Huttenheim, Germany

Dates: December 22, 2006 - January 2, 2007

My mother and I traveled to Germany to see our family for Christmas, New Year's, and my grandpa's birthday.

It was so nice to be with my whole family for Christmas... here we are at Christmas Eve dinner!

My Uncle Daniel made my mom a photo calendar with pictures of our family, from trips we have all taken in the last few years.

My cousin Finn got a toy vacuum cleaner and played with it for the next 4 hours! I'm going to take him home with me and put him to work :)

One of Mika's presents (scary!)

High five!

Christmas Day lunch, cousins Lilly and Selina

Uncle Peter, his son Mika, and a very accurate rendering of their dog Gina

Selina holding Uncle Daniel's beer hostage until he let her win Connect 4

My Uncle Daniel and me

Uncle Daniel, Aunt Carmen, my mom

One day we went shopping in Heidelberg, it was beautiful there:

And, later that night, game night!

My mom and grandma, shopping and lunch in Karlsruhe:

On December 31, my Uncle Daniel and I took my cousins Selina, Lilly, and Sebastian to go figure skating. First we went to the rink in Karlsruhe... closed! We were so disappointed. We decided to go see an IMAX film in Speyer... closed! Then we finally decided to bum around the town of Speyer and do a little shopping and get a snack to eat. But, of course, everything in Speyer was closed as well!

So we walked around in Speyer a bit before rounding a corner and seeing an ice skating rink! We were so excited because we could go back to our original plan, to skate. But, just as we were walking up they were herding all the kids off the rink because it was closing - for 4 hours! Denied again...


... so we just got some ice cream.
And then we had to rush back to Huttenheim so I could change into an incredibly unflattering dress (seriously, I had no idea!) and go to a New Year's party at my grandpa's house. We learned who in the family can sing (no one) and who can't (everyone). But we had so much fun and I learned the words to a bunch of old German folk songs and we danced and sung and drank and shot off firecrackers and had a wonderful family New Year's Eve.

Here are some pictures:

I love this picture because of how my grandpa and I are laughing so hard there in the corner
Dance party!

My mom and my grandpa dancing

Cheers!

Ummm... some sort of song with choreography that everyone knew, involving lassos and cowboys and indians. Awesome.

Me and my uncle Peter, Zum Wohl!

Rock stars!


Even the kids stayed up pretty late, but they started to fade fast after midnight and firecrackers :)

My Aunt Carmen and my mom

My Uncle Peter and I, Mona and Mirko dancing in the background

On January 2nd at 2am we headed for a 5-day ski vacation in the Swiss Alps. My time in Germany was, as usual, too short!