Christmas Celebrations

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was... eventful (for lack of a better word). It started out great! We planned a nice meal and invited some friends and our neighbor over. But as with everything in the world issues kept popping up. For instance I couldn't find a smaller turkey so I got a 24 lb one which caused some trouble with cooking it, like having to double the marinade recipe, or not cooking it for long enough. But for the first time cooking a turkey in Germany in these funny ovens it wasn't so bad.

 Ricky prepping the turkey. He hates touching raw meat, but insists on doing the turkey. I don't mind one bit. :)

Let the baking begin.

I didn't get any pictures of everyone or how everything turned out because I was distracted with making sure everyone was having a good time, and serving the food. Well, after just finishing eating dinner Ricky got a call from work saying that he was supposed to be there. He was told he was on call. So, yeah... After getting yelled at on the phone, he changed into his uniform and rushed into work. I did an ok job of entertaining but I'm not really much of a hostess by myself. Anyways, all in all it was an enjoyable evening and the guest seemed to enjoy themselves. And luckily Ricky didn't have to work a full shift. 

As for Christmas we went small this year and got ourselves a cheap electric drill set. We had our chocolate chip pancakes, opened presents (the few that we got from family), and just hung out for the rest of the day. It wasn't fancy or even remotely a big event but I wouldn't change a thing about it.

Lazy Days at Home

What do you do on lazy days? 

I make a sheet fort and watch movies with my Hubby!

Christmas Markets

So Christmas markets are a big thing here in Germany. With Fred being broken and Eve eating so much gas, we haven't been doing much but some friends invited us to go to the Heidelberg Castle and Christmas market and we went! It was great to get out and see more of Germany. 

This is the castle (I got this photo from Google, because we weren't able to get a photo of the entire castle)

 It's a pretty awesome castle. The original part was built back in the 1200's. They have guided tours throughout the entire thing but we chose to just look around ourselves because 6 kids is a lot to try and get through a tour, especially when 5 are ages 3 and under. 

 Even without the tour there was a lot of cool things to look at. My favorite would have to be the doors and the portcullis. 

 Ricky and me in the castle courtyard.

The details that they had on all the buildings were amazing! (granted I think this is one of the newer parts of the castle, still amazing though)

Don't you just love his hat?

We had lunch, and if I had remembered I would have taken photos of that and the Christmas market but by that time we were getting pretty cold. I got earmuffs to help me cause when my ears get cold I get headaches. (again sorry for no photos)

I can't wait to do it again next year!

The First Snow

It Snowed!!!!

Yay for it starting to feel like Christmas!

Trouble in Paradise

Sorry it's been such a while since I've posted on here, but we've had a few things pop up that have been keeping us busy. Ricky's been very busy with work. He's working from 11pm to 8 am and has to go to classes and meeting during the day so he hasn't been getting as much sleep as he probably should. I've officially gotten all the birthday presents sent out from my year of birthday presents. It was fun, even if I fell way behind in the end, sorry about that. I don't think I'll be able to keep it up because funds are going to be very short for a while. And that is because of the other "issue" we had. 

About 11 days ago we got into our first car wreck. Our car isn't too bad, but the other car is totaled. Luckily no one was seriously hurt. We didn't get a photo of the other guy's car but here's ours.

It was pretty terrifying. One of those "And suddenly a van" cause we didn't see it at all before it hit. I pretty much broke down right then and there. I bawled for about 2+ hours. Ricky was able to keep it together enough to get help there before he too shut down. Eventually we pulled ourselves together but it wasn't easy. It's taken a while to bounce back from this, it's hard to think of the positives in these kind of situations but there are actually quite a few. 

1. No one was hurt. It was scary but other then a few bruises no one was hurt seriously.

2. We were lucky we weren't going faster cause then we would have been broadsided and Ricky could have been seriously hurt. (He was driving)

3. Ricky was grateful that it didn't hit on my side. I think that would have freaked him out even more then it had.

4. We're lucky the damage to our car is repairable, cause we can't afford a new car. 

5. We're lucky we can fix it ourselves cause we can't afford to pay the 2000 euro it would've cost to get it fixed in a shop.

6. It forced us to ask for help. Ricky and I are very stubborn people who like to do everything ourselves. But we couldn't do anything. 

7. The LDS church is amazing! I only had 1 number of someone in our ward but she was right there to help, even though we were just trying to get the bishop's number. 

8. Ricky is grateful that his S4 isn't that car that got in a wrecked. 

And these are just a few of the things we've thought of. All in all it could have been so much worse. Now it's time to pick ourselves up and get on with our lives, and not let this bother us anymore.

Say Hello to Fred

Dear Family, Friends, and anyone who reads my blog, I'd like to introduce you to Fred.

 Yes, Fred is a car, well wagon. 

Fred is short for Manfred Von Richthofen aka the Red Baron. We got him about 3 weeks ago in Frankfurt for 1720 Euro about 2300 dollars. He's a standard diesel wagon, with a radio that doesn't like to be turned down (there's a loose or broken wire in there that makes the volume nob not work the way it's supposed to, or at all sometimes). Frankly I think he's amazing, even with his radio problems. Mainly because he's very easy to drive and cause he gets close to 40 MPG. I mean we got him 3 weeks ago, filled up once in Frankfurt, and have been driving him regularly and he's barely under 1/2 tank. (Ricky's car Eve has had to be filled up twice since that trip) How awesome is that! He makes me like wagons, and I've had a hatred of wagons ever since I was a little kid stuck in the very back of our stupid wagon in those ridiculous backwards facing seats. I hated it. But Fred has changed me. If they had diesel wagons in the states I would totally get one.

We Got Our Stuff

So this is a little late but our stuff arrived! 

 It's funny how everything you own doesn't seem like so much in some boxes but once you unpack it all, it seems to multiply by 20.

It took about a week to get it all unpacked from the boxes, but I'm still working on finding places for it all. Hopefully I'll get everything put away eventually... :)