greetings from michigan!

hey there!

after Christmas, we came up to michigan to spend time with family. right now, i've got the cutest baby napping right next to me. i had the greatest of intentions of sitting down to write a few days back, but life got in the way.

anywho. i owe you our Christmas card. 

i thought it turned out nicely if i do say so.

aaack! i was going to attach more photos but you-know-who is up. 

i'll try to post again tonight, but if i don't happy new year!

our Christmas

i hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! it sure went by fast. here are some pics of our weekend...

nik, the butcher, amazes his audience with culinary tricks and moves

notice the widely sought after ornaments. they can only be found in the chocolate aisle at your grocery store. {we lamely forgot to get ornaments until Christmas even. and then it was too late. so chocolates worked out just fine.}

our expansive dining table

fondue for Christmas eve

pumpkin-apple pancakes for Christmas breakfast

feels like Christmas

welp. i spent last night designing our Christmas card. the tree is up. we even went to the nutcracker the other night. and - we strolled the austin trail of lights with friends and mulled wine.

it may not look like it outside our door, but inside it's starting to feel like Christmas.

isn't it terrible, though that 5 days before the big day i finally feel this way? this time every year i say to myself that next year will be the one that i really take it all in. you know - like send the Christmas cards out, get the tree up {with lights and ornaments!} right after thanksgiving, and listen to all the Christmas music and watch all the movies there are to watch before the 25th.

but some things have improved over time. most of the presents have been wrapped and sent off. we have an idea of what we're doing for Christmas dinner. and we have watched 2 Christmas movies in the last week. 

so hey. not so bad. 

my kitchen

christmas is just around the corner! and so are the treats!

a bit behind...

we were so proud of ourselves when we went out and purchased our tree four days ago. 

but embarrassingly  it's still outside, watered by our mop bucket, and in the orange netting keeping it contained. 

let's hope we get it inside, on the tree stand, and adorned in the next four days.

christmas day



continued.

sorry about the delay! we've been so busy around here - good busy, but still busy!

anyway, continuing on... here are the pictures to wrap up our time in bonn.

here are pictures from our visit to the home beethoven grew up in. apparently it was up for sale to be turned into a restaurant or some such place when a group of bonn's citizens gathered up the money to purchase the home and turn it into a museum. it was so enjoyable.

again, out in the market.

kolsch!

our first evening in germany

after we had a good amount of gluwein, nik had to run off for something or other so pia and i stuck our heads in at the church {this was the same one we sat in on for Christmas service, for reference}.

as you can see, absolutely gorgeous and so old.

these are the monuments to the two martyrs for the church

the plaza in front of the church

with roughly 2.5 hours of sleep (in flight) we were pretty slap happy. i think we thought this was roughly 1 am. we were shocked when we learned the real time - 7 pm.

i have a fairly adventurous palate. so, when pia and nik suggested that i eat raw pork, i had enjoyed just enough gluwein to say yes. i will admit, it was really good. but coming from America where we're scared to death of raw meats, it was a little hard to get over.





Weihnachtsmarkt

this is the Christmas market held in the streets of many German towns. we went there literally every single day - up until they closed the market.

so here's a gluwein (hot, mulled wine) tent - our first stop. everyday. 

the streets

the market shops

a small stage for children's choirs, etc. set up right in front of the church (i think it was a church)

i couldn't get over how the buildings seem to be right on the street.

again, at a gluwein tent.

my first roasted chestnuts! pia opened the first ones for me (they were really hot)

we're back!

stateside, i mean. we spent two weeks in europe for Christmas this year and enjoyed every minute of it.

i've given some thought on how to present our photos, and for better or worse, i'm going to do this in multiple posts, organized by country (germany then france), and then i'll try to organize by subject matter because that seems to make the most sense.

anywho. let's get started!

waiting to board | okc | 4 am

upon arrival to detroit (our layover) we realized that we inadvertently signed up for a 10 hour layover. good news. so nik gave his dad a call to see if we could see him and we were thrilled when we said he could! here are some pics from our very brief visit in ann arbor...

we landed in frankfurt, germany on december 20 with a full 3 hours of sleep stockpiled. so as you can imagine, we were looking good. i'll spare you those, and instead i've got some photos of the snow and the frankfurt train station.

i'll stop there for tonight - have a great one! i'll update with another post soon!

tis the season

we were a little late in getting our holiday greetings out this year, so we thought we'd post our card here!