Zum Schluss...

Ok, so for all those that have been faithfully watching my blog...sorry. But the only reason I have not blogged is because I don't have any pictures. Mycamera stopped working before Christmas and I have been stealing pictures from others every since. Unfortunately, not many other people take pictures like I do, if they do at all! So I have a few pics here, and that will be it. It's been pretty slow here, just getting ready to leave. I have already started packing!!! How exciting is that! So it has been good, but not all that exciting! So this will be my last blog before I get back. I will then have to blog who knows how many times due to the massive amounts of pictures that are sure to follow when I travel with Mom and Dad. So until then, auf wiedersehen and goodbye! See you all when I get home on the 14th, which is 3 weeks and 2 days away!

Majlie has really enjoyed me doing her hair, and asks me to do it all the time now. She found out I have a curling iron...so 2 times in one week I got to do her hair, but it turned out very cute. And we had a blast while doing it!

For Grandma Schumaiers birthday they surprised her with a meal cooked at home, from a real cook (we have two licensed chefs in our ward! How sweet right!) and the 5 grandchildren served. Majlie went all out. Hence the hair again!

Silvester! Silvester is the German celebration of New Year's. It was awesome. I went to Hamburg and we had a dance there and it was a lot of fun! A group of us went to the harbor and watched fireworks at midnight. I really had an amazing time. Unfortunately the only thing missing...was my camera. So this is the only picture I have. This is Aaron from Bremen. I met him on my first temple trip here and we hung out a lot. So we saw each other again and this was the last time, so we figured we needed a picture. So this is the only picture I have! Well, I have two of this picture, but still. So yeah. It was a great time. Best New Year's ever!

We took a walk on the North Shore a while ago, and this is from that. The tides are really extreme here in the winter and I thought it was cool. Although you can't see it, there are tons of little tiny birds that hop around and eat the sea animals they can finally reach that get stuck in the pools.

I bought a new hat, so Mimi had to try it on to make sure it is good enough!

Ok, so yeah, these are Christmas pictures. I just found these moments ago. They were still on my SD card, I had totally missed them and forgot to put them on my computer. So this was a little bit of Heide at Christmas. Unfortunately it was dark and that was the night my camera quite working so after 3 pictures, it died. So this is all I have of the Christmas market. But it was really amazing. I have never seen anything like it!

Frohe Weihnachten!!

As many of you know, this past week was Christmas! What you may not know, is that Germans have Christmas too!! Ok, so enough of being retarded...so this is my Christmas post. Unfortunately, I am currently having technical difficulties with my camera...so no pictures from me. So I have been forced to take on the role of scavenger, and steal pictures from other people! So these are what I was able to scrounge up!

So first of all, we had a Christmas party at the church, where Nikolaus came and game the children presents. You have to do something good for the Nikolaus, like sing a song, recite a poem or play an instrument to get something. So Mimi of course, played her beloved flute.

The Drabb family in our ward has 5 children. They put on the Nativity story and it was very cute.

Then the Schumaier family did 3 short musical numbers including us here singing "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann", (which is actually where the melody from Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star came from!) Mimi and her father did a duet. And then once more they played Rudolph, and I sung to it. It was a lot of fun!
Mimi had her Christmas flute concert and she did very well.

Then came Christmas. So in Germany you open gifts and things on the 24th, which is Holy Night, and then the 25th and 26th and the 2 days of Christmas and they are simply family time. Unfortunately Mimi was very sick, she had a high fever and was throwing up. So it was not very fun for her...


Mimi was not so happy, so we took a picture of Teddy instead.


So we sang songs.

Listened to Majlie play piano.
And read the Christmas story from the Luther Bible before opening presents.

But then we did open presents. And it was fun. And then we had a delicious turkey dinner with German sides and just had a fun night.
We are still working on this puzzle.
We played Aggravation, but the only person I seemed to aggravate was Grandma (Oma) Schumaier. Luckily we are friends, so she was ok with it!

She started feeling better by the end of the night, but still couldn't eat any of the wonderful dinner. I cried with her....
This is the beautiful dress Mom got her. It is really pretty and she loves it. But she was still somewhat out of it.

Majlie got a hoodie jacket, white shirt and jeans from Mom, which she loves as well. The jeans are a little bit big right now, but that is good because she got another pair of jeans from her parents, and she is growing fast. So her parents were very grateful! But she has worn the hoodie every day since!

She proceeded, as her normal dramatic self, to have a photo shoot. She tells me all the time that she dreams of being a Top Model....

After growing tired of her own photo shoot, she decided that I needed to join in!

Things I didn't get pictures of were also cool. Yesterday we did nothing, so I talked to my mommy pretty much all day. We were able to talk on skype starting at three in the morning home time (their idea!!!) which is 10 my time and we opened presents just the three of us and had a seemingly normal Christmas the way we have had it for years. Then my daddy went back to bed for a little while and Mom and I talked until he woke up again. Then they left to visit the other kids. But we got to talk for hours and it was awesome. I felt closer to home than I had in a long time. Perfect timing since I will be home in 50 days from today!!! And then today, the 26th we spent at Dirk's parents house. We went first to a sermon at the big Lutheran church here in town where it was all in Plattdüütsch. Platt German is "lower German" and is actually a lot like English in a lot of ways. But since it is still mostly German, just pronounced differently, I understood hardly anything. But luckily Oma Schumaier translated for me so it was ok! Then we went there and spent all day eating good food, chatting and taking a long walk. It was a very nice Christmas and I hope it was also wonderful for all of you!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!

O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum!

The first snow!!! So yes, I am doing better than normal! 2 times in less than 2 months, it must be a new record! Pretty awesome right? So yeah, this was our first snow of the season. It has actually snowed several times already, even though everyone says it never snows here. But yeah, it's really pretty.

So we bought our Christmas Tree! It's really pretty. And the wreath sitting next to it is the Advent candles. One candle lit for every Advent (the 4 sundays leading up to Christmas)

All finished! Isn't it pretty? So in the German fashion, they used candle lights instead of those that we have. Altough they are not real candles, it's still really pretty!

Wearing her mothers glasses and drinking hot cocoa after being outside in the snow creates an interesting effect.

So the other night at institute Kim and I took pictures of us. I was tired and therefore could not keep my eyes open when it flashed...oops!

So the other day Mimi had a play at the school where they did the Nativity story. She was a shepherd, but also the main flutest. She did wonderful!

I don't know if you can see it, but in the window is a triangular set of candle lights. I don't know what it means, but every German house has them in most windows at Christmas time.

It snowed all day the day of her play, which seemed fitting. It was beautiful.

The play was actually at the church next to the school, and there was a nativity set set up and it was gorgeous! It was all hand-made and completely original. Very pretty. I took another picture, but I had Dirk's camera, which isn't very good, and it didn't actually take. So this is the only part of it you can see...

Ok, so for those who don't know, I have been cross-stiching a picture since August. It is a picture of Christ and I have been planning on giving it to the parents here for Christmas. I got it done and framed it and so here it is!