Uh....Pictures. Right.

So things have been slightly crazy since we got home. Not only have I been frantically trying to catch up on stuff (read: scraping the ice that built up in my driveway over 6 weeks), but I've been really sick. I love winter. That was sarcastic in case you couldn't tell.

Anyway, that means this isn't going to be funny or fancy or anything. I'm just putting up pictures from our trip. Enjoy.
Why, yes, that is me lifting the Christmas tree over my head. And, yes, I am that buff.


These are all pictures from a Christmas market we went to. I really can't remember the name of the town at the moment, but I do remember we had to drive through a village called Frankenstein to get there. It was SO much fun, though. The food they had there was delicious - Colby especially loved these marshmallow-filled chocolates and the potato cakes (like hash browns, but deep fried). I got a couple of Christmas ornaments and Colby got a couple of wood-carved toys. They had rides there as well - and, amazingly enough, all these trees that look just like the Whomping Willow!Colby had a blast hanging out with all of his cousins, and I was really happy to see how much he liked Valery, the baby. Of course, he never called her that. She was just "The baby."

On the other hand, being in a house that belongs to three little girls and only one boy, I should have seen this coming. Colby loved playing with the girls' toys a lot more that the boys. At first the whole wearing fairy costumes and princess dresses was funny. But after the third time I caught him stripping down completely in order to wear said dresses and tutus, it was time to pack them up.
Christmas Eve and Day were great with all the kids. The top picture shows Colby opening up Mario Kart, a game in which he thinks the point is to drive off as many cliffs as possible.

The Saturday after Christmas, Colby and I got up at 2:30 in the morning and drove up to an Army base (that's a very long and amusing story in itself - picture me trying to find a base at 3 in the morning in my sister's minivan in the middle of Germany), where we left on a tour to Bavaria to see a couple of castles. We stopped at a roadside cafe for breakfast on the way, where Colby quickly discovered that Germany hot chocolate is definitely not the same as American hot chocolate. You have to add the sugar to it. We eventually made it to the village that is situated in the valley between the Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castles.Silly me, I was expecting it to be not quite as bitterly cold as it was. We froze! Colby ate snow off a who-knows-how-old-it-is-and-what's-been-on-it stone wall, and we braved death by climbing out on a very snowy and icy wooden bridge to get the picture from the side of Neuschwanstein. Colby had just enough courage to fake a smile, and then he was headed back to solid ground!


I took this picture from a window in the back of Neuschwanstein looking down on Hohenschwangau (on the right side) and the village in the valley. We had lunch there. I tried to be nice and ordered a sandwich for Colby, while I tried the lobster soup. Colby ended up eating mine though. I was really brave, though, and had wienerschnitzel for dinner. It was pretty good.

Okay, sad news. I'm out of energy for today. I'll have to post my videos from New Year's tomorrow. There's a funny story about almost burning down a neighbor's house with our fireworks that goes along with it :)