christmas outing to the zoo

after last night's incredibly yummy christmas dinner and finally a good long night of sleep we decided that it was time for some outdoor fun for those of us no longer feeling completely crappy from the cold.

dave, maria, joon and i went to our free local little zoo which has a great playground for joon to climb around on. we bundled up, dug out our shades, bought some animal food and hot chocolate at the little zoo kiosk and off we went. it was freezing cold but the fresh air and bright sun felt amazing!

first we went to feed the goats and sheep which joon still prefers to watch from a safe distance and then joon and maria climbed up and down the hills and joon slid down the frozen mud slides.

our contend and nicely worn out kid passed out two minutes into our drive home and is now happily napping by an open window while dave is recording bass tracks and maria and i are warming up with yummy spice tea and honey sandwiches.

i've got a few minutes of sewing to do and then we'll all take hot showers before heading back over to my grandparent's house where we're expecting even more family for coffee and cake, more gift exchanging and many more hours of sitting together chit chatting, eating treats, drinking wine (or tea in my case), possibly playing some games and watching joon be a little goofball.

tomorrow we're all going to "erfahrungsfeld der sinne" (experience field of the senses) which hanne got tickets for the whole family for. i'm guessing we'll be a group of about 15 people or so. four generations. fun, fun, fun.
dave, joon and i went there in august with our friends corey and dylan and had a great time and i'm really looking forward to taking joon back there now that she's a little older and probably even more interested in all the sights and sounds and experiments. more on that tomorrow though...

for now, here are looooooots of pics of today's outing!

more christmas pics

i'll continue to add more as we take them. :)

merry christmas

here are the first couple of pictures of joon's first christmas in germany. since we do a completely candlelit celebration on christmas eve the light was not very picture friendly. we did take some video which will be up on joontoob later and martin took more pictures which i'm hoping to upload to my computer in a little while.
we had a really lovely evening and joon had a great time and is enjoying all her wonderful presents. now we're all awfully sick, the cold that joon brought home last week has finally really hit everyone. so i'll get back to pampering my sick mother and sister for now but will be back with more news later today.

missing you all and hoping you're having a wonderful holiday! love, love, love


joon trying out her new chair. she loves it.

christmas morning trying to squeeze herself and her new doll into the little bed box the doll came in.

christmas market fun

so yesterday was the third sunday of advent and we finally finally FINALLY got a chance to hang out with the cho family.

we met up at the christmas market (we were terribly late and i'm so sorry about that) where the girls first spent a good bit of time watching a little train do it's rounds. that gave the non-pregnant grown ups some time to enjoy their first gluehwein and chit chat.

we then managed to squeeze our way though the crowd. christmas markets on late sunday afternoons are completely crazy just in case you didn't know. i kept thinking, i could just yell "my water just broke!!" and we'd be out of there in no time, but i didn't wanna mess with labor karma so we just stuck in out with the rest of the half german half american crowd.

on our way over to the ferris wheel i saw three big african-american guys and one of them was carrying a baby in a brightly colored baby wrap!! hot, hot, hot! sorry, i got way excited over this guy and just had to tell you about it. :D

so as it got dark (around 4 o'clock these days) we waited to get on the gigantic ferris wheel which gave us a great view of wiesbaden at night and a slight bit of nausea.

afterwards we decided it was time for a stout and sandwich break at the irish pub where the girls quickly got on the stage already prepared for karaoke night. the first wave of dressed up G.I.'s and their "oh my god, prom night is such fun!"-looking german girl friends caused us to rush out of there very quickly after two pints (well, one yucky mom beer for me).

we did some more christmas market browsing, drooled over really pretty wooden toys and instruments for kids, walked the chos to their bus, back to the market for cotton candy and roasted almonds and then the bus took the happy, content and tired stephens family home.

great day! :)