December: Christmas concerts, book club Christmas and New Year

Hyrum, Julian and I went to the Portland Choir and Orchestras Christmas concert. I love going to concerts and hearing the music fo the Christmas season, it always makes me happy

Decorating the house for Christmas

I hosted book club in December.  We read "American Dirt" which is a book about a migrant mother and son trying to escape violence in Mexico and find a new life in the United States.  I had fun with a yummy taco bar and other Mexican treats.

The twins came home from college on December 15th.  We spent a beautiful sunny Saturday morning finding the perfect tree to take home for Christmas

We got a good one!

The whole family went to the Oregon Symphony to listen to the orchestra play the soundtrack while we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol. Our family loves this movie and we watch it every year at Christmas but it was really special to watch it with live music

Time to decorate our tree

Decorating some gingerbread houses

Katrina, Jason, Hyrum and I went to the Nutcracker Ballet. Before the ballet we had dinner and walked around the giant tree in Pioneer Square in downtown Portland.

Our Christmas Eve tradition is to go to the Doxey's and have Chinese food for dinner followed by "grab bags" If you want to choose a "grab bag" you have to perform a talent of some sort. Katrina made us all pot holders out of super cute fabric!

Hyrum played Silent Night on the ukulele

Emerson did some amazing pull up stunts

Townsend did a handstand for a full minute!

Taylor (and Luna) did some dog tricks

Steve did a blind cola taste test...he only got 2 out of 8 right but it was pretty fun to watch:)

Some of the silly "grab bag" treasures

We always wait until Christmas Eve to put gifts under the tree. I love to see the excitement on the boys faces when they wake up:)

Our traditional Christmas morning breakfast. German rolls with cocoa, stollen and assorted German cookies.

Present time! Hyrum always buys the boys new books...not sure if they have EVER read any of them:)

I took the boys to a climbing gym. It was one of the few things the twins asked to do while they were home for Christmas break.

It was Julian's first time bouldering. He said it was OK but he didn't really love it.

Hyrum and I went to the Symphony on December 30th to hear Beethoven's 9th. At the end of the concert we sang Auld Lang Syne and then they dropped some balloons to welcome in the New Year.

My friend, Daria, invited me to join her at a pow wow being held in Hillsboro.  Hyrum and I went for an hour and enjoyed browsing the booths and watching the grand entry of dancers.

New Years Eve back at the Doxey's. We have some sandwiches and other snacks and play lots of games until about 10 PM.  We go home and have begun a tradition of playing games together on Nintendo until midnight...

...then we go out to our front yard and set off fireworks!  Happy NEW Year!

 

Girls Trip to Germany for the Christkindlmarkt

A few years ago I was in Utah visiting with a group of friends I had met while living in Germany.  We decided to plan a trip to Germany so we could visit the Christmas markets.  We all missed the beauty and festive way Germany celebrated Christmas.  A bunch of people said they would "LOVE" to go but in the end it was just my friend Missy Layton and I that bought tickets and actually committed to going.  So, we both invited some of our sisters to also join us on the trip and we ended up having an amazing trip...even with some major hiccups to overcome. I absolutely love Germany (and Europe in general) at Christmas. They sure know how to decorate and throw a party!  We saw so much in just one week, traveling to a new city everyday! I don't usually love traveling like that but it sure was fun to get to see so many different cities all lit up for Christmas:)

Day 1: Nuremberg

My sister DeNae and I landed in Nuremberg about an hour apart.  After getting our rental car we drove into the city and picked up her "daughter" Victoria (an exchange student she hosted a few years ago from Norway that joined us while in Nuremberg) We found a cozy little restaurant for dinner.  Why am I not wearing glasses in this photo?...

...because as soon as I walked in the restaurant my glasses fogged up so I took them off to rub them on my shirt and they BROKE completely in half! What??? I didn't have an extra pair so I ended up wearing my prescription sunglasses and DeNae kept calling me Stevie Wonder! 

Absolutely delicious breakfast the next morning. I was so happy that Hyrum found a place in Nuremberg that makes glasses in one hour! I was so happy and thankful. I didn't love the frames but was so very happy I wasn't going to have to wear my perscription sunglasses all week!

Walking around Nuremberg with my sisters DeNae and Paige and Victoria

The Nuremberg Christmas market is one of the biggest markets in Germany. It was so much fun to just wander around and see all the festive booths.  Oh, and EAT all the delicious food!

Me as the Christkind and Paige looking at me adoringly:)

Me with Missy Layton and Sarah Brown.  I met both of these ladies while living in Germany and it was so fantastic to spend time with them in Germany again. Sadly, Sarah only came to Nuremberg and then she and a friend spent a week in Austria while the rest of us toured more markets in Germany. It was so wonderful to be together with these amazing friends!

The whole group that came to Nuremberg:) Me with 2 sisters, Missy had her sister plus 2 sister in laws and my friend Sarah brought a friend with her. We did a bit of walking around following Rick Steves guided tour of Nuremberg.

How cute is the row of houses?

Like all of Europe, Nuremberg is just one beautiful scene after the other:)

DeNae served her mission in Hungary and she was so excited the Christmas market sold langos (a traditional Hungarian street food) We posed for this photo...

...but as we were taking that photo DeNae's ham fell off her longos and she made this face and I busted up laughing.  Totally LOVE this photo!!

I have photos of all 3 of my boys on this very same merry go round from when we lived in Germany. This market really brought back some wonderful memories:)

The bratwursts...so good!

We went to a quick evening mass at St. Lorenz Cathedral. We got to hear a few hymns on the organ and I could pick out a few words from the sermon. I believe she was talking about the Holy family's flight into Egypt.

The Christmas market at night, I love all the little striped awnings

Beautiful fountain on the main square in Nuremberg 

Day 2: Pressath, Grafenwoehr and Guteneck

The next day we drove to my old stomping grounds. This is my little house in Pressath that I lived in for 4 years! I love this place that I brought Julian home from the hospital as a baby...so many memories:)

Missy and I met up with some friends from our old Ward in Grafenwoehr. Pat and Georgina Bradley. They were kind enough to let us inside our old meeting house and it was so cool to see how the place looks exactly the way I remember it!

Our Sacrament Room in our old meeting house

That evening we went to my most favorite Christmas market ever! This market is in the grounds of an old castle outside Guteneck. Everything sold here is hand made so it has a unique atmosphere. The shops are all outside and there are fires burning to warm yourself. Some people dress up medieval and it's such a festive market.

I really wanted one of these cute ducks!

So snowy and cozy at the same time!

I gave the frog Prince a kiss:)

How cute is this guy that made our crepe?

Outside the castle in Guteneck

After the Christmas market we spent the night in the city of Weiden. I couldn't sleep (still suffering from jet lag) so I went for a walk at 4 AM. No-one was in this park but I have so many fond memories of walking along this stream with my boys. They  loved to throw rocks and leaves into the water. We would come to this park on some Sundays during the summer for free concerts. The boys loved the playground here. I really wish I could have spent more time in this part of Germany just visiting all the places I love and remember.

The Weiden town hall at 4 AM. Our favorite gelato place was in this building (so sad it was closed for the season!)

Day 3: Prague, Czech Republic

Oh my goodness!! The sunrise we got to witness on our drive to Prague was so amazing. I kept wanting to capture the beauty on camera but you just couldn't quite capture all the snow, sunlight and clouds just right. But I loved every minute of the sunrise that morning

Paige was with me the very first time I went to Prague. Neither of us had ever been there before and all I knew was that I wanted to see this telephone tower that had creepy giant metal babies crawling on it. So we had to find the tower and recreate our first trip to Prague. Of course we got turned around and went to the wrong tower so this was the best shot we could get. But in the end it was quite fitting because the first time we went to Prague we got completely turned around and lost!

You gotta have the trdelnik when you are in Prague!

Charles Bridge

DeNae rubbing St. John of Nepomuk for good luck:)

We walked all the way UP the hill to the Prague castle and the whole time I was telling everyone how wonderful the St. Vitas Cathedral is and how the hike was worth it.  When we went to buy tickets we found out it was closed for renovation...I was so super sad. This is one of my favorite Cathedrals in all of Europe!

Beautiful mosaic artwork on the outside of St. Vitas Cathedral

I was the only one in our entire group that had ever been inside, I was so sad I couldn't share this treasure with my friends and sisters.

The city from the top of Castle hill

Fluffy pigeon trying to keep warm:)

The view of St. Charles Bridge from a across the river

We had some more time before our tickets to a concert in Prague so we toured the old Jewish quarter. This is one of the best preserved Jewish quarters in Europe.

Inside one of the synagogues is the names of all the Jews that died from the Czech Republic during the Holocaust

Beautiful old Jewish cemetery

Mosaic artwork on the walls of a synagogue

The Spanish Synagogue is my very favorite in Prague. It is so amazingly beautiful.

The wonderful Christmas tree decorating the town square and Christmas market

It's so fun watching how trdelnik gets made!

This Christmas market was super crowded but absolutely beautiful with that giant tree all lit up and carolers singing songs!

We watched the astronomical clock...

...Along with 10,000 other tourists in Prague at the time!

Trdelnik...with nutella inside!!

We ended our evening with a lovely string quartet plus soprano soloist concert in St. Nicholas Cathedral in Prague.

When we left the concert to walk back to our hotel it was snowing giant, fluffy flakes. It was magical:)

The view from our hotel balcony the next morning.  I share this because it was lucky we had a hotel balcony...the night before I had injured my knee somehow and I had to hobble with the help of my sisters back to the hotel. Paige scooped some snow (from our balcony) into a zip lock bag and I put it on my knee, took 800 milligrams of ibuprofen (and a sleeping pill) and zonked out for 8 hours.  The next morning I went to an urgent care clinic and got a brace for my knee. It helped a lot with the pain but I was super aware of how much walking I was doing on a damaged knee for the rest of the trip!

Day 4: Seiffen and Bayreuth

The GPS took us on a beautiful drive through a wintery forest wonderland to get to Seiffen, Germany the next day.

Seiffen was originally a mining town. This was an entrance to one of the mines. After the mining industry was gone the town turned to making toys to earn money. It became the first town in Germany to mass produce wooden toys and nutcrackers.  

The cute little church in Seiffen is shaped like an octagon and this church is featured in many of the wooden designs in pyramids and other things found in Seiffen

In one of the shops you can watch the woodworkers at making the toys!

I was very proud of myself for not buying a million things in this town. I promised Hyrum I wouldn't buy anything unless I absolutely LOVED it and although there were some things I liked there wasn't anything I loved...so I was able to walk away.  I'm still proud of that!

Seiffen was definitely the snowiest place we visited on our whole trip. It was so beautiful!

From Seiffen we drove into Bayreuth. We walked around the small Christmas market and then met up with Missy and her sisters for a delicious dinner at Oskar's restaurant...

...jagerschnitzel with spaetzle, so good!!

Day 5: Bayreuth and Bamberg

The next morning we toured the beautiful Margravial opera house in Bayreuth.  You can see I'm wearing my knee brace in this photo

Inside the opera house

So opulent. This entire structure was built for one persons wedding and they were going to tear it down after the festivities.  They decided to keep it and it's one of the few opera houses left from this era (1750's) in Europe.

We also toured the New Palace while in Bayreuth.  This palace was also built during the 1750's. It was fun to walk around the different rooms and see the splendid way Princes and Princesses lived in Bayreuth

Original wallpaper

Very cool room in the palace, decorated in wood paneling

Funky palace grotto. This indoor fountain had doors that could open to the beautiful gardens outside the palace

Had to get a photo with the Bayreuth dinosaur.  I have lots of photos with my kids in front of this same dinosaur. Bayreuth has a pretty cool dinosaur/prehistoric/gem stone museum.

Currywurst and fries for lunch?  Yes please!

We drove from Bayreuth to the city of Bamberg. This is our cute little group of 7:)

We enjoyed walking around Bamberg as the sun went down. We walked up the hill to the Cathedral only to find out it too was under construction...bummer!

At one point during our walk we came to a locked gate.  With my knee in bad shape there was no way I was walking miles back up the hill to find an alternate way back to the city so we had to hop over this wall and scale down this sign post. It was pretty funny!

Fun gate in Bamberg

We loved walking around the Bamberg Christmas market. I think it was the largest market we had seen since Nuremberg

The kinder punch was delicious and kept us all warm on the cold nights

Sausages wrapped up like St. Nick?  Sure...very festive and tasty:)

Day 6: Rothenburg ob der Tauber

You can't ask for a better way to end a trip to Germany than spending your last full day walking around Rothenburg. This beautifully preserved medieval city is so fun to explore!

Walking the city wall

Up on the wall with the cute little village below

You can't help yourself when you're in Rothenburg, every time you turn around there is another cute little scene to take pictures of:)

Our ONLY gelato the entire trip! Every other gelato shop was closed for the season but I guess Rothenburg gets so many tourists (even in winter) they still had a gelato shop open!

Beautiful carved wooden altar in St. Jacob's Cathedral

Rothenburg has 3 separate Kathe Wohlfahrte stores...you can spend hours just walking around these shops!  I did end up buying a great little "smoker man" dressed as a Night Watchman.

The Christmas market is small but festive

We stayed up late and took the Night Watchman tour.  I have been on this tour with George, the Night Watchman 4 times and I just love it! The first time I went was 2005 and he is STILL doing tours. I hope he continues for many more years.

Rothenburg main city gate and wall

Cool photo of George walking through the dark streets of Rothenburg. This is seriously the very best ending we could have for our weeklong adventure. After the tour we drove 2 hours to Nuremberg, dropped off our rental car and tried to get a few hours of sleep before our fights home the next day.

This is me looking very sad at the Nuremberg airport, having one last Bavarian pretzel. I loved my trip so much and all the places we visited and the wonderful things we could see. I am so glad I could spend this week with Paige and DeNae and Missy and her sisters were also great travel buddies.  So sad to leave but I'm already looking forward to next time!