Trier Weihnachtsmarkt

This truly is the 

MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!

My best Christmas memories are from the 4 years we lived in Germany 10 years ago.  Germany just knows how to make Christmas magic happen.  When we found out we were moving here again I was SO excited!  German Christmas markets are amazing.

Our first Christmas market of the season was Trier, Germany which was my favorite when we lived here before.  I LOVE TRIER.  It's the oldest city in Germany & the city Taya was born in.  The Weihnachtsmarkt was MAGICAL.

There are SO many twinkle lights.  It's just beautiful.

And at most Christmas markets there is a large Weihnactspyramid which is a 3 layer depiction of the nativity scene.

The kids LOVE crepes.  Our favorites include:

kinderchocolate,

nutella/banana,

& cinnamon applesauce.

At the Trier market there were probably 120 little houses with food, flowers, candy, cheese, & crafts/goods to sell.  Each one is different & unique.  It's a really fun shopping experience.

The kids especially love the candy booths.  Taya got some cotton candy, Lo got a chocolate pig (chocolate covered apple), & Cadence got chocolate covered strawberries.

And I got my favorite Christmastime food . . . Reibkuchen (potato pancakes) with applesauce.

It was a great way to start the Christmas season.

Frohe Weihnachten!

Piano Recital - Burg Lichtenberg

As you all know, I'm a music teacher & my favorite thing in the entire world is to teach people how to play piano.  I've taught piano now for 23 years which seems crazy to me.  Time flies.  

The last few years, I've only taught my own kids because we seemed to be moving so much, but now that we're in one place for a few years, I decided to teach other students again.  There are not many piano teachers here so my slots filled up within minutes of advertising & I have a waiting list of almost 30 kids.  It's crazy.

I have 14 students right now. . . 6 are my own kids & 8 are other students in other villages around me.  I love it because I have brand new beginners & advanced players.  It makes teaching SO MUCH FUN.

For my first recital, we did a Christmas recital at Burg Lichtenberg (the castle where we got our Halloween pictures taken.).  They were SO kind to let me rent out their concert hall on the top floor of the castle.  YES, my piano recital was INSIDE A CASTLE.  It was SO cool.

The kids all did such a wonderful job.  Be sure to click on the links to the videos of each of my kids playing.  I'm only posting my own kids, but all 14 of my students did a fabulous job.  It's really a scary thing to get up there & play a really hard song while people are watching.  Naturally we are going to make mistakes, but we go on & do the best we can.  They did amazing.  I was SO proud of them.

Canyon (age 6) playing Jingle Bells

Craiger (age 8) playing "What's This" from A Nightmare Before Christmas

Taya (age 12) playing "Somewhere In My Memory" from Home Alone

Lorien (age 14) playing "Carol of the Bells"

Bladen (age 10) playing "You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch

Cadence (age 16) playing "Away in a Manger"

They all dressed up in Christmas wear (ugly sweaters, red, green, santa hats, etc.).  I gave each of my girl students music pendants & all the boys music ties.  It was a blast & I can't wait to do it again this summer.

Burg Nanstein - Landstuhl, Germany

Aaah, Burg Nanstein.  I love this little treasure 10 minutes from our house.  This is where I take anyone who visits or wants something to do.  I go up here to hike, read books, take walks, & just relax & enjoy the views.

We hiked up to the castle right after we moved here, but the actual castle itself was closed so we didn't go inside.  I went inside with Opa & Oma when they were here, so we decided to finally take the rest of the family exploring INSIDE the castle.

Burg Nanstein is a castle ruins.  Only a few "indoor" rooms are still fully intact, but just walking around the maze of endless corridors & hidden alleys is SUPER fun.  I love exploring castles.  There's always SO much to see.  It's starting to get cold here (like 22 degrees F or -10 degrees C) so we bundled up the best we could & went on an adventure.

The days are cold, wet, & foggy here now, but I love the German people's outlook on weather:

"There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad preparation!"

I have made this our adventure motto.  

Rain?  Fine.  Snow?  Fine.  Fog?  Fine.  Always dark?  Fine.

We can still have fun as long as we are prepared for anything.

So we bundled up & decided to go on an adventure.

My kids love exploring castles.  Our favorite activity is playing hide & seek in the hidden tunnels & crevices hidden all over these old ruins.

Burg Nanstein is great because lies on the top of a hill/mountain.  It overlooks most of the bases & Landstuhl village.  There's a tower that you can go to the top of that overlooks the castle ruins too.  It's fun to go up there & imagine what the castle looked like in it's glory.

It was a really fun day for exploring & spending time together as a family.  And I love that we can literally come back here as many times as we want.  10 minutes is SO close.  I love it.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

I finally convinced my family that we should put up the Christmas tree BEFORE Thanksgiving this year.  It's always been an unspoken rule that the tree only goes up after Thanksgiving, but we were taking a family trip over Thanksgiving & by the time we got back it would already be December 1st.  So, we put the tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving.

We love putting the tree up.  There are SO many memories on our Christmas tree.  There are ornaments made in school, bought the year each kid was born, handmade ornaments, & ornaments that celebrated events that happen in our lives as a family.  It's our family memory tree.  We love it & spend hours unwrapping & talking about each ornament & the memory it brings along with it.

Cadence was especially into decorating this year.  She told me afterward that next year is her last year decorating the tree with the family so she really wanted these last two years to be meaningful to her.  I don't know what I'm going to do when these kids grow up & leave the house.  I'm already missing Cadence & we still have a year & a half left.  I love my kids so much.

This year it was Bladen's turn to put the angel on the top of the tree.  He climbed the big ladder & put it on even though he was scared to death he was going to fall.  Dad was there to keep him grounded & safe & he enjoyed putting the final touch on our tree.

The season has begun. . . Happy Holidays everyone!