Thankful! (The missing blog post - found! But no pictures...)

Hello again, dear friends and family!  It's been far too long since my last post, but I have been very busy with school and extracurricular activities.  So... let me see if I can catch you up on my adventures.  One of my professors from the HU105 program, Susie Bollinger visited her son Zach for Thanksgiving here in Germany.  Not ONLY did I get to visit with her, which was wonderful, but she brought me presents in the form of books to help me nurture academic growth in my students, and her family invited me to join them for a lovely and delicious Thanksgiving feast!  Since our International school has quite a few American students, we were able to enjoy a long weekend, as well as an international pre-Thanksgiving dinner for the staff the weekend before.  I brought Israel, and he was able to finally meet many of the people from my stories about school.

After Thanksgiving weekend, which was a nice little fall break, we headed full throttle into the Christmas Season!  I have had the opportunity to visit several Weihnachtsmarkt, or Christmas Markets in English.  These are wonderful open air markets that serve traditional German winter foods, including the ever popular Gluhwein (a hot spiced wine), wurst, crepes, and flammkuchen (a thin crust pizza).  Nearly every market is beautifully decorated with lights, has a nativity, and large beautiful Weihnachtspyramide, large wooden carousel structures with propellers that rotate, causing the scene within to spin.  The Market vendors sell locally made as well as more exotic wares.  I did purchase myself a pair of finger-less furry gloves that I adore!  Tomorrow the entire school will be visiting Mannheim's Weihnachtsmarkt - it should be a lot of fun!

I broke down and purchased a new pair of ice skates.  Our school is next door to an ice arena, and during the first three weeks of December I get to take my 2nd graders ice skating every Wednesday morning!  There is an ammateur hockey league that plays, and after expressing my interest to join at the local pro-shop, I was given a great deal on my new Eastons.  I'm breaking them in, but it feels SOOOO good to be back on the ice! Now I just need to acquire some gently used hockey gear, and I'll be set!

Three more exciting things happened:  I received an early Christmas gift: a FABULOUS bike.  A beautiful silvery blue, complete with front lights, back lights, and a bell (all required by German law), and bonus LED lights on the wheels and a WORD lock.  How cool is that?!?  Thank-you, Israel! Next: I FINALLY have a cell phone to use while in Germany!  I will work on linking a US number to my German number so you can easily and inexpensively reach me.  In the meantime, if you would like my German number simply message me.  I also use Viber, Skype, and WhatsAp!  And finally - it started snowing!  Briefly, and it didn't stick, but it made me happy none-the-less!

I will continue to post, and hopefully more frequently.  I love and miss you!  Tschuss!!!