I haven't kept things here in blogland up to date during the Christmas holiday because I wanted to use the time to do things with my family and not hang out on the computer and miss out on them. Jeffrey had to go back to Nebraska on Saturday and Bill goes back to work on Wednesday (he thought it was tomorrow but they made Tuesday a holiday for Federal employees so he got a freebie!) I think I will bring this up to date but posted a ton of pictures with short captions instead of typing a ton of words and a few pictures. (I think I just heard some big sighs of relief!) So...here goes!
The first thing Jeffrey wanted to do when he got here was grab his skateboard and see if he still remembered how to do stuff. I guess it is like riding a bicyle cuz he had no problem at all at the skate park.
Here are the boys on Christmas Eve all curled up on the couch reading the Christmas Story from Luke 2 before heading off to bed. Couldn't you just hug 'em?
We all enjoyed some warm mugs of cocoa or coffee or gingerbread tea while the boys dug into their stockings. Colin opted for cocoa..with marshmallows of course!
Jeffrey always likes to help read the tags and hand out the gifts to everyone as we take turns opening our goodies. Hmmm...I wonder who that BIG one is for????
Once we convinced Colin that we would not be reusing the paper even if he did open carefully he started REALLY tearing into his gifts!
Jeffrey checking out one of his presents. It is a cool basketball video game that hooks up to the TV and you use the special ball it comes with to shoot and stuff and it 'sees' how you move to make the game work. I couldn't pass it up!
Most years Bill likes to make the boys work a bit to get their 'big' gift and this year was no exception. Here Bill and Jeffrey are trying to help Colin decipher his first clue.
Jeffrey's clue took him out to the kitchen where he and Colin figured out where to go next.
We always have a big Christmas dinner. I made a turkey this year with MOST of the trimmings. Of course we had to eat on the good dishes and have candles and drink sparkling cider from the crystal! The boys each proposed a toast...such gentlemen!
This year the town of Speyer extended their Christmas Market into a Christmas and New Years market so we made sure to go there since Jeffrey got here too late to go to most of them in the other towns. We all had lots of good things to eat and had fun looking at all the goodies in the stalls. And yes...Colin IS really that much taller than Jeffrey!
Since Jeffrey got a video camera for his 'big gift' he wanted to go downtown Heidelberg and video the castle and bridge and all. It is one of our favorite places to go so it didn't take much to convince us to do that.
We stayed downtown til after dark and I am SO glad I took my camera along too. Look at this great shot I got from the bridge! Who wouldn't love this view????
We wanted to be sure to do something special while Jeffrey was here so we got a room down in Bavaria and drove down to tour the castles Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. We were all excited to find snow on the ground (not much but SO pretty).
Our first day we toured the yellow castle at the bottom of the hill. This is called Hohenschwangau and was where King Ludwig and also his parents lived. There was a telescope set up in his bedroom where he watched the progress of Neuschwanstein castle as it was built.
This is the view of the lake and Hohenschwangau from Neuschwanstein. Just magical!
This is the view of Neuschwanstein from the courtyard just before you go in for the tour. What a beautiful fanciful place...no wonder Disney modeled his castles after it!
Here is Jeffrey in front of the castle. I sometimes forget to get these 'touristy' kinda pictures but we need proof that WE were there right?
We walked up to the castle and back down instead of taking the horse carts they have. The lines were so long to get on one and we all felt sorry for the horses working so hard. We had to take a few breaks as we hiked. Here is Colin taking a breather.
Here are all 3 boys (men?) walking near the castles. Colin loves his big hat, I like it too...you can't miss him in a crowd!
There are not many pictures of me cuz usually I am the one behind the camera...Bill got this one of me and Jeffrey after dinner out one night.
Sooo....that's pretty much it. I think I covered everything that I missed blogging about over the past days. We had a wonderful visit with Jeffrey...he was such a pleasure to be around, it was hard to say goodbye at the airport. We talked to him on the phone today and he said there is snow in Nebraska and he is going to be trying out his snowboard skills. I hope he gets some video of it!
2 comments:
Again...great photos. You seem to have a very close family...good for you (and the pictures show it). Glad you had a great holiday.
Gorgeous photos! What a great place to live! Looks like you have had a great Christmas too. :O)
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