Holiday Concert

Yes, the school has to be politically correct and they called it a Holiday Concert and not a Christmas Concert.  There is a new music teacher at the school.  The other music teacher was a really hard act to follow.  This one did pretty good though.  I went to the rehearsal during the day.  She invited the parents to it in case they worked at night.

 

Mrs. Richardson's 2nd grade class getting ready for the performance.

 

My handsome son!

 

They wanted a silly picture - I love this class!!

 

The 2nd graders putting on their part of the show.

 

The music teacher was brave - she had them do a bell song.  It went pretty well, I was impressed.

 

The kindergartners did Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer in sign language.  Michael was so excited about it!!  He showed us almost every night at dinner.  He was really good at it!!

 

Have to love controlled chaos!!  There were a lot of kindergartners up there!!

 

Then they did the grand finale!!  I have to say the concert did drag on a little and the kids were really restless in their seats.  But it is so great to see the kids up there performing!!!  Unfortunately AJ got sick after Karate so we didn't make it to the night performance.  I am just glad I was able to see this one and the boys were able to participate!!

Santa and Cub-a-napolis

It is that time of year where the Santa's are out and thank goodness we ran into one in the BX.  I always keep my little camera with me just in case.

 

Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas!!!  I look at other people's pictures of their younger ones and I am so thankful I am beyond them being scared of Santa!!!  Though that means it is one step closer to them not wanting to take pictures with him.

 

On Sunday, December 8th, the sad day that Grandma and Grandpa left, AJ had his annual cub-anapolis.  They decided this year to make an airplane.  We had wings for the boys to put their hands through but found out with everything that the race entails, it wouldn't have been very effective.

 

This is AJ in the plane now, they did three heats so each of the boys were able to be the one racing!

 

The den watching the others race.  They did a great job, but the tigers took the trophy this year.  I think it is a tradition that the tigers always win.

 

Then at the end the cub master read a story The Night Before Christmas, but it was all about scouts.  It was really cute!  He did a great job!!!  The boys had a good time!

Last day with Mom and Dad

So Saturday was a sad day for us, it was my parents last day here.  The six weeks really just flew by!!  We did a lot and had so much fun!!  The boys LOVED playing cards with them every night and hanging out.  We decided to do some Christmas decorating before they left.

 

 

The boys and I decorating our little Christmas tree!

 

Wearing the Cougar hat with pride!!  All the ornaments on our tree are handmade and the boys love seeing them each year!!  That afternoon we had a birthday party to go to at Yabadoos.  I asked if my parents wanted to come, but they said they were good.  :-)  You haven't been to Germany until you have been to Yabadoos on a Saturday.  It was PACKED!!!

 

They did add a new ride in there, it is a little roller coaster.  It was actually pretty fun!!

 

The boys playing some air hockey.

 

AJ - King of the Mountain!!!

 

Michael was having a great time shooting the balls at other kids!!  They are actually pretty cool shooters!!

 

Michael working on getting to the top.  They had a good time and ran off some energy.  We headed back to the house to enjoy our final evening with Grandma and Grandpa and a little Angry Birds Uno!!!  We had to get up really early the next morning to take them to the airport - 3:30 am early.  We saw them off at the airport on Sunday and thankfully it was an uneventful flight home.  They made it safely and started working on resting up after their "vacation."  :-)  It was so good to have family here.  Germany is really awesome and we love it, but it is hard being this far away from family.

Heidelberg - Christmas Market

So I had to take my parents to at least one Christmas market to show them what they are all about.  But before that, they needed to have some good German food.  Since I don't really cook good German food right now, I decided to take them out for lunch and a great place close to the house!!!  So on Thursday, December 5th, out for lunch we went.

 

As you can see we pretty much had the restaurant to ourselves.

 

 

Mom and Dad -showing off the centerpiece.  One thing that is great about this restaurant is the family atmosphere.  The waitress was AWESOME and brought out some of their yummy gravy for them to try even though it didn't come with their meal.  They had some good German food here!!! 

 

Dad and me - it was so neat, a couple weeks later I took some friends there and they remembered me and Mom and Dad!

 

Many cities in Europe have different animals, Berlin has bears, Luxembourg has elephants and Kaiserslautern has fish!

 

So that evening was St Nicholas day in Germany.  It is when children put out their boots or shoes and St Nicholas will leave goodies and presents.  Looks like the boys were good and he came that night!

 

The boys with their goods!!!

 

After we dropped the boys off at school Friday December 6, my parents and I headed to the beautiful town of Heidelberg.  We were going to go to the castle, but Mom and Dad were pretty touristed out so we stopped for some hot chocolate and tea and waited for the Christmas market to open.

 

It was a beautiful day with the sun shining!!!  The only problem was the cold, cold wind.  But that didn't stop us!

 

Dad and I on the bridge.

 

Mom and Dad on the bridge with the castle behind them on the hill.

 

And check out the blue sky, and the beautiful town behind them!  I do really love German towns, they are so beautiful and quaint!!

 

They have done a lot of the work and the scaffolding is off and it looks so much better without all that in front of it!!!  I have already told lots of history on this place, so I won't bore you this time.  :-)

 

Mom with the lucky monkey!

 

In almost all Christmas markets they have a center piece like this.

 

Mom and Dad at their first Christmas market!!!  It was a smaller one, but a good one!!  Next year I told them we will have to go to one of the bigger ones!!

 

Mom and Dad checking out the wares - they have booths like these all over the town.  It is really a fun atmosphere.  Mom has her first Gluwhein mug!!  I told her she had to start her collection and of course I needed to add one to mine!!!  We made it back in time to get the boys from school and take Dad for is first trip to Dolomitis for ice cream.   It was very yummy!!  You know how much we like our ice cream!!

London - Day 2

After getting a somewhat restful night sleep we headed out for more sight seeing.   We headed to our bus stop and saw this...

 

Check out how they wash the windows.  That is really cool!!!  It looks like they have a couple on the length of The Shard.  An interesting fact about London - there are 500 foreign banks there.  There are more American banks in London than in New York and more Japanese Banks there than in Japan.

 

We decided to start our day with a river cruise.  Mom and Dad with the Tower Bridge behind them.

 

This is the old Billing's Gate Fish Market.  They said that there was such extreme bad language there that even Shakespeare commented on it.

 

 

These are some of the stairs they used to use in the old time to bring up the fish.

 

This is the London Bridge - most people think that the Tower Bridge is actually the London Bridge, but it is not.  This one was built first.

 

This is the Golden Hine.  Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world in 1518 with the original ship.

 

 

This is Shakespeare's theatre.  It is called the Globe Theatre.  They still do shows at this one. 

 

This is Cleopatra's needle.  It was a gift from Egypt that was almost lost at sea.  It is over 3500 years old.

 

Mom and Dad with the London Eye behind them.  It is the tallest operation wheel in the world at 135M.  We decided not to go up in it because of the amount of time we had.

 

Aren't they cute?!?  Big Ben behind them in the distance.  Big Ben is actually the bell that is inside the building, not the building itself.

Mom and Dad in front of Big Ben.  The bell is 13 1/2 tons and named after Sir Benjamin Hall who was vast in girth.

 

Parliament - where their politics happen.

 

This is the "War Dog" Winston Churchill.  This is one of over a dozen statues in this square.

 

Westminster Abbey - looks to be a beautiful church but we were all pretty churched out by this time.

 It is not a London trip without the red telephone booth!!!

 

We headed to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards.  The only problem is that they didn't do it this day.  But it was still neat to see the palace.

 

The three of us in front of the palace.

 

Horse guards - I didn't see them the last time I was here.  I didn't know they still had horse police.

 

This one owned the road - he was not giving way to any vehicles.  It was hilarious!!!

 

So I finally found out what this - it is "modern art"  It is "Horse drinking water"

 

This is where they did many executions in London.  You see the three squares - that was so they could execute more than one at a time.

 

There is a crown on top of every light post that is the Queen's property.

 

So I had to take a picture of this - there is a bird on top of his head.  After Trafalgar square I had to take my parents to none other than...

 

That is right, the  Sherlock Holmes pub!!!!

 Each of us enjoying our drinks, Mom and Dad with a Sherlock Holmes Ale and me with a GREAT cup of hot chocolate!!

 

Mom and Dad said it was good stuff!!  How more London can you get?

 

Daddy and his little girl having lunch and yes I claim to be his little girl now and for always!!!  We decided we wanted to go and see a show.  I am not sure if it was a we or an I, but they went along with it.  :-)  We went to The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie.  It is the longest running show in London.  When the late Queen Mary was approaching her 80th birthday she was asked by BBC what she would like to celebrate the event.  The Queen said she would like "an Agatha Christie play" and Mrs. Christie promptly wrote one for her.  It was a great play.

 

The Christmas lights sure were pretty. 

 

It was late enough that we took the tube back to our place and I couldn't help it - this cracks me up and always will!  We had dinner at another local pub and had some great food!!  I have to leave you with a couple more interesting facts about London.  There are 84 Chinese restaurants in Piccadilly Circus alone (it is one small part of London).  We made it back to Germany and my dad was really glad to sit down on the couch and just relax.