This is a long one because I experienced so much today

Going to school-sun not up!

driving to school...

people were SKIING behind our house

Forest view behind our house

Rocky's walk

First Sledding

Karina insisted on pulling him home-poor Cooper

Just to unload Grocery-bundled

HEDGEHOGG in our backyard

What an incredible day in a lot of ways.....

This morning I surprised Jason while he was in the shower and cleaned off all the new snow on our cars.(trying to make a few Brownie points for yesterday)  Then after sliding the kids to school I hit the Fresh Market that is in the Sillenbuch Stadt on Fridays.  It was the most amazing thing! All the farmers, cheese makers, poultry farmers and olive growers.  They will let you taste little peices of cheese, olives etc. if you are a true buyer.  Down side, they only spoke German ( I am starting to get used to this....)  I bought some incredible cheese spread.  one with peppers on top, one with a mix of brie and soft cheese with onion on top, feta with roasted garlic, stuffed olives with roasted garlic and fresh parmesian all for about 12 bucks!!  Then I went to the poultry farmer and that was more of a challenge to order meat.  First, you have to tell them how much because it is a whole cut.  Well, not sure what meat I'm cooking tomorrow, but looks good.  The butcher spoke so fast that I got nervous and just started point to a chunk and said, "funf".  So, we will see.  All the food is so fresh and inexpensive.  There really aren't any preservatives in the food.  Last night at the Italian restaurant they had an asteric beside my dish which meant it had presevatives....turns out it was the juice the shrimp were packaged in at the docks!  The only thing I don't understand was they didn't have the calorie count on the food:)

The next INCREDIBLE experience was taking Rocky for a walk in the walk in 'protected Forest' behind our house with Rocky.  I wish I could package the experience with all the sounds, smell, and even the cold wind.  The church bells were ringing (if you have ever been to Europe you know the incredible sound of the old church bells), Everything was covered with snow, you could see the mountains with all the wine vineyard, and the air was so fresh .  The view of the vineyards is not even worth me trying to describe.  I have told everyone to visit us in warm weather, but I am slowly rethinking- this winterwonderland is so peaceful.  An EAGLE even flew over our head.  The best part, Rocky introduced me to a German lady, now my newest friend, Silke, thru her dog.  They played, we walked and spoke German. She had lived in England, so could explain if I didn't understand in German.  We are going to start meeting so the dogs can play and we can walk and speak German.

The next experience, having the Dishwasher repairman coming to the house.  He only spoke German. Boy am I glad I gave up tennis the last 6 months to take German lessons.  Talk about a hard conversation....try technical terms.  I even had to call Jason at one point cause he was speaking so fast and all I understood was " USA ist zu Schnell".  (everything in US is so fast) . HA-  let's talk about driving in Germany.  I could say the same.  If I dont' go the second the light turns green, everyone is honking.  However, I was excited because he gave me directions on all of my kitchen.....auf Deutch and I understood.  ( My German lessons begin again in a few weeks)

Next....SLEDDING -kid's first sledding.  It was so much fun even for me....yes I did a few rides.  At one point the three of us went down this HUGE hill and our sled kept trying to hit this women walking so Cooper decided to fall off to stop us.  The sled ran over him!!!!!!!!!  I couldn't stop lauging which made him so mad.  Then they decided every time it was my turn, they would run beside the sled and jump on me and we would all fly down the hill (in Alabama we would call it a Mountain)  The sun comes up very late and goes down early, so the sun was going down and I said, " time to go" and they said," where? Back to Alabama?" and I said, " no to the house for baths"  They said, "yea, cause we like it hear now the we can sled."  HMMMMM.....is that all it takes?  

To sumerize the day, I spoke only German (except with kids-BUT-Karina had here first German class today and corrected me when I was counted to five for Cooper to mind)  Actually enjoyed the cold/snow, drove without Navi (AKA JANE as we have come to call her)  and have the house almost unpacked. Oh- Forgot, Rocky found a Hedgehog in our backyard today.  I thought it was a porcupine.  Another story...