December 18th, 2016
Here is a captured moment from our morning today…
It’s a chilly Sunday afternoon here in our neck of the German woods. Mein Mann and E are at a Cub Scouts meeting (a new venture) while our youngest and I are enjoying some down time at home. We were invited to a church service in our village by a woman I met a couple of weeks ago. She told me there was going to be a children’s program today that would be nice for our boys. Lil S was excited to see the one girl who plays on his fussball team singing up front. Though the service was in German, we were warmly welcomed by many and even had a few conversations with those willing to practice/use their English with us since our German only gets us through beginning pleasantries.
I’m finally pulling up the Blog again after taking an unscheduled hiatus for a couple of weeks. I was starting to get caught up on my posts and then fell REALLY behind again! Life got busy with the start of the holidays, decorating, school commitments, an early birthday party for our almost eight year old, Christmas shopping, Post Office trips, Christmas Markets, fighting colds and more. I know we are not alone in the fullness of this season. Hopefully, at some point, I will share some highlights. The boys are officially on Christmas Break for the next couple of weeks. We plan to celebrate E’s Birthday this week, take a short overnight trip to France and be back in our home to celebrate our second Christmas in Germany.
The holidays already have a cozier feel this year…starting from Thanksgiving. A sense of home and community make a tremendous difference alongside the familiarity that comes with time. We are grateful!
We enjoyed an early Thanksgiving celebration with friends in our village. My friend, Amy, opened her home and set a beautiful table to welcome all of us. I treasure these women and enjoyed seeing our kids play together and our hubbies connect. An amazingly delicious dinner was the added bonus!
We flew out on Thanksgiving morning to Valencia, Spain. Instead of turkey, we ate an insane amount of jamón (ham) for lunch that day after getting confused with the menu and ordering more food than we realized. We learned the hard way what tapas are and what they aren’t. Oh, the adventures of travel! That just adds to the memories though, right?! As we ate our Thanksgiving ham, we got serenaded by the outside musicians who sang our youngest to sleep right at the table.
More on Valencia soon…
Adiòs!
