We flew into Frankfurt last Thursday and managed the 8 hour flight and jet lag pretty good. It was snowing and freezing cold, -17 !!! We picked up Alex from school and met everyone else back home at the Klebingats, then off to the sledding hill. I grew up in Idaho and have faced the cold, but I have never ever felt this bitter cold before. Julia outfitted all of us to face the mountain, but it didn't last long, before our faces were iced up.
We visited the famous Weihnachts market in Frankfurt to do some Christmas shopping and eating. Peter was in heaven eating all of his favorite german foods.
Weißwurst -white german type sausage on brotchen
Reibekuchen-fried potato pancake
Mohnkopf-whipped egg white dipped in chocolate
Dampfnudel- a sweet busicut or roll with a nutmeg, vanilla flavored white gravey
We admired the Römer (3 ´houses) am Main River.
Saturday we celebratated Jorg's 42nd birthday at a quaint little restrauant called Da Veccia near the Klebingats home in the area of Schmitten with Frank & Denise Mesterharm, Trish & Axel Leimer, and Joe Wirthlin and his wife, who is Elder Wirthlins son.
We went to church on sunday and used headsets for english translation. Jorg is the bishop of the ward and Julia is working in the primary. Quinn went to YM with Daniel. For dinner we traveled through a blizzard of snow to the Mesterharms home where we enjoyed a nice meal and a night hike to the Falkensteiner Burg castle. The Klebingats live in the village of Schmitten witch is about a 20 min. ride up the mountains from Frankfurt, so it was difficult to get through the snowy mtn. passes. At one point Quinn, Daniel and I got out and pushed the mini van up the hill a ways until a little mini 4wheel drive VW hooked a rope up to us and pulled us the rest of the way. Memorable to say the least.
More sledding for the kids and shopping for mamas and papas.We did find some time to drive by the Frankfurt temple which was nice to see.
Took 2 cars and drove to Zwiebrüken for a few days to see Klaus & Doris who are dear friends. They consider Peter as a son. It was lovely to see them and Doris cooked up a wonderful holiday meal of snitzel, sour braten, beets, and a puffy googey potato ball with gravey, then had an early christmas celebration with everyone. We went to the local swim bad-indoor swimming with slides etc. one day and then to a Bad called Calypso which was really fun.Sara went on the Coca Cola slide all by herself.Only one hitch was that I left my cosmetic bag there and didnt realize it until we were home with no time to go back. sooo next morning it was shopping for makeup and with the freezing weather and wet swimming heads and sleeping in cold houses we needed to get medicine for Sara and Peter. We did make some time to see Avatar at the Keno in english of course.
We are back in Schmitten now. It is typical in Germany to celebrate gift giving on Christmas Eve. So we had a wonderful dinner and sent all the kids upstairs until Julia rings the bell. Katja assigned everyone a christmas song and then at random drew a song and if it was yours we all sang together and then that person opened all their gifts. We had a lot of fun together. Katja & Kate ended up with lots of "twin" gifts. The Klebingats gave our family all deutsch "football" jerseys, which is what we know as soccer in the states.Does the team Bayern Munchn mean anything to you?
So today is Christmas and santa did visit with stockings stuffed full of swiss chocolate and gummy bears of course. We are are thinking of all of our family and friends in the world and wishing you all a Merry Christmas "Frohe Weinhnachten"
