Christian and Mads playing in the courtyard until we were ready to go in. Mette calling Frank unsuccessfully. Bella watching the world from her warm, snugly stroller.

Inside the caves it was all decorated for Christmas. It was pretty.

Mette watching the boys admiring the polar bears

I thought the Christmas tree dresses were very clever and pretty.

Christian really enjoyed the fountains

Christian borrowed Bella's stroller for a while. It was best for all of us.

Mads was fascinated with this monkey. I have to admit so was I.

Dutch ornaments with pretty display in the crevice behind the booth. They even had a machine that blew snow every now and then.

Mads talking to some random men in the restaurant section of the cave.

We ate at a delicious and very kid friendly Greek restaurant after. At the end of the meal the waitress gave them a candy necklace (Mads) and bracelet (Christian).

SNOW!!!

We had LOTS of real snow today... powdery, fluffy snow perfect for snow men and snow balls and snow angels and all things that are snowy fun! It started coming down a bit this afternoon. Christian and I started on our trip to get groceries at about 4:30, but I ended up having to turn around and come home. There was a very thin covering of snow on the ground that I was worried about freezing after dark (5:30ish). As it turns out by 4:30 there was a much thicker blanket of snow covering absolutely everything, and it is still coming down as I type. Christian and I bundled up and played in the back yard instead. We threw snow balls and played tag, but his favorite game was making shoe prints in the snow that I would follow. Cliff joined us for about 15 minutes, but then he had to get back to his homework. Poor Cliff. After playing in the back for a while, we walked around the neighborhood. All the neighborhood kids were out throwing snow balls, making snow men (2), one had a sled and running around in general. Christian ran around with them for a while, and then we ran down the street and pretended to be trains in other people's tracks and made glove prints, and had a great time. It was so much fun! Then we came back inside for hot chocolate for me, tea for Christian and Christmas cartoons. Cliff came back down for dinner and has now joined us for a Charlie Brown Christmas. This was SO much better than grocery shopping. :)

A little snow, glasses and computer

We were so excited to wake up to snow, because it usually doesn't snow here until January or February.

After playing in our little bit of snow, we headed inside to warm up. Christian was playing, and came over to us wearing Mr. Potato Head's glasses. It was so funny! He knew he was being funny, too. He wanted Cliff and I to take turns wearing them, and then he took photo evidence.

Now for some pictures by Christian...

Later he decided to play on his computer for a bit.

Early Christmas

Christian's Christmas came early this year, but I only have a picture of Cliff assembling his garage. Mom thoughtfully sent his gifts to us there so that we wouldn't have to carry it back to Germany on the plane. He has enjoyed playing with it. It has 4 levels, an elevator, a helicopter landing pad, a car wash, a gas station, a toll booth, 4 cars and a helicopter. What little kid wouldn't like it? :) She also sent him a tractor with a scoop and a trailer that he can ride on, and a truck that carries 3 cars on it's trailer. I had to give him the gifts early, because they came in the original box with a full size color picture of the contents. There was no way to hide it from him or distract him from asking about it. Already a good Christmas for him. :)

St. Martin's Day

We celebrated St. Martin's Day with our village today. It was really fun. Everyone met at the church. All of the kids (except Christian) had a lantern they had made (most of them at made theirs in school). Something went on in the church. I couldn't understand what they said, but the church was pretty. After that everyone lined up behind St. Martin, who was on a white horse, and we walked to a little bonfire. St. Martin talked for a bit, and then we all followed St. Martin to a community center. St. Martin called each child's name and gave them a bag of treats (a loaf of bread shaped like St. Martin complete with a little plastic pipe in his mouth, a couple of pieces of fruit and LOT of candy). After getting the candy, there was gluhwein, hot chocolate and cookies in the next room for the adults. Everyone stayed around and mingled for a bit. We really felt like part of the community. When they went around to collect money for the kids' candy and see who all would participate, they made sure that someone came to explain everything to us in English. During the celebration, he and his wife walked with us part of the way and lent Christian a lantern to carry. Everyone has been so nice to us.

A strange picture of Christian and Cliff just outside the church, I think.

A better picture

Christian and I waiting for the walk to start.

The beginning of the walk. You can see St. Martin wearing his red robe riding the white horse up ahead of everyone.

In the walking crowd

This is the room where we waited for the kids to get their camera. Everyone is watching St. Martin. The lady with the blond hair and blue scarf, Julie, is the one who lent Christian the lantern and explained the festival to us while we were walking. She was really nice, and had two little girls that Christian played with a little.

Christian getting his treat bag from St. Martin

Here he is with the very generous supply of candy and a few healthy things.

Picture with Santa

This is Christian's first picture with Santa for the season. It was at the AWGK bazaar. Christian was excited that Santa gave him a piece of candy. When Santa is brought up now, he associates him with giving candy.

Happy Halloween!

So, I've skipped a little to bring you pictures of my little frog. I'll get back to the backlog of pictures and video as I get time. :)

So, we went to TWO Halloween parties. There was a party on Thursday night at the elementary school. My camera stopped working right at the beginning, so I only have pictures of Christian sleeping on our way there. He fell asleep with his pliers in his hand. It was so cute! He ended up having a great time. His favorite part was hitting the pinata and the table full of cupcakes, cookies and candy. There was also a jumping castle. Aside from an issue he had with Winnie the Pooh, he played really well with all the kids and lots of fun!



On Halloween we went to Trunk or Treat. It was crazy. We had to get there super early to park on base, but it worked out well. Christian napped and we had lunch while we waited. The Wesleys met us there. The boys were pretty patient waiting for everything to start.

Here they are waiting. Mads is the prirate, Christian is the frog.

He even hopped around saying "Ribbit, Ribbet".

Christian tried to climb this and other trees to entertain

himself while we waited in line for our tickets to get in.

Christian LOVED this lion. He went back a couple of times to play with the lion - not even asking for candy. There were lots of booths with different themes. The next one was a morgue, with a guy doing an autopsy. :) He didn't like that one as well. He started off just holding his basket up to ask for candy, but as he went on he said "Happy Halloween!" to ask for candy. By the end he would sometimes say "Trick or Treat!", but always "Thank you!" or "Thanks!". The boys were remarkably polite and really enjoyed running around to all of the booths.

This was one of the last booths. It was "the monster under the bed". They were hesitant to bring the "monster" out, thinking it might scare the boys. Christian Loved it. He bent down and yelled, "Come out, monster!" and tugged on it. When the monster went back under the bed he was dissappointed that the monster had to go to sleep, but he noticed it come out again for the people behind us and ran back over to it. He had a lot of fun at this booth. They thought he was so cute that they gave him extra candy and a sheet of pumpkin stickers.

This is the end of the day, Christian with his loot. There was an activity center with games. One of them had velcro balls for him to throw at a ghost target. He won the dump truck that he's proudly holding in his hand. He evidently "zoomed it" (that's what he told me later), and so it was lost. We retraced our steps and actually found it. He was so excited! He was shouting all the way back to the car, "We found it! We're so lucky! Yeah!! We found the dump truck!", etc. His basket is full of candy and a couple of toys. One is a beanie baby bear holding a pink heart that says "Cutie". He chose that over a penguin or a bear with a red heart. The lady, wearing all pink, thought that was wonderful. He also got a storm trooper Mr. Potato Head - we thought of you, Farleys! All in all, a great Halloween. He is still asking to go to another Halloween party, though sometimes he accidently calls it a Happy Birthday party. I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween, too! We look forward to seeing your pictures, too. :)

Leipzig

We decided to take a short vacation to a beach during Cliff's three day weekend. As it turns out the weather was not so good for that, and the ticket prices were higher than we were willing to pay. We opted for the "Blind Booking" option on German Wings, which I highly recommend. German Wings selected Leipzig for us. We weren't very enthusiastic about it at first, but it ended up being wonderful. I'm missing most of the pictures, but we have a few.

The hotel was in a perfect location. The main train station was across the street in one direction. There was a nice park across the street the other direction. The pedestrian area was just a few minutes walk. The hotel was pretty child friendly. They gave Christian a stuffed animal at check in. There was a small play area in the lobby, and they had a bowl of apples. The apples were Christian's favorite part.

This is at the park across the street, complete with this water fall.

Our family picture

Christian loved playing in these leaves. We all ran around in them for a while. It was a nice place to take a break from the sight seeing, and to give Christian a place to run around at the beginning and end of the day.

More playing in the leaves

We went to the hobby trade show at the Messe. Here Christian is watching the demonstration of the model boats.

This was at a booth that paints things. Christian liked these elephants.

This area had a ton of model trains. Nearby there was a display of remote control cars, tractors and trucks and such driving in a scene with muddy hills and roads. There was another war scene with camouflage trucks, tanks... I think there may have even been a couple of helicopters.

Cliff was disappointed that we missed the remote control airplane section, but we were off to see the St. Thomas Boys Choir. That is the same choir that Bach directed. They have concerts every weekend. With lots of rushing we were able to make it on time with a few seats left. Cliff decided to run to the bathroom just before we went in. In that time the last few seats were filled and we missed it. He did feel sufficiently guilty about it. I tried to listen through the door, but to no avail. So, we went to a coffee shop for lunch instead.

They had a jazz festival this weekend, so we listened to some music and browsed the vendor booths around. We went to the art museum. Mendelssohn's house (now a museum) holds a concert every weekend. We went and heard a wonderful pianist. Christian listened for a bit, and ended up napping through the rest of it. It was really nice. We also went to a museum that showed how life in East Germany was.